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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThis is disgraceful re voting in Alabama
This time last year, Alabamas chief elections official landed in the national spotlight for delivering a screed against nonvoters that many people interpreted as an attack on African Americans in the state, who have long faced barriers to voting. If youre too sorry or lazy to get up off of your rear and to go register to vote, or to register electronically, and then to go vote, then you dont deserve that privilege, Republican John Merrill said in an interview with documentary filmmaker Brian Jenkins. Jenkins had asked why he opposed automatically registering Alabamians when they reach voting age, and his response sizzled with anger toward people who think they deserve the right because theyve turned 18. So he made a pledge: As long as Im secretary of state of Alabama, youre going to have to show some initiative to become a registered voter in this state.
In recent years, Alabama Republicans have taken steps to protect their grip on power by making it harder for African Americans and Latinos to vote. They passed a law requiring voters to show a government-issued photo ID, a measure that has been found to disproportionately disenfranchise African Americans and Latinos, who are more likely to lack such an ID and face impediments to getting one. The ID law also applied to absentee voting, which is used by many elderly black voters in rural counties, who now must mail in copies of their photo IDs with their ballots. (The NAACP Legal Defense Fund is challenging the law in federal court as intentionally discriminatory.) They reformed campaign finance laws to weaken the political organizations that mobilize African American voters. They closed 31 DMV offices across the state, disproportionately affecting rural majority-black counties. In every county in which African Americans made up more than 75 percent of registered voters, the local DMV was slated for closure. (After a federal civil rights investigation, Alabama agreed to increase DMV service in rural African American counties, partially reversing the closures.) Since the US Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, allowing states like Alabama to change voting procedures without federal approval, Alabama has closed about 200 voting precincts, creating longer lines and sowing confusion among voters.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/12/the-republican-overseeing-the-alabama-election-doesnt-think-voting-should-be-easy/#
dchill
(38,503 posts)It's a RIGHT, Moran. It's "deserved" by every citizen of legal voting age. And not just Republicans, either!
rgbecker
(4,832 posts)People in America shouldn't be required to stand in line for more than 15 minutes to vote on election day. I've seen people walk out of Walmart's when the lines get longer than that. Working people have little time these days especially those raising kids and both parents working. To say nothing of single working parents.
Cutting back on places to vote, available machines etc. are all keeping working Americans from voting and local officials need to be called out when ever they change polling places or close any down to consolidate etc.
All elections should be held on weekends, and there's no excuse for hour+ waits.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)trof
(54,256 posts)Merrill is a jerk.
But then most of our 'elected'* officials are.
* See: 'Gerrymander'.