DEMOCRACY AND ELECTIONS: Voting and politics in the South

November 18, 2020 - Last year, courts ordered the North Carolina legislature to undo the extreme partisan gerrymandering that kept Republicans in control, even when Democrats got more total votes. But the recent election results suggest that many of the districts remained skewed towards the GOP. 

November 18, 2020 - Black voters turned out in record numbers this election cycle but had to overcome barriers to the ballot box that undermine the fairness of the electoral process. Advocates continue to call for restoring the Voting Rights Act to ensure that African American voters are protected from voter suppression.

November 16, 2020 - Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky, whose managing partner is Virginia state Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel (R), was one of three main law firms involved in this year's unprecedented election litigation. That work continued the partners' longtime efforts to create the appearance of voter fraud where none exists — a gambit that's gotten the firm sued for defamation in North Carolina.

November 6, 2020 - Conservatives won supreme court races across the South this week. The results could shift Kentucky’s high court to the right. The race for North Carolina chief justice is too close to call as mail-in ballots are still being tallied. 

November 6, 2020 - Progressives in the rest of the Deep South suffered loss after loss in statewide elections — but years of grassroots organizing in Georgia paid off.

November 5, 2020 - Low-wage essential workers engaged in massive efforts this year to get out the vote across the South and country. Now they're working to ensure that every vote counts.  

November 5, 2020 - Joyce Elliott would have been the first Black representative Arkansas ever sent to Congress. But the Democratic state senator's 10-point loss to incumbent Republican French Hill in the state's 2nd Congressional District reveals a political reality that one observer calls "redder than ruby red."

November 4, 2020 - Though the South trended red in this year's general election, voters in Southern states approved progressive ballot measures that raise the minimum wage, reject Jim Crow-era election laws and flag symbolism, and relax drug laws. They also turned down measures that would have impeded this kind of direct democracy.

November 2, 2020 - Over 200,000 returning citizens in Georgia on probation and parole are ineligible to vote. But many have begun to challenge the state's law, drawing inspiration from movements across the country like the one behind Florida's successful 2018 ballot measure, Amendment 4, which restored voting rights to 1.4 million formerly incarcerated people.

October 30, 2020 - The South is where most Black Americans live, but the region has sent just one Black senator to Congress since Reconstruction. That could change in 2020.

October 29, 2020 - Legal experts have warned that election results could be delayed for days due to all of the mail-in ballots and litigation over voting during the COVID-19 pandemic. This could open the door to federal courts intervening — or legislators deciding who won the presidential election in their state.

October 28, 2020 - Alabama has one of the most restrictive Medicaid programs in the country, available only to people with incomes 18% or less of the federal poverty level. We spoke with Jim Carnes, the policy director of the nonprofit coalition Alabama Arise, about how this year's elections could impact the coalition's fight for Medicaid expansion.

October 28, 2020 - As Election Day approaches, frontline workers and anti-poverty activists are encouraging eligible low-wage voters in the nation's poorest region to take part in this year's election in hopes of electing leaders who will support a living wage and respond to the needs of low-wealth communities.

October 27, 2020 - The national nonpartisan Election Protection coalition, now almost two decades old, is mobilizing like never before to help voters cast ballots in an election season beset by a pandemic and widespread threats of voter suppression, intimidation, and disinformation.

October 26, 2020 - Mississippi is one of the poorest states in America, and one-third of Black Mississippians live under the federal poverty line. We spoke with Calandra Davis, a policy analyst at Hope Policy Institute and a community activist, about how federal elections affect the regulatory state and thus people's access to affordable housing, health care, and banking.

October 23, 2020 - Across the rural South's Black Belt, the lack of adequate sewage and water infrastructure has created serious public health problems. We spoke with Catherine Coleman Flowers, a longtime environmental justice activist in rural Alabama and the recent recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, about her work to draw attention to the region's intersecting crises and how grassroots activism can impact federal policy. 

October 22, 2020 - As millions of voters cast ballots this month, federal courts in the South shot down attempts to make voting easier during the pandemic, and some relied on a novel argument giving them more power to overrule state courts. The rulings have led to calls to expand the Supreme Court and lower courts if Democrats take the White House and Senate. 

October 19, 2020 - Alamance County, North Carolina, has been the site of recent protests over a local Confederate monument, and its sheriff has long been accused of racism for public comments and his participation in ICE's controversial 287(g) program. We spoke with local activist Aranza Sosa about growing up in the shadow of 287(g) and the power of elected officials who come from the same background she does.

October 15, 2020 - COVID-19 struck Arkansas' small Marshallese community hard, in part because of their limited access to health care. We spoke with community leader Albious Latior about the power the first generation of Marshallese Americans eligible to vote has to advocate for health care for themselves and their elders.

October 8, 2020 - Meet the state lawmakers up for reelection in Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee who champion the Lost Cause version of history that claims that the Civil War was not about slavery and the Klan were the good guys. Also meet who's funding their campaigns.

October 8, 2020 - Following protests against police brutality, growing anxiety over COVID-19, and now a concerted effort by Republican leaders to strengthen the Supreme Court's conservative majority, polls are showing that young voters plan to turn out in record numbers this election cycle. We look at youth voter organizing underway in a key Southern swing state.

October 5, 2020 - Republicans in Georgia have maneuvered to stop competitive elections for some judicial and prosecutorial positions, passing a law in 2018 that gives Gov. Brian Kemp the power to fill certain vacancies. A federal judge struck down the law, but now the case is with the state Supreme Court.

October 2, 2020 - This presidential election will be the first in 40 years to take place without a consent decree in place requiring the Republican National Committee to refrain from voter intimidation under the guise of ballot security. With President Trump urging his supporters to go to the polls and "watch very carefully," we look at what the law says about such activity and how voting rights advocates are responding.

September 24, 2020 - The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a Florida law requiring people with felony convictions to pay off all court fines and fees before they can cast ballots again, so voting rights advocates are redoubling efforts to raise funds to help the indigent.

September 22, 2020 - In Marquita Bradshaw of Tennessee and Rev. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, the South has two prominent Black Democratic U.S. Senate candidates who have never held elected office before. They represent a new type of statewide candidate emerging from grassroots community organizing and advocacy work.

September 22, 2020 - With cutoff dates for registering to vote approaching across the South, we take a look at this year's registration trends and how they've been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread protests against racial injustice.

September 16, 2020 - In a lawsuit filed by the state NAACP over constitutional amendments passed by a legislature that federal courts found to be racially gerrymandered, the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled to uphold them, reversing a lower court's decision. The group is now taking the case to the state Supreme Court.

September 10, 2020 - More Black women are running for Congress than ever before, including in several key races across the South. Many of these women are already trailblazers, and now they're building new paths into politics.

September 9, 2020 - As states across the country gear up for the November elections, millions of formerly incarcerated people could be blocked from voting because of laws requiring them to first pay all court fines and fees. But voting rights advocates are challenging those laws — and they recently racked up a big win in North Carolina.

September 9, 2020 - High courts in Arkansas and Florida have blocked ballot measures that would have required nonpartisan redistricting and banned assault weapons. The courts cited new laws that raise the bar for citizens to put constitutional amendments on the ballot.

August 26, 2020 - Southern states are holding judicial elections this year that will shape the outcome of critical cases involving voting rights and criminal justice. The elections could also bring unprecedented diversity to courts in some states.

August 24, 2020 - As a voting rights activist in Georgia, I understand the sacred importance of the hard-won ballot. But as a young Black man in America, I recognize that elections alone cannot save Black lives.

August 13, 2020 - As cases of the coronavirus surge nationwide, states across the South have begun to loosen absentee ballot restrictions ahead of a presidential election that's expected to see unprecedented levels of mail-in voting.

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.