DEMOCRACY AND ELECTIONS: Voting and politics in the South

August 12, 2020 - A federal appeals court recently overturned a lower court ruling that required a new majority-Black judicial election district in Terrebonne Parish. Only one Black judge has served there, but a white judge was re-elected after donning blackface and a prison jumpsuit for Halloween. The case is part of a broader struggle for judicial elections that are fair to Black voters.

August 6, 2020 - After North Carolina businessman and major GOP donor Louis DeJoy was appointed postmaster general in May, he announced an "operational pivot" to control costs that's caused delivery delays. Critics worry that DeJoy — who grew wealthy on USPS contracts and remains invested in USPS competitors — is a political partisan who's operationalizing President Trump's hostility to mail-in voting.

August 5, 2020 - As the U.S. marks the 55th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, there's a political fight underway in the U.S. Senate to restore the law after its 2013 gutting by the U.S. Supreme Court.

July 28, 2020 - A federal appeals court is allowing Florida to enforce a law that requires payment of court fines and fees before people with felony convictions can vote again. The court is still deciding if it's an illegal poll tax, and Democratic senators say two of the judges are violating ethics rules by remaining on the case.

July 28, 2020 - As the civil rights icon lies in state this week at the U.S. Capitol, lawmakers continue to press to restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the landmark civil rights legislation that Lewis nearly died fighting for.

July 15, 2020 - Before he was elected to the U.S. Senate, Thom Tillis helped carry out the North Carolina Republican Party's strategy to restrict voting under the guise of preventing fraud. Now facing a tough re-election battle amid a pandemic, Tillis is under pressure to back two bills that would increase voters' access to absentee ballots.

July 9, 2020 - States across the country require people with felony convictions to purchase their voting rights back if they ever want to cast a ballot again. It is a mechanism that felony disenfranchisement schemes increasingly rely upon, and it marks a return to the sordid tactics of Jim Crow.

June 30, 2020 - As the general election approaches, states across the South are attempting to properly safeguard electoral processes. But recent primaries in Georgia and Kentucky reveal the challenges of holding elections without proper infrastructure in the midst of a pandemic.

June 17, 2020 - The Republican-led U.S. Senate has confirmed nearly 200 federal judges nominated by President Donald Trump, leaving the judicial branch less racially diverse and much more conservative. The few remaining appellate court vacancies are being filled by Southern judges with controversial records on civil rights.

April 21, 2020 - There's a growing push for voting by mail amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but Republicans are fighting it — the latest move in the party's decades-long campaign to limit voting.

May 7, 2020 - Already dealing with longstanding barriers to the ballot, voter organizations will be turning out the youth vote this year amid an unprecedented public health crisis — and they are transitioning to a virtual format for their mobilization efforts.

April 8, 2020 - Calls have grown louder for states to allow more voting by mail as the coronavirus pandemic spreads. North Carolina recently made it harder to request an absentee ballot in response to fraud in a congressional race, but a group that works with black voters wants a court to strike down the changes as discriminatory.  

March 27, 2020 - With daily life disrupted by the novel coronavirus outbreak, voting rights advocates are calling for action to ensure that the 2020 elections are free, fair, accessible, and secure. Here are the steps they say we need to take to protect both public health and democracy.

March 20, 2020 - When the Democratic primaries shifted from overwhelmingly white states in the Midwest and New England to Southern states with large African-American populations, so did the outcomes. But African-American voters in the South are not a monolith, and there's a significant divide between older and younger black voters.

March 13, 2020 - Three Democratic presidential candidates quit the race right before Super Tuesday but after early voters had already cast ballots for them. Ranked-choice voting could prevent citizens from feeling like they wasted their votes — but it's not without its problems.

March 9, 2020 - Some Democratic voters in Texas waited as long as six hours to cast ballots on Super Tuesday. Observers blamed the delays on widespread poll closures, misallocation of voting machines, and one local GOP refusing a joint primary because it didn't want its voters to have to "wait in Democrat lines."

March 6, 2020 - The 2016 election made it clear that neither political party was going to invest in rural Southern communities for the long haul. So the people living there decided to do it themselves.

February 28, 2020 - With experts predicting record turnout of young voters this year, states across the country — and especially in the South — continue to put up roadblocks to participation.

February 28, 2020 - Nearly $30 million in 90 days: that's how much the Democratic presidential hopefuls spent on political Facebook ads in Southern states. Where the candidates are choosing to target them provides a glimpse of their strategy for winning the party's presidential nomination.

February 27, 2020 - Though recently passed by the Virginia House, a bill requiring the state's electoral votes to go to the winner of the national popular vote for president was put off until next year by a Senate committee. Had Virginia approved the measure, the U.S. would have been three-quarters of the way toward ending the possibility of a president who didn't win the popular vote.

February 26, 2020 - Ruling that a 2018 voter ID law could disenfranchise black voters, the North Carolina Court of Appeals put it on hold last week. A federal court had already blocked the law through the state's primaries, and this latest decision means it's likely to be blocked through November.

February 14, 2020 - With another round of redistricting on the horizon after the Census Bureau releases new population data at the end of 2020, Democratic and Republican groups are amassing vast war chests to win state legislatures. Here are the key races to watch.

February 12, 2020 - In November, the Latino electorate is projected to make U.S. history as the largest racial or ethnic minority in a presidential election. In the South, the children of many Latino migrants will be making history of their own by casting their family's first U.S. vote.  

February 10, 2020 - With the South Carolina primary and Super Tuesday coming up soon, some Democratic presidential candidates are turning their resources to the South — yet some states in the region are being almost entirely ignored.

January 29, 2020 - The voter registration deadline for Florida's 2020 primary election is approaching. A federal judge ruled that the state cannot require people with felony convictions to pay court fines, if they cannot afford it, to have their voting rights restored. An appeals court is reviewing that decision.

January 29, 2020 - Longtime elections watchdog Bob Hall has filed a complaint with the state elections board claiming that the Sons of Confederate Veterans' North Carolina Heritage PAC was unlawfully formed and engaged in illegal financing activity. But so far the elected officials who received money from the PAC aren't rushing to return it.

January 17, 2020 - It's been a decade since the Supreme Court ruling opened a new era of Big Money influence in politics, heightening concerns over corruption and creating new barriers for lower-income candidates and candidates of color. But democracy advocates and their allies have responded by building a movement that links anti-corruption measures with broader reforms.

January 16, 2020 - With a presidential election season underway, the Trump administration carried out a deadly drone strike in Iraq, killing key Iranian military leaders and stoking fears of another war. What does recent research say about war's impact on elections and voting?

January 16, 2020 - Since the U.S Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United 10 years ago, corporate campaign cash has poured into supreme court races across the South. With seats up for grabs this year in Arkansas, North Carolina, and West Virginia, that trend is likely to continue.

December 19, 2019 - The presidential candidate, billionaire philanthropist, and former New York City mayor hopes Southern cities will hand him the Democratic nomination. But it'll be an uphill battle.

December 18, 2019 - Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' appointments have transformed the Florida Supreme Court, which will soon review nine constitutional amendments — including a $15 minimum wage — that were proposed by citizens.

December 18, 2019 - The North Carolina division of the leading neo-Confederate group has a political action committee, and it's spending money to influence legislative and council of state races.

December 17, 2019 - Eighteen state attorneys general have signed a friend-of-the-court brief calling for construction to proceed on the legally blocked Atlantic Coast Pipeline. All of the signatories are members of the Republican Attorneys General Association, a political influence group funded by dirty energy interests.

December 10, 2019 - With the 2020 elections approaching, efforts to repeal laws that strip ex-felons of their voting rights are gaining momentum across the South.

December 6, 2019 - With reform blocked in Washington, voting rights advocates are shifting their attention to the states and are proposing far-reaching, pro-democracy agendas across the South. While the plans face an uphill battle, advocates see their efforts as a chance to be proactive after years of playing legal and political defense.