After the Supreme Court nullified Section 5 of Voting Rights Act

[wildeyed]

this is what happened in my state.

WaPo: Trial to start in lawsuit over North Carolina’s voter-ID law

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Rosanell Eaton still remembers the day 70 years ago when she traveled two hours with her mother in a mule-drawn wagon to register to vote at the county courthouse. Before she could, she was forced to take a literacy test.

“What are you here for, little lady?” Eaton recalls a man at the courthouse asking her. When she told him, he instructed her, “Don’t miss a word, and speak the preamble of the Constitution of the United States of America.”

“Without missing a word, I did it,” she said.

Now 94, the North Carolina resident has voted in every election since and worked to register thousands of others to cast their own ballots. But last year, because of a new state voting law, Eaton said she and her daughter had to make 10 trips to the Division of Motor Vehicles, drive more than 200 miles and spend more than 20 hours to obtain one of the required forms of voter identification because the name on her identifying document, her driver’s license, did not exactly match that on her voter registration.

.........

Four years ago, North Carolina went from one of the lowest-ranked states in voter turnout to one of the highest, after civil rights groups pushed for and won measures to increase voter participation, including the expansion of early voting, same-day registration and the counting of out-of-precinct provisional ballots.

“Turnout among North Carolina’s African American voters skyrocketed from 41.9 percent in 2000 to 68.5 percent in 2012,” Barber said in an interview. The Latino electorate also grew in numbers and political participation, he said.

“Given these demographic shifts, and without any prospects of expanding registration among white voters,” Barber said, “evidence shows that state legislators intentionally sought to restrict opportunities for voters of color to participate, because it makes no sense otherwise.”
(bold is mine)

More.....

Voter fraud has never been a problem, yet our fuckwit Governor uses terrorism and meth labs as justification for why voting requires such stringent oversight. Another interesting feature of the law is absentee voting does not require an ID, despite the fact that it is much more prone to fraud than in person. But many Republican voters prefer absentee, so there it is.

One of the happiest days of my life, other than milestones like my wedding day and the birth of my children, was registering mostly African American seniors at one of our city's low income high rise in 2008. I had been there before, but that year, they were waiting on the lawn for me. It was like I had paparazzi all of a sudden, pretty heady stuff for a c3 voter education volunteer. But they were so damn happy to be able to vote for Obama. And it occurred to me that many of these citizens had experienced the horrors of the Jim Crow South up close and personal. We all thought that the nomination and probable election of our first AA President meant that we had finally turned the corner..... No. Because here is Jim Crow, back again, just wearing a nicer suit But it was a great day, one I will always treasure. Oh well, when they fight you, it means you were making a difference.

[randys1]

1. Like I said, good thing this outright attack on voters isnt happening in Canada or France,

because if it did we would send troops.

But it happens here and barely an eye is batted.

There is no country if they are successful in stopping Americans from voting.

[wildeyed]

2. I mentioned to my kid that I hoped Canada

would invade and save us from ourselves is Trump was elected. But I guess that is another topic

[JustAnotherGen]

3. Mom? Ma!

Get off The DU!



Just kidding only my mom said she hoped Queen Elizabeth would let bygones be bygones and annex us back!

[wildeyed]

4. Too funny!

That is EXACTLY what me kids say to me all the time! Ma! MOM! We are HUNGRY. Did you buy food? Should we just make the mac and cheese again? MOM! Are we having dinner tonight? GET OFF THE DU!!!!!

My backup plan is to emigrate to Australia. Nicer weather than Canada and lots of beaches

[Kentonio]

6. 90% of the worlds poisonous creatures though.

Check out New Zealand, much nicer and safer.

[Number23]

5. ...

“What are you here for, little lady?” Eaton recalls a man at the courthouse asking her. When she told him, he instructed her, “Don’t miss a word, and speak the preamble of the Constitution of the United States of America.”

I'm so fucking mad just reading this I can't type straight. An AMERICAN forced to recite the Preamble just so that she can vote in AMERICA. And this was of course only done to people of a certain hue who, seventy FUCKING years later, are having to go through something every bit as deliberately daunting to exercise their rights as Americans. There are just no words.

Before a 2013 Supreme Court decision, North Carolina would not have been able to enact the voting changes without the approval of the Justice Department or a federal court. Under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, North Carolina was one of nine mostly Southern states, along with individual jurisdictions in six other states, that because of their history of discrimination were required to receive federal approval, or “pre-clearance,” before making changes in voting laws.

Within weeks of the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which effectively nullified the part of the Voting Rights Act requiring such permissions, North Carolina passed its new law. The Justice Department and several civil rights groups sued.

This makes me want to scream. The NC NAACP and other groups are joining with this family to sue the state and I pray that they are victorious. Here is a bit more info on some of the groups participating in the lawsuit https://lawyerscommittee.org/press-release/coalition-of-civic-organizations-sues-north-carolina-for-failing-to-comply-with-federal-voting-rights-obligations/

[Kentonio]

7. The people pushing these new laws are scum, there's no other word for it.

[wildeyed]

8. Coalition of Civic Organizations Sue North Carolina

NAACP, Democracy NC, Action NC, and looks like UNC-Chapel Hill is getting some licks in too. All the cool kids are there! Guess UNC didn't like the way the Governor has been treating them either. Bob Hall is the policy wonk for Democracy NC. He wrote a good Op-Ed today.

▪ Dr. Martha Kropf at UNC-Charlotte analyzed exit surveys from thousands of voters across the state and found that poll officials were not following the simplest of the new rules: Ask each voter, “Do you have one of the photo IDs that will be required to vote in 2016?” Kropf found that nearly half (48 percent) of the voters were not asked whether they had the proper identification.

▪ An analysis by Democracy NC of provisional ballots and reports from poll monitors found that at least 30,000 voters were disenfranchised in 2014 because the new law repealed two safety-net provisions: same-day registration during early voting and out-of-precinct voting on Election Day.

▪ A majority of the directors of county boards of elections interviewed by the League of Women Voters and Democracy NC said the experience of 2014 and complexity of the photo ID law made them worry whether they could recruit or fully train enough poll workers to handle the variety of problems they expect at the polls this year.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article56681428.html#storylink=cpy

Here is a link to Democracy NC. They have downloadable voter education material for anyone in NC and can also work with civic groups to do free voter education. I have them on my 'Show First' list on Facebook, and they have been putting up a good article everyday for the past few weeks. Facebook being useful..... wow!

[Number23]

9. Thanks for the link on Democracy NC. It's great to see that folks are not taking this lying down