In US GOP Runaway Voting Laws Gain Steam

https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/03/30



With mid-term elections fast approaching and the next presidential bid seemingly around the corner, Republican lawmakers around the country have ramped up efforts to restrict voting rules and regulations in ways that favor GOP voters and discriminate against those who traditionally vote democrat, a report in the New York Times on Sunday highlights.

The battle, of course, is focused on swing-states where the stakes are highest.

GOP legislatures are systematically passing a string of bills that "go beyond the voter identification requirements that have caused fierce partisan brawls," as the Times reports.

The New York Times continues:

The bills, laws and administrative rules — some of them tried before — shake up fundamental components of state election systems, including the days and times polls are open and the locations where people vote.

Republicans in Ohio and Wisconsin this winter pushed through measures limiting the time polls are open, in particular cutting into weekend voting favored by low-income voters and blacks, who sometimes caravan from churches to polls on the Sunday before election.

Democrats in North Carolina are scrambling to fight back against the nation’s most restrictive voting laws, passed by Republicans there last year. The measures, taken together, sharply reduce the number of early voting days and establish rules that make it more difficult for people to register to vote, cast provisional ballots or, in a few cases, vote absentee.