One more time about the racism of voter ID since Matty's reading comprehension leaves something to be desired:
"
North Carolina
In 2013, the state House passed a bill that requires voters to show a photo ID issued by
North Carolina, a passport, or a military identification card to begin in 2016. Out-of-state drivers licenses were to be accepted only if the voter registered within 90 days of the election, and university photo identification was not acceptable.
[61] In July 2016, a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a trial court decision in a number of consolidated actions and struck down the law's photo ID requirement, finding that the new voting provisions targeted African Americans "with almost surgical precision," and that the legislators had acted with clear "discriminatory intent" in enacting strict election rules, shaping the rules based on data they received about African-American registration and voting patterns.[62][63] On May 15, 2017, the law officially died when the US Supreme Court rejected efforts to review the Appeals Court ruling.
[64]
Texas
In July 2016, a federal appeals court found that
Texas's voter ID law discriminated against black and Hispanic voters because only a few types of ID were allowed; for example, military IDs and
concealed carry permits were allowed, but state employee photo IDs and university photo IDs were not.
Alabama
In 2018, critics have accused the state of intentionally disenfranchising non-white voters, aided by the Supreme Court which, in its
Shelby County v. Holder 5-4 decision, allowed jurisdictions with a history of suppression of minority voters to avoid continuing to abide by federal preclearance requirements for changes in voter registration and casting of ballots.
[73] Within 24 hours of the ruling, Alabama implemented a 2011 law requiring specific types of photo I.D. to be presented.
The state closed DMV offices in eight of ten counties which had the highest percentage black population, but only three in the ten counties with the lowest black population. In 2016, Alabama's Secretary of State (SOS) John Merrill began a process to require proof of citizenship from voters, despite Merrill saying he did not know of a single case where a non-citizen had voted. Purging of voter rolls is another method of disenfranchisement and it was done so aggressively in Alabama. Even four-term Republican Representative
Mo Brooks who, in March 2018, was rated the House's least bipartisan member by
The Lugar Center and who was a candidate in 2017, for the seat relinquished by
Jeff Sessions, found that he himself had been purged from the rolls. Merrill also refused to publicize the passage of legislation that enabled some 60,000 Alabaman former felons to vote.
[74][75] Alabama's new requirement regarding proof of citizenship, had been approved by federal
Election Assistance Commission Director Brian Newby, an associate of voter disenfranchisement advocate, Kansas SOS and Republican Gubernatorial nominee, Kris Kobach.
[76] Kobach was cited as a primary author of
Alabama HB 56, passed in 2010, which was described as tougher than Arizona's law.
[77] Much of the law was invalidated on appeal at various levels of appeals courts or voluntarily withdrawn or reworded.
[78][79][80]
Georgia
In
Louisville, Georgia, in October 2018, Black
senior citizens were told to get off a bus that was to have taken them to a polling place for
early voting. The bus trip was supposed to have been part of the "South Rising" bus tour sponsored by the advocacy group Black Voters Matter. A clerk of the local
Jefferson County Commission allegedly called the intended voters'
senior center to claim that the bus tour constituted "'political activity,'" which is barred at events sponsored by the county. Latosha Brown, one of the founders of Black Voters Matter, described the trip's prevention as a clear-cut case of "'voter intimidation. This is voter suppression, Southern style.'" The
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund sent a letter to the county calling for an "'immediate investigation'" into the incident, which it condemned as "'an unacceptable act of voter intimidation'" that "'potentially violates several laws.'"
[81]
Georgia's Secretary of State,
Brian Kemp, the Republican gubernatorial nominee, was the official in charge of determining whether or not voters will be allowed to vote in the November 2018 election and has been accused of voter suppression. Despite being prevented by a court from implementing wholesale disenfranchisement, thanks to Kemp's "Exact Match" policy, the state legislature wrote a new law in 2017 that facilitates use of the strategy. Minority voters are statistically more likely to have names that contain hyphens, suffixes or other punctuation that can make it more difficult to match their name in databases, experts noted, and are more likely to have their voter applications suspended by Kemp's office.
Barry C. Burden, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of its Elections Research Center said, "An unrealistic rule of this sort will falsely flag many legitimate registration forms.
Moreover, the evidence indicates that minority residents are more likely to be flagged than are whites." Kemp has suspended the applications of 53,000 voters, a majority of whom are minorities. "Even if everyone who is on a pending list is eventually allowed to vote, it places more hurdles in the way of those voters on the list, who are disproportionately black and Hispanic," said Charles Stewart III, Professor of Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
[82]
Georgia officials kept hundreds of voting machines locked in warehouses on Election Day 2018, creating a shortage at the polls.
[83]
North Dakota
An ID law in North Dakota which would have disenfranchised large numbers of Native Americans was overturned in July 2016. The judge wrote, "The undisputed evidence before the Court reveals that voter fraud in North Dakota has been virtually non-existent."
[58]
Wisconsin[edit source]
In Wisconsin,
a federal judge found that the state's restrictive voter ID law led to "real incidents of disenfranchisement, which undermine rather than enhance confidence in elections, particularly in minority communities"; and, given that there was no evidence of widespread voter impersonation in Wisconsin, found that the law was "a cure worse than the disease." In addition to imposing strict voter ID requirements, the law cut back on early voting, required people to live in a ward for at least 28 days before voting, and prohibited emailing absentee ballots to voters.
[58] A study by Priorities USA, a
progressive advocacy group, estimates that strict ID laws in Wisconsin led to a significant decrease in voter turnout in 2016, with a disproportionate effect on African-American and Democratic-leaning voters.
[68][69]
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