Greene County Democrat

Tag: Help America Vote Act (HAVA)

  • Newswire : Republican Party attempts to strike 225,000 voters from North Carolina election rolls

    NC voting place

    By Sunita Sohrabji

     

    SPECIAL TO THE TRICE EDNEY NEWS WIRE FROM ETHNIC MEDIA SERVICES

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – A group of civil rights organizations announced Sept. 5 they are challenging a lawsuit by the Republican Party, which seeks to deem 225,000 registered voters in North Carolina ineligible to vote.

    The lawsuit impacts any voter in North Carolina who does not have a Social Security number and a driver’s license — or other DMV document — on file with the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE).

    Election officials note that this could be a fault of human error, and that such documents were not required before 2005, when the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) took effect.In its lawsuit filed Aug. 23, the RNC stated that the NCSBE allowed over a quarter million people to register to vote with registration forms that failed to collect required identification information. The RNC deemed it a violation of HAVA.

    “Because of these errors, the North Carolina voter rolls are potentially replete with ineligible voters — including possible non-citizens — all of whom are now registered to vote,” declared the RNC in its lawsuit.
    RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a press statement: “The NCSBE has once again failed in its mandate to keep non-citizens off the voter rolls, fueling distrust and jeopardizing our elections. We are committed to the basic principle – and commonsense law – that only Americans decide American elections.”

    Voting by undocumented immigrants is extremely rare, reports the Brennan Center. In a survey of 23.5 million ballots, the organization found only 30 fraudulent votes, just 0.0001 percent of the votes cast. The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, also reports that non-citizens do not vote in detectable numbers. Non-citizens who attempt to vote can be criminally prosecuted and deemed ineligible for citizenship.


    Motion to Intervene

    The North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, along with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Southern Coalition for Social Justice filed a motion to intervene Sept. 4, on behalf of the North Carolina NAACP, and Sailor Jones, associate director of Common Cause, North Carolina, who is directly affected by the RNC lawsuit. The NAACP notes that Black voters would be disproportionately impacted, should the RNC’s lawsuit prevail.

    In an interview with Ethnic Media Services, Jones said he has voted in North Carolina for decades. But he re-registered to vote on July 8, 2022, after changing residences. Neither his social security number or his driver’s license show up in voter files, thus he would be deemed ineligible to vote, should the RNC prevail. Jones said he provided his driver’s license when voting in the 2024 primary election, and has provided his Social Security number to election officials in the past.

    The RNC’s ‘Desperate Move’

    “Now I am one of hundreds of thousands eligible North Carolina voters whom extremists want to deny their freedom to cast a ballot just days before voting begins in our state,” he said, characterizing the lawsuit as a “desperate move.”

    The East Carolina University Center for Survey Research released a poll Sept. 3, which showed Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump in a one-point lead against Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Presidential candidate. Dr. Peter Francia, Director of the East Carolina University Center for Survey Research said in an interview with CBS17 that the razor-thin lead was well within the 3 point margin of error.

    Jones said he expects more North Carolinians coming to the polls to rebuke the Republican Party’s extreme policies, including restricting abortion access, new cuts to public education, and penalties for publicly protesting.


    American Basketball Player Ineligible to Vote

    “While these extremists may have wanted North Carolina voters to be discouraged by this latest political ploy, they forgot we live in a state known for breaking voting records regardless of the barriers in place,” he said.

    Jones provided to EMS the full list of a quarter million people who would be deemed ineligible to vote. (The list can be searched by downloading the spreadsheet. While the list has over 750,000 names, only those missing both a driver’s license and a Social Security number would be potentially ineligible to vote).
    Jones noted that one of his favorite basketball players, University of North Carolina’s Armando Bacot, is on the list. “When you mess with college basketball in North Carolina, you mess with all of us,” said Jones. Bacot, 24, was born in Richmond, Virginia; he is Black.

    The North Carolina State Board of Elections has not commented on the lawsuit. It does encourage people to check its database to see if they are still actively registered to vote. People who are listed as inactive can re-register up to 30 days prior to the election. For voters who lack a Social Security number or driver’s license, North Carolinians can submit a photo ID, along with a utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that shows a name and address.

  • ‘Ride to Restore Section 5’ grassroots lobbyists push Voting Rights Advancement Act in Washington, D. C.

    Special to the Democrat by: John Zippert,
    Co-Publisher

    Hodge.jpgwash group.jpgCongresswoman Terri Sewell address youth as part of the training to support ride to revive Section 5.

    A group of sixty community activists from Alabama went to Washington, D. C. in six vans from Sunday to Tuesday (June 24-27, 2017) to support the Voting Rights Advancement Act (VRAA), HR 2948, introduced last week by our Alabama Congresswoman Terri Sewell.
    The bill was introduced on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Shelby vs, Holder decision, which gutted Sections 4 and 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

    The Voting Rights Advancement Act would restore and advance Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act to include 14 states and other political subdivisions. These areas would again be placed under the protection of Section 5 and be required to have any election changes pre-cleared by the Department of Justice before they could be implanted.
    The VRAA updates the criteria and establishes a nationwide coverage formula for states and political subdivisions that would be subject again to the pre-clearance provisions of Section 5. Any state that has had 15 or more voting violations in the last 25-year period; or 10 or more voting violations, at least one of the violations committed by the state itself, would be covered. A political subdivision within a state can be covered if it commits 3 or more voting violations.
    The bill also carefully defines what constitutes a voting rights violation and which election changes must be submitted for pre-clearance.
    Congresswoman Terri Sewell said, “The VRAA is an advancement bill, it advances voting rights throughout the country. Under this bill, all eleven states that were part of the Confederacy, including Alabama, as well as other political subdivisions around the nation and on tribal lands would be covered and subject to the pre-clearance provisions.”
    The VRAA would classify voting changes such as strict voter photo identification requirements, and voter registration requirements to be reviewed and possibly overturned if they were deemed to be more stringent than the requirements in Section 303b of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002.The VRAA, HR 2948, has 182 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives. They are all Democrats. And the companion legislation S.1490 in the Senate has 46 co-sponsors, also all Democrats, so far.
    The grassroots voting activists visited more than 75 Congressional offices, including the membership of the House Judiciary Committee, Alabama’s delegation of six Republican members besides Sewell and our two Senators – Richard Shelby and Luther Strange. The grassroots activists left a package of information including factsheets on the legislation, a Senate Sketches by State Senator Hank Sanders of Selma, which deals with the “power of one vote”, and materials about the Bridge Crossing Jubilee in Selma, the first weekend in March each year.
    On Tuesday morning, the Alabama group joined by other activists in Washington from the Rural Coalition, Food and Water Watch, National Family Farm Coalition and other groups had a rally and press conference on the Capitol grounds facing the Cannon House Office Building on Independence Avenue and First Street NE.
    The rally had many chants supporting the revival of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act along with civil rights freedom songs. Several Congresspersons, including Terri Sewell, G. K. Butterfield of North Carolina, Marc Veasey of Dallas, Texas and Katherine M. Clark of Massachusetts addressed the rally. Congressman John Lewis drove by the rally on Independence Avenue and saluted the crowd.
    On Monday night, the group had a meeting at Howard University Law School, which was addressed by several civil rights veterans, including former D. C. Congressman Walter E.
    Fauntroy, Viola Bradford, who wrote for the Southern Courier newspaper in Montgomery, Antonio Harrison, a former Alabama State Senator, who lives and works in D. C. Professor Ardua of the Law School spoke on the need for reparations to address the continuing impact of slavery on Black people.
    The Ride to Revive Section 5 was sponsored by the SOS Coalition for Justice and Democracy, Alabama New South Coalition and other local groups in Alabama. For more information or to make donations to help the cause – contact Shelley Fearson at 334-262-0932 or email: Alabamanewsouth Coordinator@ aol.com