Category Archives: Information for Activism

The GOP’s Voter Suppression Strategy | The Nation

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The GOP’s Voter Suppression Strategy

Ari Berman November 20, 2012   |    This article appeared in the December 10, 2012 edition of The Nation.

(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

 In a little-noticed yet significant development on election day, Minnesota voters defeated a constitutional amendment that would have required them to present a government-issued photo ID to cast a ballot. It was the first time voters had rejected a voter ID ballot initiative in any state. 

About the Author

Ari Berman

Ari Berman is a contributing writer for The Nation magazine and an Investigative Journalism Fellow at The Nation…

Also by the Author

Why We Still Need Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (Racism and Discrimination, Supreme Court, Voter Rights)

New voting restrictions prove why the Voting Rights Act is as relevant as it ever was.

Ari Berman

How the GOP’s War on Voting Backfired (Voter Rights, Race and Religion, Election 2012)

The backlash to voter suppression laws led to higher turnout among young, black and Hispanic voters.

Ari Berman

In May 2011, a poll showed that 80 percent of Minnesotans supported a photo ID law. “Nearly everyone in the state believed a photo ID was the most common-sense solution to the problem of voter fraud,” says Dan McGrath, executive director of Take Action Minnesota, a progressive coalition that led the campaign against the amendment. “We needed to reframe the issue. We decided to never say the word ‘fraud.’ Instead we would only talk about the cost, complications and consequences of the amendment.” According to the coalition, the photo ID law would have disenfranchised eligible voters (including members of the military and seniors) dumped an unfunded mandate on counties and imperiled same-day voter registration. On election day, 52 percent of Minnesotans opposed the amendment.

via The GOP’s Voter Suppression Strategy | The Nation.

The Real Reasons You Waited Hours in Line to Vote – Richard H. Pildes – The Atlantic

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The Real Reasons You Waited Hours in Line to Vote

inShare

2 NOV 20 2012, 1:00 PM ET 10

An Obama campaign legal adviser explains the humiliating meltdown in voting we saw around the country during this year’s presidential election.

Voters in Miami on November 6 (Andrew Innerarity/Reuters)

In the coming months, proposals will abound for election reforms to address the embarrassment to American democracy — and the indignity to citizens — of 8-hour lines to vote. But what, precisely, accounts for these lines in places like Prince William County and the Norfolk and Hampton areas of Virginia, or Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties in Florida? As a Senior Legal Advisor to the Obama campaign with responsibility for these and other voting issues, I want to share the knowledge the campaign’s thousands of observers on the ground generated about the underlying causes.

These causes can be grouped into three categories. I will focus specifically on Virginia, but the causes are largely similar, if not identical, elsewhere.

via The Real Reasons You Waited Hours in Line to Vote – Richard H. Pildes – The Atlantic.

Discussion: What Should Communities Be Doing To Further Fair Housing? – ProPublica

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Discussion: What Should Communities Be Doing To Further Fair Housing?

by Amanda Zamora

ProPublica, Nov. 1, 2012, 2:34 p.m.

 

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 banned housing discrimination and mandated that the government “affirmatively further” fair housing. But the law didn’t make it clear exactly what that meant.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development, charged with enforcing the law, has since granted billions of dollars in block grants to communities on the condition that they track obstacles to fair housing and their efforts to overcome them, and prove that they do not discriminate. But HUD has only withheld funding for violations only twice since 1974. Meanwhile, segregation levels have barely budged.

So what should communities be doing to “affirmatively further” fair housing? We asked fair housing experts and readers to weigh in on Quora.

Find excerpts of that discussion below, or visit our discussion page on Quora to tell us what you think.

Setting community goals

via Discussion: What Should Communities Be Doing To Further Fair Housing? – ProPublica.

Benefit for Efia Nwangaza

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Benefit for Efia Nwangaza

The Malcolm X Center and WMXP/95.5 FM Community Radio
Published Sep 8, 2012
South Carolina – Greenville’s Black leadership is calling on local churches and civic organizations to rally in tribute and aid of human rights organizer Efia Nwangaza, the Malcolm X Center and WMXP/95.5fm Community Radio, which she founded.
The Church and Community Benefit will be held on Sunday, September 16, 2012 at 5:00pm, Tabernacle Baptist Church.
The Tribute will feature gospel music, praise dance, acknowledgment of her community service and a “Christian-Giving March of Presentations.”
The Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination (http://wmxp955.webs.com/aboutus.htm ), a volunteer grassroots, community based, volunteer staffed, owned and operated action center, since 1991, serves as a non-profit, public space for developing, testing, training and implementation of approaches to popular education, strategic planning, and communications skill enhancement for human rights, self-determination, self-advocacy and wide ranging performing and organizing skill development.
WMXP-LP 95.5 FM – The Voice of the People, http://wmxp955.webs.com, is a community based, volunteer programmed, listener and local business supported non-commercial educational radio station.
Its mission is to give voice to the voiceless with local music, local talk, local news, and local people doing local programming.
The Breakfast Leadership Group is a broad based coalition of religious and civic organizations. It includes elected, appointed and volunteer leaders—professional and grassroots of all ages—who meet monthly to address issues that affect the African American community.
Its work has ranged from challenging the disproportionate expulsion of Black students to challenging recent redistricting.
We have lost far too many of our Black institutions, businesses, and non-profit groups in the past! Today, we ask for your help in saving these two institutions, and keeping these valuable assets to our community alive.
No contribution is too small! All contributions are tax deductible. Please make your tax deductible check payable to: Community Aid & Development, Inc: Malcolm X Center / WMXP Radio.
For more detailed information, please contact Sister Brenda Murray, Program Coordinator at 864-630-5529 or by E-mail at bmurray@divaex.com.
All proceeds used for community services and programming.
Sponsored by Greenville Breakfast Leadership Group
Contact:
Brenda Murray, Coordinator     864-630-5529   bmurray@divaex.com
Leola Robinson Simpson, Asst. 864-354-4127   robinsimp@charter.net
Rev. Oliver T. Hill,DD, Chair   864-270-0260   Othill2009@gmail.com
Efia Nwangaza                          864-901-8627   enwmxp@gmail.com

 

Benefit for Efia Nwangaza.