Voting Rights
College students push to ease voting access after midterm barriers
Story originally published in Stateline, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts. Young voters made their voices heard during the midterms last week, turning out in relatively high numbers in an election that produced the first congressperson from Generation Z. But university students and voting rights advocates say voters on college campuses faced far too […]
The right to vote is not in the Constitution
If you’re looking for the right to vote, you won’t find it in the United States Constitution or the Bill of Rights. Two of the most important cases at the Supreme Court this year address voting rights, and both legal controversies focus on the right to vote. But rather than denials of the right to […]
Faith leaders urge minimum wage hike, expanded child tax credit as Congress nears recess
WASHINGTON — Faith leaders pressed Congress to pass voting rights legislation, a $15 minimum wage and a permanent expansion of the child tax credit during a recent briefing on Capitol Hill. “Poverty is a policy choice,” Rev. Dr. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and president of Repairers of the Breach, said to […]
Criminalizing the vote: GOP-led states enacted 102 new election penalties after 2020
First in a two-part series During the 2020 election, Rhonda Briggins and her sorority sisters spent days providing voters in metro Atlanta with water and snacks as they waited in long lines at polling places. The lines for early voting and on Election Day at times stretched on for hours. As the national co-chair for […]
The District of Columbia allows incarcerated people to vote, a rarity in the U.S.
This article is published through a collaboration between States Newsroom and Bolts. WASHINGTON — Earlier this month, about 10 men detained in the Young Men Emerging unit in the Washington, D.C., jail sat around a TV to watch the Democratic candidates for mayor debate issues including affordable housing and gun violence. “It was on a communal TV, and […]
Election officials make their voices heard as battleground states debate voting laws
When Georgia legislators pushed through a restrictive voting bill during the 2021 session, Bartow County election supervisor Joseph Kirk said he felt frustrated and sidelined. Lawmakers largely didn’t take election officials’ views into account, he said, and what resulted was a law that included a number of provisions that he said election officials believe are “to the […]
Florida gave voting rights to people with felony convictions. Now some face charges for voting.
Florida authorities arrested a Black man while he was staying in a homeless shelter and charged him with voting illegally in a case tied to Republicans’ drive to root out election fraud. But Kelvin Bolton’s arrest raises questions about the rollout of Amendment 4, passed by Florida voters in 2018 to restore voting rights to […]
GOP take note: Responsible actions ensure an enduring democracy
In President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, there was no surprise in how much emphasis he placed on the plight of Ukraine in fending off the unprovoked attack launched by Vladimir Putin. Biden’s theme was simple: We must protect democracy. In the closing part of his speech, the president said: As some observers […]
Bipartisanship failed on expanding voting rights. Kyrsten Sinema and her backers ignore that.
The corporate establishment wing of the Republican Party that supports U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is aghast that liberals are angry and might hold her accountable for supporting the filibuster, fearful that an electoral defeat would usher in a senator who wouldn’t carry the water for big business. And that’s why the top advocate for big business in […]
With voting rights stalled, some senators mull an update to the Electoral Count Act
WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of senators is exploring legislation to overhaul how Congress counts Electoral College votes, but backers of stalled voting rights legislation are lukewarm on the effort as a substitute. The Electoral Count Act is an obscure law that has come under recent scrutiny, a year after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol […]
Kyrsten Sinema is gambling that her filibuster vote will help her win again in 2024
The furious Democrats who revile Kyrsten Sinema don’t know her very well. She may not have single-handedly derailed President Joe Biden’s presidency by ensuring that none of his ambitious legislative agenda ever reaches his desk, but Arizona’s senior senator certainly has become the face of the Democrats’ circular firing squad. And her highly choreographed speech […]
U.S. Senate blocks change in the filibuster for voting rights bills
WASHINGTON — Every Republican in the U.S. Senate and two Democrats on Wednesday night rejected a proposed change in the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation, dealing a major blow to attempts in Congress to counter restrictive voting laws passed in the states. In a 48-52 vote, two Democrats — Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona […]