voter suppression
March 12, 2019 -
A state judge recently struck down a voter ID amendment to the N.C. Constitution because the legislators who ratified it were elected in unconstitutional, racially gerrymandered districts. Meanwhile, two white sheriffs who ousted black sheriffs with the help of a suspected election fraudster are also facing legal problems.
December 6, 2018 -
Last month voters in North Carolina put a top voting rights lawyer on the state Supreme Court. Just a few weeks later, the U.S. Senate defeated the judicial nomination of Thomas Farr, who some critics described as the go-to lawyer in North Carolina for defending voter suppression.
November 29, 2018 -
Voters in Georgia are preparing for a Dec. 4 runoff election for secretary of state that could impact the future of voting rights in the state for years to come.
November 20, 2018 -
The lame-duck North Carolina legislature convenes Nov. 27 to write a new voter ID law after the version it passed in 2013 was struck down for targeting black voters "with almost surgical precision." The same week, the U.S. Senate could vote to confirm to a federal judgeship a lawyer who helped draft the discriminatory law.
November 2, 2018 -
Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, the GOP gubernatorial nominee, has placed over 53,000 would-be voters on his controversial list of those with registration discrepancies — but that doesn't mean they can't vote.
September 26, 2018 -
After former Confederate states drafted progressive constitutions that allowed black men to hold office for the first time, there was violent resistance to black power at the local level. During the Jim Crow era, legislatures rewrote those constitutions to give themselves broad power to override local governments.
September 13, 2018 -
In 1868, Southern states held constitutional conventions in which recently freed black men helped eliminate vestiges of the Confederacy and draft progressive blueprints for state government. While some of the provisions survived Jim Crow, conservative politicians today are chipping away at Reconstruction's radical legacy.