voting rights

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Advocates Work to Get Ex-Cons in Voting Booths

New laws make tens of thousands eligible to vote again

(Newser) - Grass-roots activists in states across the country are working to register an unusual bloc of potential voters: former felons. While nearly all states limit the right of convicted criminals to vote, most offer avenues back to the voting booth in varying degrees, the Washington Post reports. In the potential swing...

Ind. Nuns Don't Have a Prayer at Polls

South Bend sisters run afoul of strict voter-ID laws

(Newser) - A dozen nuns who lacked proper photo ID were turned away from an Indiana voting booth yesterday—by a fellow nun. None of the nuns, all over 80, had a driver's license because they don't drive, and some presented outdated passports, the AP reports. Their convent has launched a major...

Supreme Court OKs Photo ID Requirement for Voters

Ruling upholds Indiana law critics charge will keep minorities from casting ballots

(Newser) - The Supreme Court today upheld photo ID requirements for Indiana voters, the Justices’ most significant election-law ruling since Bush v. Gore—and one critics say could keep minorities and poor voters from voting in November. The 6-3 decision validated the country’s most arduous voting rules, though 20 states have...

Paper Ballots, High Turnout May Delay Calif. Returns

One-third of state abandons machines

(Newser) - Super Tuesday's biggest prize may take the longest to award, CNN reports. One-third of California's counties have reverted to paper balloting for today’s primary, and the ballots may not be counted by tomorrow. Electronic machines were stashed over reliability concerns, and excitement over the race has generated some 700,...

Obama Wants Voter-Rights Official Sacked

Said voter ID laws don't hurt minorities; they 'don't become elderly'

(Newser) - Barack Obama wrote to the Justice Department asking for the dismissal of John Tanner, the head of its voting rights division, in the wake of Tanner's assertions that voter ID laws primarily hurt old white people, because "minorities don't become elderly the way white people do. They die first....

Supreme Court Will Take Up Lethal Injection

Constitutionality at issue; docket also includes voting rights

(Newser) - The Supreme Court will take up the constitutionality of lethal injections in what a public defender called one of the most critical death penalty cases “in decades.” The challenge stems from a 2004 suit by two Kentucky inmates on death row who charged that the method constitutes cruel...

Senate Derails DC's Bid for a House Seat

GOP blocks bill to give capital city voting rights in Congress

(Newser) - Residents of the nation's capital will remain without a Congressional representative after a measure that would have given them a House seat stalled in the Senate. Supporters fell three votes short on the most promising effort in 30 years, the Washington Post reports, and the bill is unlikely to come...

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