Everything You Need to Know About Voter Suppression, in One 5-Minute Video

[Triana]

Rachel Lears' new documentary The New Fight for Voting Rights opens with a montage of election lawn signs, the "I Voted" stickers passed out at polling locations, and the voice of the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, the president of the North Carolina NAACP, saying, "The right to vote is a right dipped in blood, paid for by the death and sacrifices."

Barber is part of a chorus of civil rights leaders, politicians, community organizers, and regular citizens speaking out about voting rights in North Carolina in the wake of a 2013 law that imposed sweeping restrictions on voting. The law, passed by the state's Republican legislature after the Supreme Court gutted a key portion of the Voting Rights Act, created a voter ID requirement, reduced early voting from 17 days to 10, eliminated same-day registration, and killed a program that preregistered 16- and 17-year-olds to vote. It also prevented ballots from being counted if they were cast in the wrong precinct.

In late April, a federal judge upheld most of those restrictions, putting North Carolina on the front lines of the national battle for voting rights. Although a group of civil rights groups has appealed the decision, the rules could stay in place for the November elections.

Lears hopes her five-minute film can help raise awareness about what's happening not only in North Carolina, but across the country, where 17 states will have new voting restrictions in place for the November general election. "The fight for access to the ballot is not a new thing in this country," says Lears, a Brooklyn-based filmmaker who brings an anthropological background to her work. "Most of us assume that the battle was won decades ago."

LINK: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/05/north-carolina-voting-rights-discrimination-racism

[Gregorian]

1. "Hands that once picked cotton now pick presidents"

I'm ashamed of my party and country. Exclusion is not how democracy works. And my party could have worked for more inclusion. But they went along, and even helped exclude.

[surrealAmerican]

2. k & r

I would add that voter suppression is every bit as racist when it happens in northern states. The Republicans know what they're doing, and why. We know too.