New York City grants noncitizens right to vote in municipal elections
The New York City Council Thursday voted to grant certain noncitizens the right to vote in municipal elections, making it the largest city in the United States to extend the vote to lawful permanent residents and non-citizens authorized to work in the US. The municipal legislation, Int. 1867 grants the vote to noncitizen “municipal voters,” defined as [...]
Federal appeals court upholds attorney's fees award in Missouri voter registration dispute
The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on Monday upheld an award of $1,143,627.96 in fees and $27,484.15 in litigation expenses for the League of Women Voters of Missouri against Missouri Secretary of State John Ashcroft in a dispute over voter registration. The League of Women Voters sued under in 2018 under Section [...]
US President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Sunday aimed at promoting access to voting. It was passed on the 56th anniversary of a famous march known as “Bloody Sunday,” during which “state troopers beat and tear-gassed hundreds of peaceful protesters crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The protesters were seeking justice [...]
When Democrats took control of the House of Representatives after the 2018 midterm elections, they used their first piece of legislation to announce what their priorities would be after two years of not controlling any lever of the federal government. The bill called the “For the People Act of 2019,” sought to restructure portions of [...]
Federal judge blocks exclusion of thousands of Georgia voters before runoff election
A US federal judge in Georgia Monday granted an emergency motion to block Georgia from excluding 4,185 voters from voting in the Georgia Senate runoff election. The voters were excluded based on findings that they were no longer living in Georgia. Judge Leslie Gardner of the US District Court for the Middle District of Georgia [...]
DC federal judge blocks USPS policy changes ahead of election
A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia ordered preliminary injunctions Sunday and Monday against the US Postal Service (USPS) to prevent policy changes that have delayed national mail delivery. Following a similar ruling by a Pennsylvania federal judge Monday, the injunction by Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington, DC, marks the [...]
Voter suppression, which represents the dark underbelly of the American experiment, has reared its head throughout our history, particularly beginning at the cession of the Civil War. After the passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, former slaves got an all-too-fleeting taste of emancipation when they not only came out to vote in droves, but [...]
See No Evil: Sotomayor highlights the Roberts Court’s blind eye to discrimination
Today, the U.S. legal system faces a public that is becoming increasingly impatient with systemic unequal protection of the law. As the peaceful arbiter of disputes in a democratic society, the judiciary cannot stray too far from that public, lest its legitimacy be lost. However, recent Supreme Court jurisprudence has pulled that judiciary further from [...]
As the 2020 general election approaches, the Trump Administration and Republican-controlled states have ramped-up efforts to keep people of color from exercising their right to vote. Leaders of the Republican Party favor suppressing the votes of minority people, knowing they likely support Democratic candidates. In March 2020, The Guardian reported that Texas leads the South [...]
Michigan voter files lawsuit claiming improper registration maintenance
A Michigan voter filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Michigan Secretary of State and 16 county clerks, asserting that state officials have not properly maintained the voter registration as required by law. Tony Daunt, Executive Director of the conservative Michigan Freedom Fund, brought the lawsuit. The complaint alleges a violation of Section 8 of the [...]
