INSTITUTE INDEX: Feds block South Carolina's attack on voting rights

Date on which U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder spoke at a South Carolina rally protesting the state's law requiring residents to show a driver's license, passport or military ID in order to vote: 1/16/2012

Date on which Holder's Department of Justice blocked the South Carolina law, arguing that it violates the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racially discriminatory electoral practices that result in disenfranchisement: 12/23/2011

Year in which the DOJ last objected to a state voter ID law: 1994

Date on which South Carolina announced plans to sue the Obama administration for blocking the voter ID law, with Gov. Nikki Haley (R) calling the federal government's move "outrageous": 1/10/2012

Percent of South Carolina's registered voters who would have been disenfranchised by the law: 8

Portion of the state's non-white registered voters who don't have a driver's license: 1/3

Pieces of paperwork that South Carolina residents must present at their local Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) office in order to get a state photo ID: 3*

Percent of non-white South Carolina voters who oppose the state's photo ID law: 75

Date on which members of South Carolina's Legislative Black Caucus walked out over the voter ID proposal, calling it an obvious attempt by Republicans to shrink the electorate: 2/26/2009

Number of days that Gov. Haley, in a concession to critics of the voter ID law, offered South Carolinians free rides to the DMV to get IDs: 1

Number of mostly Republican-controlled states that have recently approved new voting laws that include requiring government-approved photo ID to vote, shortening early voting periods and curtailing voter registration efforts by third-party groups: 13

Percent of the Electoral College votes held by those states: 63

Estimated number of people who would be adversely affected by those new laws, according to a recent study by New York University's Brennan Center for Justice: 5,000,000

Because of the DOJ's action blocking South Carolina's law, number of forms of photo ID that citizens must present to vote in the Jan. 21 Republican presidential primary: 0

* birth certificate, Social Security card and proof of residency

(Click on figure to go to original source. Image of S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley signing her state's voter ID bill into law is a still from a video of the signing event.)