Arkansas
July 15, 2019 -
Across the South, voting rights advocates argue that judicial elections violate the Voting Rights Act by depriving communities of color of representation on state courts. Federal courts are hearing lawsuits in Arkansas and Alabama, where the state supreme courts are all white.
June 18, 2019 -
The man who gunned down his three Muslim neighbors in Chapel Hill in 2015 has pleaded guilty to their murders, but he couldn't be charged under North Carolina's hate crime law because it doesn't cover felonies. That's just one of many weaknesses in those state laws, which advocates are trying to strengthen.
May 3, 2019 -
After voters approved a constitutional amendment restoring the franchise to people with felony convictions, Florida lawmakers are trying to make it harder for citizens to put amendments on the ballot. Legislators in Arkansas, the only other Southern state that allows citizen-initiated amendments, did likewise after voters passed a minimum-wage hike.
November 13, 2018 -
They ended racist Jim Crow-era policies in two states and raised the minimum wage in another. But elsewhere, Southern voters embraced racially discriminatory voter ID laws and took steps to restrict reproductive rights. The ballot measures that passed this year reflect a politically divided region.
November 9, 2018 -
From Arkansas to North Carolina to Texas, courts in the South will look much different following the election of more diverse and progressive candidates.
October 26, 2018 -
Voters in Southern states are weighing in on ballot measures to expand voting rights, raise the minimum wage, and protect the environment.
October 24, 2018 -
Still contending with barriers put in place before the last midterm and presidential elections, voters in some states in the South face new restrictions on the franchise as they head to the polls this year.