Today, we reached an important agreement with the state of Oklahoma that will bring comprehensive voter registration opportunities to citizens throughout the state.
The stories of our clients—Sherry Denise Holverson, Isabel Najera, and Alexandria Lane—are not outliers, but rather represent a problem that has been occurring across the state of North Carolina.
During the 2012 and 2014 elections, thousands of Texans arrived at the polls having registered to vote at the Department of Public Safety (Texas’ motor vehicles department), only to be told that they were not on the voter rolls.
Jeff Jacoby ends his June 29 column by asserting that black citizens’ right to vote “is no longer endangered anywhere in America.” What America is he talking about?
Having to register to vote is a practical barrier for some people, especially those who are poor and marginalized. So shifting that burden to the state leads to more people voting.
North Carolina’s recent voting law changes will disproportionately affect black voters in the state, according to a study published Wednesday by Dartmouth University.
“The study provides powerful ammunition for the pending legal challenges,” says Brenda Wright, a voting rights expert with the liberal think tank Demos. “It shows that virtually every key feature of North Carolina’s election legislation will disproportionately cut back on registration and voting by African Americans in North Carolina as compared to whites.”
Less than 10 years ago Demos and other voting rights groups approached North Carolina after an investigation revealed that the state was failing to meet its obligations under Section 7 of the National Voter Registration Act—a federal law that requires North Carolina provide individuals who apply for public assistance the opportunity to register to vote.
While income is distributed unequally in the country, what few people know is how much more unequally wealth, financial assets and inheritances are distributed.
In the wake of the recent gutting of the Voting Rights Act, partisans were quick to jump on the opportunity to restrict unfavorable voters. Across the country, conservatives in particular have debated fiercely whether to pursue voter suppression to remain competitive in an increasingly diverse electorate.
The rationale behind the ban is simple: it’s unfair and useless to use a person’s credit history, which is often inaccurate or misleading, when assessing their job qualifications.
"You are in a Catch-22," said Emmanuel Caicedo, a senior campaign strategist with Demos, one member of a coalition of 79 labor and civil rights organizations that formed the NYC Coalition to Stop Credit Checks in Employment.
"You can't pay your bills and so your credit is bad. And then you can't get a job to pay your bills because of your credit."
Life happens. We have children to support. We lose jobs. Marriages fall apart. By the time we near our ‘Golden Years’ the nest-egg we may have envisioned may be a lot smaller than we thought and in many cases, not there at all due to heavy debt loads.