Tag Archives: voting rights

The Associated Press reports: North Carolina Republicans enacted vote-count restrictions and weakened the governor’s ability to oversee elections and other state regulatory bodies on Tuesday by overriding Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s vetoes. Lawsuits attempting to block the new laws are likely as the 2024 elections approach. In a series of votes, the narrow GOP supermajorities in the House and Senate …

The Associated Press reports: A group has been impersonating government officials, harassing New York residents at their homes and falsely accusing them of breaking the law, state officials have warned. But what sounds like a scam aimed at people’s pocketbooks is actually part of a shakedown with a much different target: voters. State prosecutors have sent a cease-and-desist order to …

The Michigan Advance reports: A lawsuit filed by nearly a dozen Michigan Republican lawmakers seeks to roll back voting rights measures passed by voters in 2018 and 2022. The suit, filed Thursday in the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan, was brought by 11 Republican lawmakers. Proposal 3 of 2018 and Proposal 2 of 2022 both …

Arizona Central reports: A federal judge dismantled new state laws on Thursday that required voters to prove their citizenship, agreeing in her ruling to allow rights groups to probe legislative leaders’ intentions in creating the laws. Former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey signed the two laws, which ban certain people from voting by mail or in state elections, last year after …

The New York Times reports: Propelled by a new coalition of Trump allies, Republican-led legislatures have continued to pass significant restrictions on access to the ballot, including new limits to voting by mail in Ohio, a ban on ballot drop boxes in Arkansas and the shortening of early voting windows in Wyoming. Behind the efforts is a network of billionaire-backed …

Via press release from the Justice Department: The Justice Department announced today its plans to monitor compliance with federal voting rights laws in 64 jurisdictions in 24 states for the Nov. 8, 2022 general election. Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Civil Rights Division has regularly monitored elections in the field in jurisdictions around the …

From the Washington Post editorial board: Voting is a foundational right of citizenship. That’s why we oppose a bill, poised to pass the D.C. Council this week, that would allow an estimated 50,000 noncitizen residents to cast ballots in local elections. This newspaper has opposed efforts over the past decade to rewrite D.C.’s election code so green-card holders could vote. …

The New York Daily News reports: A Staten Island judge struck down a city law Monday that would give some noncitizen New Yorkers the right to vote in local elections, ruling that the expansion of electoral participation would violate the state constitution. The so-called Local Law 11, which was adopted in January, would let green card holders and some immigrants …

Gothamist reports: Gov. Kathy Hochul on Monday signed the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of New York, which aims to prevent voter suppression or dilution based on race or language preference, at a ceremony in Brooklyn. The signing coincides with the federal Juneteenth holiday, which commemorates the liberation of the last enslaved Africans two years after the end of …

The Louisville Courier-Journal reports: U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is trending on Twitter after making an insidious comment related to voting rights, in which he implied African Americans are not Americans. Prior to a vote to move the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to the Senate floor failed Wednesday, McConnell was asked by a reporter about concerns among …

The Associated Press reports: Acting as part of a Democratic plan to expedite consideration of the bills in the Senate, the House approved the new measure on a party-line vote of 220 to 203 after a heated partisan debate in which lawmakers clashed over the state of election laws across the country. The new legislation combined two separate bills already …

The Associated Press reports: President Joe Biden will use a speech in Georgia to endorse changing Senate rules that have stalled voting rights legislation, saying it’s time to choose “democracy over autocracy.” But some civil rights groups won’t be there, in protest of what they say is administration inaction. Biden plans to tell his audience, “The next few days, when …

The Hill reports: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday night blocked an attempt by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to set up simple majority votes on a sweeping elections bill and legislation to bolster the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which would have allowed Democrats to pass the two bills without GOP support. Schumer, on the Senate, floor …

The New York Daily News reports: Mayor Adams on Tuesday did not rule out vetoing a bill that would extend voting rights to noncitizen New Yorkers, upsetting fellow Democrats in the City Council who say he’d flip-flop on a key campaign promise by torpedoing the legislation. The bill, which would allow roughly 800,000 green card holders and immigrants with certain …

CNN reports: President Joe Biden says he supports making an exception to the Senate filibuster rules in order to pass voting rights legislation. “If the only thing standing between getting voting rights legislation passed and not getting passed is the filibuster, I support making the exception of voting rights for the filibuster,” Biden told ABC News’ David Muir in an …

The Guardian reports: Republicans in the US Senate again blocked a significant voting rights bill from advancing on Wednesday, a move many see as a breaking point in the push to get rid of the filibuster, the Senate rule that requires 60 votes to advance most legislation. The bill – the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act – is one …

Reuters reports: A bill aimed at thwarting restrictive new voting laws enacted in Republican-led states failed to advance in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, as Republican lawmakers blocked a Democratic effort to begin debating the measure. The Senate voted 49-51 to end debate on whether to bring up the bill, known as the Freedom to Vote Act, falling short of …

NPR reports: House lawmakers approved new legislation aimed at protecting the right to vote on Tuesday, amid a wave of restrictive new elections laws from Republican-controlled state legislatures. The bill is named for the Georgia congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis, who died last year. Democrats say the bill, known as H.R. 4 would strengthen the Voting Rights Act …

“We can’t wait until the next election because if we have the same kinds of shenanigans that brought about January 6, if we have that for a couple more election cycles, we’re going to have real problems in terms of our democracy [in the] long term. “Since I left office I’ve tried to make a policy not to weigh in …

“In my view, SR-1 is the biggest power grab in the history of the country. It mandates ballot harvesting, no voter ID. It does away with the states being able to redistrict when you have population shifts. “It’s just a bad idea, and it’s a problem that most Republicans are not going to sign – they’re trying to fix a …