Departments

;

Vote Suppression

  • SOURCE: Prospect Magazine
    9/23/2021

    The New Front in the War for Voting Rights

    by Jim Zirin

    The 15th Amendment empowers Congress to enforce the amendment and the right to vote with "appropriate legislation." With Republicans committed to vote suppression, the Democrats must act unilaterally.   

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    3/31/2021

    The Painful History of the Georgia Voting Law

    by Jason Morgan Ward

    The new wave of vote suppression bills, like the one in Georgia, reflect a less obvious but important aspect of Jim Crow law: the use of superficially race-neutral language to keep specific groups from voting. The danger is that courts today will similarly fail to see these bills for what they are. 

  • SOURCE: MSNBC
    3/17/2021

    The South's Jim Crow Barriers to Voting Rights are Going National

    Columnist Hayes Brown says that it's only fitting that new Jim Crow-style voting restrictions are a national phenomenon; Thomas Rice, the minstrelsy performer who invented the Jim Crow character was a New Yorker who successfully peddled anti-Black caricature across the nation. 

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    12/5/2020

    Trump’s Voter Fraud Yarn is Unraveling. But it can Still Help the GOP

    Rick Perlstein suggests that the Republicans' unwillingness to condemn Trump's wild theories about a stolen election are part of a historical pattern of fear that if the electorate expands Republicans will be lose. The theories won't overturn this election, but they will be used to justify future restrictions on the ballot.

  • SOURCE: Made by History at The Washington Post
    11/3/2020

    What Modern Voter Suppression Looks Like In Florida

    by Julio Capó Jr. and Melba V. Pearson

    "The result of legal maneuvering in Florida is a 21st-century version of Jim Crow, now matured into James Crow Esq. The intent — to restrict minority community access to the ballot box — is the same, but the methods of voter suppression have become more sophisticated."

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    10/29/2020

    The Vote Suppression Tipping Point

    Have decades of efforts to stop Democratic constituencies from casting ballots become flagrant enough to inspire revenge by voting? 

  • SOURCE: PBS
    10/20/2020

    Frontline: Whose Vote Counts?

    Jelani Cobb investigates the Wisconsin primary election as a lens onto the ongoing struggle to protect voting rights. 

  • SOURCE: New York Review of Books
    10/20/2020

    Republicans: The New Confederacy

    by David W. Blight

    "There is no Republican majority in America, except on election days. It all depends on who votes and who is allowed to vote."

  • SOURCE: The Bulwark
    10/14/2020

    What Do We Do About Voter Intimidation?

    by Nicholas Grossman

    "Americans can vote for any candidate they want. But they should be able to do so absent intimidation, and every vote should count."  

  • 10/12/2020

    My Memories of Voter Suppression

    by Lawrence Wittner

    After witnessing firsthand the depth of struggle needed to secure the Voting Rights Act in 1965, the author says the 2013 Supreme Court decision to gut the VRA and subsequent acts by state governments to suppress the vote "betray the most basic principle of democracy."

  • SOURCE: CNN
    10/2/2020

    Trump's Call for Freelance Poll-Watchers Summons a Dark History

    by Nicole Hemmer

    In 1981, the Republican National Committee used threatening signs and deployed off-duty officers to polling places in Black and Latino neighborhoods to help win the New Jersey governorship. This is the first presidential election year since the decree expired, making Trump's call for supporters to "watch the polls" ominous. 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
    9/10/2020

    In 2020, Voting Rights are on the Ballot

    by Peniel Joseph

    Black citizenship remains the best yardstick to measure the nation’s democratic health, and even before the coronavirus pandemic, the Black vote in large parts of the country remained imperiled.