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Voting Rights

Stacey Abrams giving the keynote speech at the Georgia State Democratic Convention in Atlanta, last August.

Stacey Abrams and the Black Women Reshaping the Left

By Editors' Choice

She and political strategists like Jessica Byrd and Kayla Reed are designing a new theory of the Democratic coalition. By Brittney Cooper, The New York Times — For too long, the Democratic Party has been comfortable with black women only running conventions or registering voters — doing background work. The party expects black women to be its backbone, as when 98 percent of black female voters in Alabama cast their ballots for…

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A voter casts a ballot at a polling station in San Francisco, California, on June 5, 2018.

Last-Minute Tips for Figuring Out Your Ballot and Making Sure You Can Vote

By News & Current Affairs

The midterms are here. Here’s everything you need to know to hit the polls and cast an informed vote this election season. By Cynthia Gordy Giwa, ProPublica — While there are often reports of problems that can arise at the polls (maybe you’ve seen news of malfunctioning machines and registration purges in states that have early voting), a few simple steps can help make sure you’re ready to successfully cast your vote. Let’s start with…

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Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum talks with a supporter after speaking to voters and public school teachers at a rally in Miami Gardens, Florida.

‘It’s a moment of history for us’: will black voters shape Florida’s future?

By Commentaries/Opinions

The prospect of electing the state’s first black governor is expected to boost African American voter turnout. By Richard Luscombe, The Guardian — It has been nearly two years since Florida’s black voters mostly stayed home on election day and, in the eyes of some, gave Donald Trump a free pass to win the state and the White House. To Quiana Malone, it was a mistake that cannot be allowed to happen…

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Civil rights organizations have sued Georgia’s Republican secretary of state for failing to register 53,000 new voters, most of them black. Reuters/Christopher Aluka Berry

Georgia election fight shows that black voter suppression, a southern tradition, still flourishes

By Editors' Choice

Georgia’s refusal to process 53,000 voter registrations, mostly filed by African-Americans, is the latest in a long history of black voter suppression in the South, from poll taxes to literacy tests. By Frederick Knight, The Conversation — Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp has been sued for suppressing minority votes after an Associated Press investigation revealed a month before November’s midterm election that his office has not approved 53,000 voter registrations – most…

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The crowd at a get-out-the-vote rally during a speech by Michelle Obama, Miami, Florida, September 2018

Fighting to Vote

By Editors' Choice

By Michael Tomasky, The New York Review — The Embattled Vote in America: From the Founding to the Present by Allan J. Lichtman Harvard University Press, 315 pp., $27.95 If you grew up, as I did, in the 1960s and 1970s, watching (albeit through a child’s eyes) the civil rights movement notch victory after victory, you could be forgiven for thinking at the time that that happy condition was normal.…

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Republicans Have a Secret Weapon in the Midterms: Voter Suppression

By Editors' Choice

After losing in 2012, the GOP enacted the harshest limits on voting since Jim Crow. It could make the difference this year from Florida to North Dakota. By Jay Michaelson, Daily Beast — With Democrats furious over Donald Trump, and many Republicans furious over the treatment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the 2018 elections are likely to see the highest turnout of midterm voters in recent history. But those voters will be confronted by…

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Voting

Pay Attention: They Are Trying to Keep You From Voting

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Monique Judge, The Root — Are you registered to vote? Have you confirmed that your voter registration is valid and ready to go for Election Day? Even if you think you are positively sure everything is OK with your registration, double-check it again—it’s imperative that you do. According to a report by Salon, voters in Georgia stand a 1 in 10 chance of having been purged from the voting rolls.…

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This 1867 drawing by Alfred Waud, "The First Vote," depicts Black men waiting in line to cast ballots. In Southern states, Black men first gained the right to vote in state constitutions drafted during the post-Civil War Reconstruction era.,

Honoring Reconstruction’s Legacy: The Freedom to Vote

By Editors' Choice

During the 1870s, more than a half a million Black men voted for the first time in their lives. But this wave of progressive change did not last long. By Rebekah Barber and Billy Corriher, Facing South — One hundred and fifty years ago, a Congress dominated by “Radical Republicans” — mostly former abolitionists who represented Northern states — mandated that Southern states rewrite their constitutions, ratify the 14th amendment, and grant…

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