Voter Suppression « The Progressive Pulse

Texas voter ID law struck down

August 30, 2012 at 2:02 pmCategory:Uncategorized

A unanimous three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals — including a George W. Bush appointee — struck down Texas’ discriminatory voter ID law today. You can read the opinion by clicking here.

According to Reuters, the judges said that

“the evidence showed the law’s impact would ‘fall most heavily on the poor and that a disproportionately high percentage of African-Americans and Hispanics in Texas live in poverty.’”

Are you paying attention Thom Tillis?

LaRoque’s voter suppression Hail Mary

August 15, 2012 at 3:14 pmCategory:Uncategorized

by Greg Flynn

Former state representative Stephen LaRoque appeared in federal court in Raleigh last week to face charges of theft and money laundering. Pending trial in Greenville at a later date LaRoque was released on an unsecured bond and restricted to travel within the 44 counties of the Eastern District of North Carolina. That has not stopped another case involving LaRoque from making it all the way to the Supreme Court in Washington DC. The spotlight will be on voter suppression, namely the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act, not LaRoque, though LaRoque’s name and statements appear in documents submitted to the court, including statements referring to his status as a state legislator.
Read More…

Dismal runoff numbers show need to make instant runoffs work

July 18, 2012 at 10:49 amCategory:Uncategorized

by Rob Schofield

Adam Sotak of Democracy NC and Rob Richie of FairVote have a compelling op-ed that’s been running in multiple places around the state. The piece explains:

a) Why North Carolina needs to ditch its lame primary runoff system (a system that, once again, turned out only a tiny fragment of the electorate yesterday), and b) What it would take to make instant runoff voting work better than past experiments. It’s definitely worth a read. Here’s an excerpt:

“North Carolina has had several IRV elections, and three exit polls show voters overwhelmingly preferred it to returning to the polls for a runoff. Unfortunately, the state’s voting equipment currently requires “workarounds” that delay the count. Once North Carolina has optical scan equipment like others have, it would have an IRV tally to share on election night along with other results.

IRV has several advantages: Read More…

Tillis misleads again on “meeting” with NAACP

June 13, 2012 at 6:59 pmCategory:Uncategorized

by Rob Schofield

UPDATED: WRAL’s Laura Leslie worked late last night and finally caught up with Reverend William Barber of the NAACP. She posted this story at 10:27 pm (updated at 1:40 am) in which Barber disputes information released by House Speaker Tillis’ office that’s discussed in the post below.

WRAL.com reported this afternoon that NC House Speaker Thom Tillis’ office is claiming that ”the Speaker had a meeting with the NAACP scheduled for 1:45 this afternoon, but the NAACP canceled the meeting.”

As usual, Tillis’ people were/are misleading the news media.

I spoke with Rev. William Barber, President of the North Carolina NAACP late this afternoon. Barber told me he’s been trying to get in touch with reporter Laura Leslie to correct the story she was fed by Tillis’ spokesperson, but that they had failed to connect. (UPDATED: It should be noted that Leslie tried to get hold of Barber first, but he was originally unavailable).

Barber told me that the truth of the matter is that Read More…