New answers tagged us-state-laws
12
I read this BBC article, but it's not totally clear for me why the recent voting rights laws passed in more than a dozen Republican-controlled state legislatures affect the Democratic base, but not their own constituents.
That's because they don't. In fact, the provisions so loudly criticized by Democrats in Republican-controlled states tend to be similar ...
28
I think this whole issue would be clearer if people understood that the GOP goal here isn't voter suppression; the GOP goal is voter attrition. Every hoop to jump, every obstacle to navigate, every inconvenience and frustration, translates to a higher likelihood that a given voter will just say 'to hell with it' and not vote. The GOP-sponsored laws in ...
18
Something missing from the other answers are the most fundamental voter rights of all: that your vote be counted, and that the majority vote decides the election result. Quoting from Voting Rights Lab, also reported in CNN, The New York Times, The Guardian, and USA Today among others (emphasis mine):
So far this session, more than 180 bills shifting ...
32
affect the Democratic base, but not their own constituents
Besides the fact that you're using the word "constituents" incorrectly (everyone who is eligible to vote for you is your constituent, regardless of whether they do so), you're phrasing it as a sharper dichotomy than it is. It's not an issue of affecting only the people likely to vote for ...
51
One consideration not mentioned so far is the disparate areas in which Republican voters and Democratic voters tend to live, the so-called "Rural-Urban Divide".
People living in more rural areas have a stronger tendency to vote Republican than people living in more urban areas (source). So in a sense, yes, Republicans are better at standing in ...
106
There's a bevy of tools being used but they boil down to a few basic categories:
Close polling stations in key neighborhoods, forcing longer trips and longer lines at polling stations where voters are predominately People of Color (POC) & low socio-economic-standing (SES). This raises the marginal cost of voting (higher cost of transport) as well as ...
1
One point not addressed by other answers, is that federal law, either as a matter of statutory change, or as a matter of changing constitutional interpretation, can change over time.
For example, suppose that a state constitutional provision is unconstitutional or pre-empted by other federal laws when enacted, but left on the books. Then, federal law changes....
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