voting rights

May 12, 2023 - Some states have taken steps to restore voting rights for people with felony convictions, but Republican officials in places including Florida and North Carolina later reversed the reforms. Proponents of permanent disenfranchisement say it promotes respect for the law, but a growing body of evidence suggests that such policies make their targets more likely to break it again.

May 4, 2022 - Republican senators recently grilled Biden judicial nominee Nancy Abudu, a civil rights lawyer who has protected abortion rights and fought voter suppression in the Deep South. Senators also heard from four other nominees, all women of color. At least one nominee has bipartisan support. 

April 21, 2022 - Over protests by the state's Black lawmakers, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed his fellow Republicans to adopt a congressional district map that is expected to slash the number of Black representatives for the state. The new map could be challenged in court, but appellate courts have recently sided with the GOP in voting rights cases. 

March 11, 2022 - Thousands of people gathered recently in Alabama for the 57th anniversary of the historic Selma to Montgomery March for voting rights, which was met with police violence as peaceful demonstrators tried to cross a bridge named for a Klan leader. This year's event took place as state legislatures across the South are passing bills to limit voting and protesting.

December 1, 2021 - Voting rights activists are growing impatient as Senate Republicans' use of the filibuster continues to obstruct popular pro-democracy legislation. They warn that the window for meaningful legislative action is closing as international observers sound the alarm about rising U.S. authoritarianism.

September 13, 2021 - The North Carolina NAACP is challenging the racially gerrymandered legislature's authority to put a voter ID question on the ballot, which voters passed in 2018. The state's highest court has postponed arguments while it decides whether two justices closely connected to the legislature must sit out the case. 

July 15, 2021 - Texas's SB7 anti-voter bill, which was set to be considered in a special session until Democratic lawmakers fled the state to block it, is part of a wave of nearly 400 such measures introduced in state legislatures this year in reaction to 2020's unprecedented turnout by young people. There are several steps they can take to fight back, says Jeffrey Clemmons, a student in Texas and an Andrew Goodman Foundation ambassador.