Southern lawmakers push for new restrictions on voting.

[billyoc]

That didn't take long. Just months after a big election year that saw big turnout across the South, many state legislatures in the region are moving to pass an array of laws that create new barriers to voting, mostly in the name of combating "voter fraud."

At the top of the list is Georgia -- a site of election controversy last November -- where on May 5, Gov. Sonny Perdue signed a law requiring prospective voters to prove their citizenship. Since Georgia is covered by the Voting Rights Act, the bill will need to be pre-cleared by the Obama Justice Department; if it does, the law will go into effect in 2010.

The debate echoed a similar controversy that Facing South reported on last fall, where Republican Secretary of State Karen Handel "flagged" thousands of voters suspected of being non-citizens, even encouraging Georgia citizens to challenge the citizenship of fellow voters.

...

http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/05/southern-lawmakers-move-to-place-new-restrictions-on-voting.html

The GOP's 21st Century strategy.

[ananda]

1. Texas Reeps are trying to push through Voter ID.

Ick.

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[Glorfindel]

3. As a Georgian living in Mississppi, I can say honestly

that anyone who thinks that racism isn't the number one motivating factor behind all these proposed restrictions on voting is self-delusional. Hatred and fear are alive and well, and the Repukes who hold all power at the state level are whipping them to fever pitch.

[Kalyke]

6. But it's alive and well all over the country.

Not just in the South.

As a matter of fact, the South tends to push it out in the open, yell about, deal with it and get it over with.

The North, however, tries to pretend it isn't there, is a Southern issue and then never deals with it so that it festers.

(Southern girl married to a Northern boy here: I know of what I speak). :)

[bluestateguy]

4. As long as we have a (D) Attorney General, they effect of these laws can be muted

To a degree anyway.

Obama's Justice Department still has to clear these states laws.

I really don't give a damn how the Supreme Court rules on the VRA. The Justice Department will enforce it anyway. What is the Court going to do? Stop them?

[KamaAina]

5. All fifty states are covered by the Voting Rights Act

Since Georgia is covered by the Voting Rights Act, the bill will need to be pre-cleared by the Obama Justice Department

What they mean is that Georgia, several other Southern states, and a number of municipal jurisdictions -- many of them outside the South -- are covered by Section 5 of the Act, which requires pre-clearance of changes like this, as well as redistricting, etc., in areas that have a demonstrated history of racial discrimination in voting practices.

I am rather surprised to see such sloppy writing in Facing South. The Institute for Southern Studies is among the best of the regional think tanks.

edit: Section 5 is the part of the Voting Rights Act that is currently under attack review by the Extreme Court. :scared: