Voter ID Laws, From Sea to Racist Sea

The extent of GOP efforts to prevent African Americans and Latinos from voting is jaw-dropping. And this Nov. 8, minority voters need to document it so America can see.

BARRETT HOLMES PITNER

10.12.16 1:00 AM ET

Donald Trump’s offensive statements and the chaos they’ve brought to the Republican Party have been the headline-grabbing events of this election. But the biggest story, which is regularly overlooked, is the systematic disenfranchisement of millions of American voters, predominantly African Americans and Latinos.

Since sections of the Voting Rights Act were struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013 in Shelby County v. Holder, 14 states have introduced new voting restrictions in this election, and this represents only a sliver of the seismic crisis facing our democracy in this presidential race. Some estimates anticipate that roughly 1.3 million voters in vital swing states could be disenfranchised because of these new voting restrictions.

Additionally, more than 6 million Americans will be barred from voting due to felony convictions, and 2.2 million of those are African American. This amounts to 1 out of every 13 African Americans of voting age being barred from the ballot box. And in Florida, 23 percent of African Americans are prevented from voting due to felony convictions even after they’ve done their time.

Seven states—Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, and Wisconsin—that will have new voting restrictions in 2016 also recorded their highest levels of African-American voter turnout in 2008. And five of those states—Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia—plus Alabama, Tennessee, and South Dakota have witnessed their largest Hispanic population growth from 2000-2010. NALEO—the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials—estimates that new voter ID laws will effectively disenfranchise 875,000 Latino voters this year.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/12/voter-id-laws-from-sea-to-racist-sea.html