Attempts To Limit Voting Rights Stunted As Efforts To Enhance Voting Access Prevail

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Attempts To Limit Voting Rights Stunted As Efforts To Enhance Voting Access Prevail

by Samantha Lachman at the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/03/voting-rights-2015_n_7496906.html?1433352077

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As the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University highlighted Wednesday, "For the third year in a row, bills to expand voters’ access to the ballot box outpace those to restrict voting, both in terms of introduction and enactment." Of course, as the center notes, restrictions passed since the wave that swept the GOP to power in a slew of state legislatures in 2010 have continued to limit voting rights.

Here's a look back at state-level efforts to expand and restrict access to the ballot since November's midterm elections.

Efforts To Restrict Voting Access

Over the past four years, it has been challenging to keep up with all the new voter ID laws put in place. Although voter identification restrictions remained a favorite project of Republican-controlled state governments in their latest legislative sessions, only one -- North Dakota -- succeeded in passing a voter ID bill this time around. That measure made North Dakota's already strict voter ID law even more stringent.

Nevada's GOP-led legislature, which was considered the most likely state to enact a voter ID bill this year, closed its legislative session Tuesday without passing a law that would require a government-issued photo ID to vote. Arkansas and Missouri, where state courts struck down their ID laws, failed to put ID requirements before voters as ballot questions. Voter ID bills also failed in Maine, Nebraska and New Mexico.



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