voting rights act

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.

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.

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.

November 21, 2019 - The plaintiffs in a racial gerrymandering lawsuit want a North Carolina court to block judicial elections in districts that were drawn last year by the state legislature. In the racially diverse city of Charlotte, three of the eight districts are more than 70 percent white.

September 13, 2019 - As the nation prepares for the 2020 election season, voting rights advocates testified before a House Judiciary subcommittee this week about the damaging effects of the Supreme Court's gutting of the Voting Rights Act and how to improve protections for voters of color. 

August 29, 2019 - Former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams has forgone a presidential run to lead a multi-state initiative against voter suppression. The effort will target states in the Southeast and Midwest and will help state Democratic parties in battleground states monitor voter protection ahead of next year's general election.

August 27, 2019 - The latest gerrymandering lawsuit in North Carolina claims that when legislators changed judicial elections districts in Charlotte last year, they packed black voters into a few districts and violated a constitutional mandate for a "unified" state court system.