Voting Rights

A voting location

Federal agencies lag in registering voters despite Biden executive order, advocates say

BY: - April 13, 2023

Within weeks of taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order — hailed by voter advocates as potentially transformative — that for the first time committed the U.S. government to registering new voters at federal agencies. But just over two years later, most of the 10 agencies examined in a recent report had made […]

In Selma, President Joe Biden vows to continue work on voting rights

BY: - March 7, 2023

President Joe Biden Sunday praised the courage of civil rights activists and condemned efforts to restrict voting and attack the election process in a speech commemorating the 58th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama. In his 20-minute address delivered at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where a law enforcement posse attacked civil […]

College students push to ease voting access after midterm barriers

BY: - November 20, 2022

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 […]

COMMENTARY

The right to vote is not in the Constitution

BY: - October 19, 2022

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

BY: - September 26, 2022

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

BY: - July 15, 2022

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.

BY: - June 21, 2022

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

BY: - May 12, 2022

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.

BY: - May 2, 2022

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 […]

COMMENTARY

GOP take note: Responsible actions ensure an enduring democracy

BY: - March 18, 2022

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 […]

COMMENTARY

Bipartisanship failed on expanding voting rights. Kyrsten Sinema and her backers ignore that.

BY: - February 2, 2022

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

BY: - January 24, 2022

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 […]