Voter Suppression: What’s going on!
by Peter Grear 05/29/2014Educate, Organize and Mobilize: From time to time it helps to survey the landscape and make an assessment of your project in order to help keep it on track or to correct your course. With the Campaign to Defeat Voter Suppression we must constantly reach out to our allies and highlight developments in our state, nationally and internationally. I trust that our readers will read background information about our highlights and continue to help us to educate, organize and mobilize opposition to our hard won right to vote.
Recently, Douglas Bloomfield wrote in the Jerusalem Post, that while the Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) have taken strong stands against the voter suppression campaign, Jewish community councils across the United States need to get much more involved in an issue with the potential to harm all minorities – the Democratic-leaning Jewish community included. (See link #1 below).
In North Carolina, the Carolina Jews for Justice are responding to the Campaign to Defeat Voter Suppression and the Moral Monday Movement in various ways. They were early supporters of the Moral Monday Movement and continue to work in coalition with progressive groups that are working to defeat voter suppression. During the primaries earlier this month they were visibly engage in voter protection activities sponsored by Democracy North Carolina and NC Vote Defenders. They are speaking out against cut backs in early voting, including the cut back on Sunday voting. They make the point that Saturday is their Sabbath as it is that of Seven Day Adventist and that without Sunday voting, both groups are effectively prevented from voting on weekends and thereby victimized by voter suppression.
According to the Jewish Week Blog, twenty-five Jewish organizations have written to Congress urging swift passage of the Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014 (HR 3899/S 1945), which would replace critical protections removed by the Supreme Court's Shelby County v. Holder decision. Chief Justice John Roberts had called on Congress to develop a new formula for voting procedures struck down by the Court. The letter was organized by Bend The Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice.
Obviously, we need to build on the support of our progressive allies as we organize and mobilize for victory in November.
Wauwatosa, Wisconsin — In the wake of the shooting of a 10 year old girl in Milwaukee Wisconsin, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke on Tuesday was drawn into the political clash between Milwaukee leaders and Republicans in the Legislature over resources and gun laws.
Asked whether she agreed with Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn who has charged that GOP legislators are more concerned about laws on who can vote than laws on stopping handgun violence, Burke responded: "Well, I think from what we have seen and the bills that have been passed, yes it does appear like they take voter suppression more seriously than the violence suppression." (See link # 3 below).
On May 27, 2014 Ernest A. Canning updated the status of a new GOP voter suppression scheme in Kansas and Arizona. He noted that early last week, with little attention in the media, the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeal applied the brakes, for now, to one of the newest voter suppression schemes on the bleeding front edge of the GOP's ongoing War on Voting. The Court stayed an order compelling U.S. Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) to add a “Proof of Citizenship' requirement to federal voter registration forms.
The insidious new Republican scheme, if it manages to overcome continuing challenges in court, such as the stay and appeal it now faces in the 10th Circuit, could result in thousands of otherwise eligible voters in Kansas and Arizona (and elsewhere, if the effort is allowed to move forward in KS and AZ) unable to even register to vote, much less cast a ballot on Election Day. (See Appellate Court Puts Newest GOP Voter Suppression Scheme in KS, AZ On Hold – For Now).
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Peter Grear, Esq. writes for Greater Diversity News with a primary focus on voter suppression. To join the campaign to defeat voter suppression please “Like” and follow us at www.facebook.com/votersuppression, “Share” our articles, and your ideas and comments on Facebook or at our website www.GreaterDiversity.com. Also, to promote the campaign to defeat voter suppression, please ask all of your Facebook “Friends” to follow the above-referenced recommendations. Additionally, please follow us on Twitter at @yourrighttovote: (https://twitter.com/yourrighttovote)
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