Alabama, Birthplace of the Voting Rights Act, Is Once Again Gutting Voting Rights

[marmar]

from The Nation:


Alabama, Birthplace of the Voting Rights Act, Is Once Again Gutting Voting Rights
Alabama passed a strict voter-ID law and then closed 31 DMV offices in the state.

by Ari Berman


 It was Alabama that brought the country the Voting Rights Act (VRA) because of its brutality against black citizens in places like Selma. “The Voting Rights Act is Alabama’s gift to our country,” the civil-rights lawyer Debo Adegbile once said.

 And it was a county in Alabama–Shelby County–that brought the 2013 challenge that gutted the VRA. As a result of that ruling, those states with the worst histories of voting discrimination, including Alabama, no longer have to approve their voting changes with the federal government.

After the Shelby County decision, Alabama’s strict voter ID law, passed by the GOP legislature in 2011, was allowed to go into effect without federal approval. And now Alabama is making it much tougher to obtain the government-issued ID required to vote by closing 31 DMV locations in the state, many in majority-black counties.

 The state is shuttering DMV offices in eight of the 10 counties with the highest concentration of black voters. Selma will still have a DMV office but virtually all of the surrounding Black Belt counties will not. “Every single county in which blacks make up more than 75 percent of registered voters will see their driver license office closed,” writes John Archibald of the Birmingham News. “The harm is inflicted disproportionately on voters who happen to be black, and poor, in sparsely populated areas.” ........(more)

http://www.thenation.com/article/alabama-birthplace-of-voting-rights-act-once-again-gutting-voting-rights/

[Sunlei]

1. Let our Federal gov. issue voter cards for everyone & let people vote online like military does

Bypass state "control" almost totally. Even very local elections should go through the Federal database.

Results, even local results are public information and should be posted on the Federal Gov. page. For more transparency at the local levels.

Having 50 states and 20,000 counties, 800,000 tiny 'towns' all with their own way of doing things is a clusterfuck of corruption.

[msongs]

2. back in the '60's we had a DOJ that did something about this sort of thing. times have

changed.

[Enthusiast]

3. Racism. Supreme court. Assholes.