As part of a broader push to both vilify immigrants and suppress voting rights, Republicans in Congress and multiple states are pushing legislation requiring voters to produce documents, such as passports and birth certificates, to prove their citizenship before registering to participate in elections. Experts are warning that proof of citizenship bills would disenfranchise millions of people as…
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Last week, North Carolina Democrats scored a victory when Republican Judge Jefferson Griffin, who’d lost a tight race for the state’s Supreme Court, finally conceded defeat after a six-month legal battle to throw out ballots that he contended were illegitimate. But that same morning, the party suffered a setback that may be more consequential: losing control of the state board that sets…
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On Monday, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed the Colorado Voting Rights Act (COVRA) into law, significantly bolstering protections against voting discrimination and reinforcing the right to fair and equal access to the ballot. “Governor Polis and the Colorado legislature have made clear that they are committed to defending voters from discrimination,” Janai S. Nelson…
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The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) voting rights unit is switching its focus from protecting voters’ ability to cast ballots to investigating so-called voter fraud and fair election practices — buzzwords frequently used by President Donald Trump to push election denial. “The mission of the Voting Rights Section of the DOJ Civil Rights Division is to ensure free, fair…
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Reginald Hall traveled nearly six hours from the quiet of his home in Sapelo Island to Atlanta to hear a landmark case that could shape the future of his historic community in Georgia. Last year, Sapelo Island residents sued county officials for blocking them from holding a crucial vote that could determine whether they would be displaced from the last Gullah Geechee community on the Georgia…
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When Laurel M. M. Benfield changed her name, she went through months of bureaucratic labor and countless hoops and expenses to ensure that her new legal name was reflected on all identity documents, including her birth certificate. The process required criminal background checks, notaries, court documentation, trips to the DMV, an updated license, a new marriage certificate, and finally a state ID…
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In what North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein called a “dark day” for the state, the North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday delivered a partial victory to Republican Judge Jefferson Griffin, who is challenging some 65,000 votes in his bid to overturn the narrow win of his Democratic opponent and incumbent state Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs. The Supreme Court, ruling 4-2…
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Voting rights groups and pro-democracy advocates responded with uproar after President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening issued what they warn amounts to a far-reaching “authoritarian power grab” in the form of an “unlawful” executive order that would restrict voter access nationwide and punish states that make it easier for citizens to have their political preferences registered at the ballot box.
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Seeing federal courts slash away at the Voting Rights Act, some states are seeking to resurrect fallen protections for non-white voters with their own versions of the landmark law passed during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. Democratic lawmakers in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Maryland and New Jersey are pushing such legislation this session…
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Utah state legislators are considering a bill that would change the state’s popular voting by mail system to require ballots received by mail to be dropped off at designated polling locations, a move that will likely disenfranchise the Native communities who live in rural areas. Utah is notable for being one of two vote-by-mail states won by President Donald Trump in 2024.
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Democratic lawmakers in Virginia have advanced three constitutional amendments to restore voting rights, protect reproductive freedoms and enshrine marriage equality in the state’s highest governing document. The measures passed within Virginia’s House of Delegates last week, mainly along partisan lines, with all Democrats in the chamber voting in support of them and most of the Republican…
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In every election cycle since 1992, more than 30,000 people in Illinois have been denied the right to vote due to being confined in prison. Until 2019, an additional 19,000 were disenfranchised because they were in county jails. That year, however, Illinois passed two significant pieces of legislation that strengthened citizens’ access to vote. The “Voting in Jail” bill ensured that people…
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A key GOP lawmaker made clear in an interview published Thursday that Republicans plan to push for a pair of their voting-related bills when they take control of both chambers of Congress and the White House next month. Congressman Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), who campaigned for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), chairs the Committee on House…
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This November, a few months after being naturalized as a U.S. citizen, Eloy Tupayachi Salas voted in a U.S. presidential election for the first time. As a North Carolina resident, he also voted on a constitutional amendment to change the language on voter eligibility from “every person born in the United States and every person who has been naturalized” to “only a citizen” who meets age and…
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Even as votes continue to be tallied in a handful of battleground states, Republican Donald Trump is projected to win the presidential race against Vice President Kamala Harris. The GOP is also projected to win a slim majority in the Senate. The House remains up for grabs as counting continues, but Republicans are hoping for a federal trifecta that could set the nation on a radically reactionary…
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Georgia Republican Party activist Pam Reardon challenged the right of 32,132 of her neighbors to have their ballots counted during the 2020 election. Alton Russell, the Republican Party chairman of Columbus, Georgia, personally challenged roughly 4,000 voters’ right to a ballot in 2020. These two pro-Trump activists are not government officials. They are self-appointed vote fraud hunting…
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Even as a growing number of organizations offer free or discounted rides to the polls on Election Day, they’re still under-equipped to serve voters with disabilities, particularly those who rely on wheelchairs and other mobility aids. In Georgia, one grassroots organization is working to bridge the gap and ensure that disabled voters are counted. Roll 2 the Polls was started by longtime…
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In September, Wisconsin’s Republican State Rep. Janel Brandtjen — an especially vocal denier of the 2020 election results — filed a lawsuit against her state’s Elections Commission. The aim of her legal challenge is to force the state to sever its ties with a formerly obscure nonpartisan entity: a multistate information sharing partnership known as the Electronic Registration Information Center…
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When he was in second grade, Alexis Jaimes asked his undocumented parents who they would be voting for in the upcoming elections. “They said they couldn’t, and I found that so strange,” Jaimes, now a 30-year-old teacher, told Truthout. “Why can’t they, but others could?” On election day, Santa Ana, a city in the greater Los Angeles region, will be voting on whether its 24 percent…
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A federal appeals court has dismissed a bid by Virginia state officials to overturn a lower court’s injunction on the state’s efforts to purge voters from registration rolls. Late last week, Virginia-based federal Judge Patricia Giles ruled in favor of several voting rights groups, joined by the Department of Justice (DOJ), who had argued that a purge of voting registrations ordered by Gov.
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For several weeks, Jamie Boyle of Virginia has been checking to see if the ballots she and her husband mailed on October 4 to an elections office in Pennsylvania have been processed. As of late October, she’s still waiting. Now Boyle, whose husband serves in the Army, is worried about a series of lawsuits filed by Republicans, including the Republican National Committee…
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For more than a decade, GOP state legislators have sought to make it harder for students — a group that by and large leans left — to vote. In 2012, Republicans in North Carolina eliminated the ability of 16- and 17-year-olds to preregister to vote so that they would be automatically able to cast their ballots upon turning 18. The following year, Ohio Republicans sought to penalize…
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The Nebraska State Supreme Court ruled this week to allow a state law passed earlier this year to be enforced, enfranchising thousands of people who were formerly convicted of felony level crimes and thwarting efforts by Republican state officials to deem the law as unconstitutional. In a bipartisan vote this summer of the unicameral state legislature, Nebraska lawmakers enacted a veto-proof…
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Democratic officials and voting rights advocates on Tuesday celebrated “a victory for voters” in the crucial battleground state of Georgia after a county judge ruled that local officials must certify results regardless of claims of “election fraud” — an occurrence experts have found to be “vanishingly rare” despite Republican claims to the contrary. Fulton County Superior Court Judge James…
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In key swing states battered by hurricanes, voting rights groups are challenging Republican state leaders over ballot access as elections approach and millions of people contend with ongoing evacuations and recovery. Civil rights groups filed an emergency lawsuit in a Georgia state court on Monday after the swing state’s Republican governor and attorney general refused to extend the October 7…
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Washington — Imagine walking in to cast a ballot for the very first time, already unsure if the process will go smoothly. And then a poll worker makes a sly comment about a past criminal conviction. “He felt embarrassed and shamed, walked out the door and never voted,” Stephanie Thompson, Lac du Flambeau Band of Chippewa, told the Native American Rights Fund during a field hearing on issues…
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A federal judge has blocked a portion of an Alabama state law passed earlier this year concerning absentee ballots, finding that it illegally limited how people who are disabled, blind or have difficulty reading can be helped in casting their votes. Chief U.S. District Judge David Proctor stated in his ruling, which was issued on Tuesday, that the state law was in violation of federal…
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Congressional leaders on Sunday said they reached an agreement on legislation to fund the federal government for three more months, averting a shutdown and stoking right-wing ire and allegations that Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson “caved” to Democrats by dropping a key demand by his far-right colleagues. According to The New York Times: “While I am pleased bipartisan…
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The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday rejected a GOP resolution that would have punted a fight over government funding until after the next president takes office and pushed through a noxious voter suppression measure backed by Republican nominee Donald Trump. The final vote was 202-220, with 14 Republicans joining nearly every member of the House Democratic caucus in voting against…
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Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo is perhaps best known for spreading the baseless claim on air that Dominion Voting Systems rigged the 2020 presidential election. Her source for that “information” was a viewer who also claimed to be “internally decapitated” and said she spoke with the wind. Along with similar misinformation, this false claim landed Fox in court for defamation…
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