Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) is suing one county in the state, and has threatened to sue another, over efforts to send out voter registration materials to residents in their jurisdictions. Bexar and Harris counties, both Democratic Party strongholds in the state, had expressed interest in sending registration documents to all of their residents, regardless of whether or not they…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
New voting rules in key battleground states could impact the 2024 election results. In Georgia, Democrats are suing to halt a set of Trump-backed election rules which Democrats say could be used to block certification of election results if they win in November. “It appears that Georgia Republicans are laying the groundwork not to certify the presidential election if Kamala Harris wins…
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The selection Tuesday of Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota, as Kamala Harris’ vice presidential running mate spotlights a clear contrast with J.D. Vance, his counterpart on Donald Trump’s ticket, on the issue of voting. As governor, Walz has staked out a lengthy policy record on voting and election issues, including an expansion of voting rights. Vance has had fewer opportunities to affect…
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On Wednesday, the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld a 2023 law that restores voting rights to people formerly convicted of felony level crimes as soon as they exit prison. Prior to that law’s passage, people convicted of such crimes not only had to wait until they got out of prison to have their voting rights reinstated, but also had to complete probation and parole, often a lengthy process.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
For thousands of people with past convictions in Nebraska, their right to vote is now in doubt. In an unprecedented move, the attorney general and secretary of state are attempting to nullify two laws enacted by the legislature that restored voting rights to people who have completed their sentences — one of which has been in effect for nearly two decades. Their attempt to roll back the right…
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A new law went into effect in Georgia this month that makes it easier for people to attempt to kick their neighbors off the rolls through voter challenges. Georgia already made voter challenges far too easy. Now, voters in the state face increased risk of losing their right to vote or being forced to defend it at public hearings, and election deniers have wide latitude to spread disinformation and…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Alabama may be the birthplace of the civil rights movement, but today, it has some of the most restrictive voting laws in the nation. With a historic election on the horizon, a bill enacted in March further restricts access to the polls, this time disproportionately threatening to disenfranchise the state’s largest marginalized group: disabled people. Under Alabama’s Senate Bill 1 (SB 1)…
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When Kenia Flores was studying for her bachelor’s degree at Furman University in South Carolina and wanted to vote in her hometown election in North Carolina, she needed an absentee ballot. However, she soon discovered North Carolina did not offer accessible absentee ballots for blind or print-disabled individuals. This left Flores, a blind voter, in the position of either sitting out the election…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Young voters are flexing their power more than ever, from helping to stop the “red wave” in 2022 with historic voter turnout to leading the vote “uncommitted” movement in this year’s Democratic primaries. With a lineup of contentious elections this fall, young people are now preparing for a different kind of political challenge: gerrymandered college campuses. Gerrymandering is when state…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The day after I graduated from college, I jumped into a car with my roommate and another friend and headed south to Mississippi. We were in good spirits after graduation, but we were in a racially integrated car and sensed danger on the road. A year earlier, three young people with the same destination for the same reason in the same season had been shot and killed. That had been the worst tragedy…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
In recent years, the concept of gerrymandering has entered the mainstream political conversation — particularly as it relates to toying with voting population percentages, a strategy which Republicans have put to especially effective use. (Though it’s not exclusive to the right, and there are signs that its advantage may be starting to fray.) Named for 18th-century Vice President Elbridge Gerry…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
With the Republicans holding just a two-vote majority in the House of Representatives, voters will go to the polls in November in at least two congressional districts that have been challenged as discriminatory against people of color. After months of delays and appeals, courts have decided in the last two weeks that the maps in South Carolina and Florida will stand…
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A federal judge in Virginia is allowing a lawsuit to move forward that could restore voting rights for hundreds of thousands of individuals convicted of felony crimes. U.S. District Court Judge John A. Gibney Jr. issued his findings on Monday, stating that plaintiffs’ legal arguments against an 1870 law had enough merit to survive challenges from state officials who are seeking to have the lawsuit…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Over the past few years, states across the country have passed laws that make voting more difficult and elections more vulnerable to partisan interference, and 2023 is no exception. But it is critical to remember that there is also a flourishing pro-democracy movement that has pushed many states to make important strides in the opposite direction. Between January 1 and October 10…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Native American, Indigenous and Alaska Native voters are set to play a pivotal role in key states in the presidential election and U.S. Senate contests in 2024. But they’ve consistently faced barriers to voting. The Native American Rights Fund (NARF), an organization that provides legal representation and assistance for Native American groups and tribes, detailed these barriers as well as gaps in…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The 2024 presidential election is a full year away — and many of the rules that will govern the pivotal contest have already been written. The past three years make up one of the most prolific periods for election legislation in American history. Over 560 new laws governing our elections — many of them containing pages and pages of changes — have become law in states all across the country.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
On Monday, a conservative three-judge panel on the United State’s most right-wing federal court struck down the primary enforcement mechanism of the Voting Rights Act in a ruling that experts are saying would be “catastrophic” for voting rights across the country if upheld. In a 2-1 ruling, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that private litigants, like voting and civil rights groups…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
A United Nations body has issued a damning report blasting the United States for its rampant violations of a major human rights treaty that it ratified in 1992. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) enshrines the rights to life, to vote, and to freedom of expression and assembly; and the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
A United Nations body has issued a damning report blasting the United States for its rampant violations of a major human rights treaty that it ratified in 1992. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) enshrines the rights to life, to vote, and to freedom of expression and assembly; and the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Transgender Kansans will be able to vote in the upcoming 2023 general election this month, despite trans voters’ initial fears that their IDs would be rejected amid ongoing legal challenges to an anti-trans state law that defines a person’s gender as the sex they were assigned at birth. Last month, in response to concerns that transgender Kansans may be turned away from the ballot box by election…
Voting rights groups are condemning Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) administration after the Virginia Department of Elections admitted to purging eligible voters from the state’s rolls just weeks before the state’s hotly contested legislative election. “It is unacceptable that we are two weeks into early voting and the Youngkin administration does not even know how many Virginians they…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
On Thursday, a three-judge panel that ruled — twice — that maps drawn by Republican state legislators were unconstitutional racist gerrymanders approved a new map that was submitted by a court-appointed special master. The new map will grant Black voters a stronger voice in the state, as the court found those voters had been politically suppressed by the previous map used in the 2022 midterms.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Alabama’s request to reinstate a Republican-drawn congressional map, in a victory for voting rights advocates and Black Alabama voters who had sued over the gerrymandered map. In June, the Supreme Court had struck down Alabama’s previous map, asserting that it was the product of racist gerrymandering. The justices found that the map diluted the power of…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
COMMENTARY: By Martyn Bradbury
Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition – and poll leader — National Party’s three biggest donors have a combined net worth of $15 billion.
The bottom 50 percent of NZ has $23 billion.
The top 5 percent of New Zealanders own roughly 50 percent of New Zealand’s wealth, while the bottom 50 percent of New Zealanders own a miserable 5 percent.
IRD proved NZ capitalism is rigged for the rich and business columnist Bernard Hickey calculates that if we had had a basic capital gains tax in place over the last decade, we would have earned $200 billion in tax revenue.
$200 billion would have ensured our public infrastructure wouldn’t be in such an underfunded ruin right now.
There are 14 billionaires in NZ plus 3118 ultra-high net worth individuals with more than $50 million each. Why not start start with them, then move onto the banks, then the property speculators, the climate change polluters and big industry to pay their fair share before making workers pay more tax.
Culture War fights make all the noise, but poor people aren’t sitting around the kitchen table cancelling people for misusing pronouns, they are trying to work out how to pay the bills.
‘Bread and butter’ pressures
“Bread and butter” cost of living pressures are what the New Zealand electorate wants answers to, and that’s where the Left need to step up and push universal policy that lifts that cost from the people.
The Commerce Commission is clear that the supermarket duopoly should be broken up and the state should step in and provide that competition.
We need year long maternity leave.
We need a nationalised Early Education sector that provides free childcare for children under 5.
We need free public transport.
We need free breakfast and lunches in schools.
We need free dental care.
We need 50,000 new state houses.
We need more hospitals, more schools and a teacher’s aid in every class room.
We need climate change adaptation and a resilient rebuilt infrastructure.
Funded by taxing the rich
We need all these things and we need to fund them by taxing the rich who the IRD clearly showed were rigging the system.
That requires political courage but there is none.
No one is willing to fight for tomorrow, they merely want to pacify the present!
Just promise me one thing.
Don’t. You. Dare. Vote. Early. In. 2023!
I can not urge this enough from you all comrades.
Don’t vote early in the 2023 election.
Secrecy of the ballot box
I’m not going to tell you who to vote for because this is a liberal progressive democracy and your right to chose who you want in the secrecy of that ballot box is a sacred privilege and is your right as a citizen.
But what I will beg of you, is to not vote early in 2023.
Comrades, on our horizon is inflation in double figures, geopolitical shockwave after geopolitical shockwave and a global economic depression exacerbated by catastrophic climate change.
As a nation we will face some of the toughest choices and decision making outside of war time and that means you must press those bloody MPs to respond to real policy solutions and make them promise to change things and you can’t do that if you hand your vote over before the election.
Keep demanding concessions and promises for your vote right up until midnight before election day AND THEN cast your vote!
We only get 1 chance every 3 years to hold these politicians’ feet to the fire and they only care before the election, so force real concessions out of them before you elect them.
This election is going to be too important to just let politicians waltz into Parliament without being blistered by our scrutiny.
Demand real concessions from them and THEN vote on Election Day, October 14.
If the Left votes — the Left wins!
Republished with permission from The Daily Blog.
A panel of federal appeals judges ruled on Tuesday that Alabama state legislative Republicans’ redrawn congressional map is still in violation of an original judicial order that called for the establishment of two majority-Black districts. Within their latest order, U.S. Circuit Judges Stanley Marcus (an appointee of former President Bill Clinton) and Judges Anna Manasco and Terry Moorer…
Of the 91 criminal charges former President Donald Trump is facing, the most consequential is Count 1 of his fourth indictment, which was filed by Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis on August 14, 2023. It alleges Trump is the head of a vast criminal conspiracy in violation of the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Congress passed the federal RICO…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Voting rights organizations and law firms joined forces Wednesday to file a legal challenge against Wisconsin’s aggressively gerrymandered state legislative maps, which have allowed Republicans to cling to power in the Assembly and Senate for more than a decade. Filed by Campaign Legal Center (CLC), Law Forward, the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School, Stafford Rosenbaum LLP, and Arnold &
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Turnout among voters with disabilities hit record highs in the 2020 presidential election. Approximately 62% of voters with a disability participated in the 2020 election, compared to around 56% in the election four years earlier — primarily due to policies implemented by states that made it easier to cast a ballot during the pandemic. However, 11% of these voters, or nearly two million people…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
In 1979, the children’s educational television series Schoolhouse Rock! broadcast a now-classic episode titled “Three Ring Government” about the three branches of the U.S. government — executive, legislative and judicial. “No one part can be more powerful than the other,” proclaimed the narrator, who explains that our system of government comes with “checks and balances” — each branch watches the…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on July 19, 2023. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
A voting rights group on Wednesday sued Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other officials for what it called “illegal intimidation” of voters by intentionally making it difficult for former felons to determine their voting eligibility and using “election police” to “mount an aggressive campaign” against people who did not know they were ineligible to cast ballots.
The lawsuit—filed in Miami federal court by Free and Fair Litigation Group, Arnold & Porter, and Weil Gotshal & Manges working pro bono on behalf of the Florida Rights Restoration Committee (FRRC) and individual voters—alleges that state election officials “have created such a bureaucratic system around the implementation of Amendment 4 that it prevents Florida citizens from voting.”
“Florida’s failure to accept responsibility in determining voter eligibility hurts every Florida citizen.”
Amendment 4 is an FFRC-led 2018 referendum approved by nearly two-thirds of Florida voters reenfranchising 1.4 million people with past felony convictions. The stakes transcended Florida and criminal justice reform, as a botched state voter purge of purported former felons played what one federal civil rights commissioner called an “outcome determinative” role in the 2000 U.S. presidential election.
“Ever since the people of Florida passed a constitutional amendment to grant people with felony convictions a new right to vote, the governor and the state have done everything in their power to prevent those 1.4 million new voters from actually voting,” Carey Dunne of the Free and Fair Litigation Group said in a statement.
Florida officials have engaged in a yearslong campaign to intimidate and prevent people with convictions from voting, as alleged in the complaint.
— Free and Fair Litigation Group (@FreeFairTweets) July 19, 2023Read the doc: https://t.co/ipbKJYeXyr
Additionally, FFRC alleges that DeSantis’ deployment of statewide “election police” constitutes illegal voter intimidation under the federal Voting Rights Act.
DeSantis—who is seeking the 2024 GOP presidential nomination—has faced widespread criticism for using Florida’s Office of Election Crimes and Security to arrest 20 formerly incarcerated people who believed they were eligible to vote under Amendment 4 for alleged “voter fraud.” Most of those arrested were Black and almost all were Democrats.
The new lawsuit alleges that DeSantis and Florida election officials failed to uphold their legal responsibilities by:
“Florida’s failure to accept responsibility in determining voter eligibility hurts every Florida citizen,” said FFRC executive director Desmond Meade.
“This is not a Black, white, Latino, Native American, Asian, or multiracial issue or a Republican or Democrat issue; this is an everybody issue,” Meade added. “If Floridians cannot rely on the state to determine voter eligibility, then who can we rely on?”
The plaintiffs in the suit are seeking a declaration that “Florida’s implementation of Amendment 4 is unconstitutional and illegal under the Voting Rights Act.”
FRRC also requests the creation of a statewide database for prospective voters in order to determine their eligibility under Amendment 4, as well as the appointment of a federal compliance monitor.
“From the governor on down, state of Florida and local officials at every level have failed to reintegrate returning citizens who have served their time back into our democracy,” Arnold & Porter pro bono counsel John A. Freedman said in a statement. “We are proud to stand with our clients and our co-counsel in this important fight.”
This post was originally published on The Real News Network.