The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law came out with a report detailing 23 years worth of research and testimony from voters, and it will be used to debate reauthorization of the 41-year-old law (and Bush has said he will urge Congress to reauthorize).
Some of their findings:
Polling places and voting hours in minority neighborhoods are routinely changed shortly before elections.
Election officials were found to have illegally purged voter lists and refused to translate election materials for citizens who are not fluent in English.
Voters and advocates complained to federal officials about unfair election practices more often between 1982 and 2004 than between 1965 and 1982, data compiled from
Department of Justice records show.
Apparently, the law's critics say we no longer have a need for it because:
"There are essentially hundreds, if not thousands, more officials in the black belt where Jim Crow had its heyday," said Ralph Conner of the Heartland Institute in Chicago. "You just don't have the same need for the law as you had back then."
Now that is really funny, honestly, considering the whole Election Day Fiasco™ in 2004.
Machine malfunctions.
Confused and frightened voters, missing ballots, and long waits in Democratic districts--oh my!
Oh, and people living in Over-The-Rhine, Westwood, Price Hill, Norwood, Lincoln Heights, and etc...they had tons of voting problems. You don't suppose that's because the majority of voters in those neighborhoods were minorities?
Warren County has terrorist concerns??
Fox News reports about ballots disappearing in Democratic counties in Ohio. Yes, that Fox News.
By now, I'm sure we've all heard how Ohio was delivered to Bush.
Considering those problems alone (and more in Texas...shock shock! horror horror!), is it really time to abandon the Voting Rights Act?
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