The Brennan Center estimates that 11 percent of qualified voters in the United States do not possess a government-issued photo ID or any other of the documents required by the voter ID laws now in effect in thirty-two states—a finding confirmed by other studies. Some people were turned away from the polls because they had a driver’s license from another state or because their license had expired.
.. The Brennan Center estimates that 11 percent of qualified voters in the United States do not possess a government-issued photo ID or any other of the documents required by the voter ID laws now in effect in thirty-two states—a finding confirmed by other studies. Some people were turned away from the polls because they had a driver’s license from another state or because their license had expired.
.. In his study of voter fraud allegations—the most thorough yet made in the US—the judge produced just seven substantiated cases of individuals knowingly casting invalid votes—all of them people with felony convictions. None of these violations could have been prevented by voter ID laws.
.. After the 2006 midterms, at the behest of the Bush White House the Justice Department fired nine US attorneys (all of whom it had appointed) for failing to come up with evidence of voting fraud.
..
Leahy also got the agreement of then Republican Whip Eric Cantor, who, like Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, believed that the party had to reach out to black voters if it was to win and that the Republican brand required that the party come off as sympathetic to minorities.
But once Cantor was upset in the Virginia primary in 2014 by someone even further to his right, Leahy could find no Republican supporters in the House—except for the now-isolated Sensenbrenner.
.. “When Cantor went down, that was the death knell for Republican support for restoring the enforcement provisions of the Voting Rights Act.”
.. because of the very rightward cast of its primary and caucus voters and the early primaries in South Carolina and Florida (and even the possibility of a regional southern primary), someone seeking the Republican nomination now is not likely to support voting rights for blacks.