With midterm elections 20 days away, it’s never been more important to expose voter suppression efforts—and to overcome them.
Voter suppression has shamefully become a mainstream Republican Party tactic targeting low income communities and communities of color and justified with thoroughly-debunked propaganda about widespread voter fraud. The increasingly GOP-aligned Supreme Court has already gutted the Voting Rights Act and given states the green light to purge voters from the rolls. Now, they seem poised to further institutionalize attacks on voting rights.
Just last week, the Court upheld a North Dakota law requiring voters to bring proof of residential address in order to vote. The catch? Rural tribal lands are “typically without named and numbered roads” and do not have residential addresses; the law specifically aims to suppress Native American voting and effectively disenfranchises almost 1 in 5 otherwise eligible Native voters.
In Georgia, Republican secretary of state Brian Kemp has held up more than 53,000 voter applications—nearly 70% of them from African American voters.
These disgusting patterns of bigotry shrouded in policy are not new; they were a hallmark of the worst chapters in our country’s history.
And now, as in many years past, voters are coming together to fight the injustice.
In North Dakota, Native American tribal leaders and allied organizations are fighting to bring maps to voting sites in order for voters to visually identify and provide their addresses, which will then be officially confirmed by tribal representatives.
In Georgia, where lines on the first day of early voting were two hours long, advocacy groups are working together to file lawsuits seeking to end controversial voter verification methods and “force Georgia to reinstate affected voters.”
Silencing and ignoring dissent is a theme in Trump’s America, but Election Day is the day our dissent speaks the loudest and is impossible to ignore. No matter what obstacles they put in front of you and your neighbors, fight to overcome.
Check out this page from the ACLU for resources around knowing your rights and responding to voter intimidation.
A DEADLY NRA LEGACY IN FLORIDA: STAND YOUR GROUND.
13 years ago, Florida enacted an expansive new self defense law commonly known as “stand your ground,” which empowers individuals to use lethal force in self defense, even when it would be possible to deescalate the situation through lesser force or retreat.
The result? A devastating increase in gun-related homicides in the state. A new analysis from the Center for American Progress Action Fund addresses the disturbing impacts of the law, including the quantifiable racial bias in the application of this law that has resulted.
Gun violence is yet another issue on the ballot in 20 days. It’s time for Congress to make a real change to reduce gun violence in America. To see a list of candidates who have taken NRA money, head to Fight4AFuture.org.