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Texas closed 750 polling places after SCOTUS gutted Voting Rights Act, more than any other state

72% of closures came in 50 counties with fastest growth of blacks & Latinos

And last night Democrats & minority voters in Houston waited 6 hours to vote

motherjones.com/politics/2020/…
1,688 polling places closed since 2012 in states previously subject to Voting Rights Act. 750 closed in Texas, which had 6 hour lines last night

This is among best evidence I've seen for why Congress needs to restore VRA. House has passed bill but McConnell refuses to hold vote
Hervis Rogers waited 6 hours and 20 minute to vote last night in Houston

High turnout, lack of poll workers, old machines, long ballot contributed to long lines

But don’t forget Texas closed 750 polling places after SCOTUS gutted Voting Rights Act

📷via @edlavaCNN
The 6 hour lines we saw in Texas are a form of a poll tax for black, Latino & students voters. My segment on @democracynow today: democracynow.org/2020/3/5/air_b…
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Ari Berman
@AriBerman
What’s happening in Wisconsin absolute travesty

State won’t delay April 7 election & GOP legislature refusing to mail ballots to every voter in order to protect right-wing state Supreme Court seat

This is voter suppression on steroids

motherjones.com/politics/2020/…
Top election official in Milwaukee tells me city forced to cut number of polling places from 180 to 5 because of covid. “There’s nothing fair about this election” he says

By refusing to mail ballots to every registered voter WI GOP deliberately trying to suppress black votes
Federal court just declined to move WI primary but relaxed stringent absentee ballot rules:

-Voters have until Friday to request absentee ballot

-Ballots mailed by April 13 will count

-You don't need witness signature if you can't obtain one

jsonline.com/story/news/pol…
Read 10 tweets
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Ari Berman
@AriBerman
Election mess in Ohio & other states shows why every state should adopt vote by mail asap & send a ballot to every registered voter. Voters shouldn't have to choose between their health & their vote

My new video for @MotherJones

In addition to vote by mail - and rules to ensure votes counted - we also need expanded early voting, online registration, curbside voting & polling places for historically disenfranchised communities. Good suggestions from @BrennanCenter & @civilrightsorg motherjones.com/politics/2020/…
Good ideas from @marceelias on how to ensure mail ballots counted:

1. Postage paid by govt
2. Ballots postmarked by Election Day must count
3. Restrictive signature matching laws must be reformed
4. Community orgs should be able to help w/ ballots

democracydocket.com/2020/03/safegu…
Read 4 tweets
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Ari Berman
@AriBerman
Democratic Party electorate is 40% non-white but the first two states are 92% white. This is a travesty
NH is 4th whitest state in US. IA is 6th. The stated principles of Democratic Party totally at odds with the two states that go first
I’m still thinking about how unfair it is that two rural states that are 91% & 93% white have so much power to shape the outcome of Democratic race
Read 3 tweets

Related threads

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Chris Geidner
@chrisgeidner
Now, for the final #SCOTUS decisions of the term.
First #SCOTUS decision is Mitchell v. Wisconsin, with Breyer joining the more conservative justices and Gorsuch joining the more liberal justices to create a 5-4 ruling allowing a blood-draw from an unconscious driver when BAC information is sought. supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf…
Note that Gorsuch did not join his more liberal colleagues on the merits of their dissent, though. He would have just tossed the case.
Read 16 tweets
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Cristian Farias
@cristianafarias
A major break in the Census litigation: Plaintiffs in the case accuse the Trump administration of concealing evidence of the real reason for a citizenship question.

To wit: A push to create a structural electoral advantage for “Republicans and non-Hispanic Whites.”

Wow.
All along, the Trump administration has insisted that it needs citizenship data to better enforce the Voting Rights Act.

The trial court in New York found those reasons “pretextual,” but this new evidence goes further: The data would be used for rank partisan advantage.
That’s a big revelation in this case, and as close to a smoking gun if this were a civil rights dispute.

But it isn’t. This is instead a dry, administrative law case. Because of limitations in law and doctrine, the evidence was largely limited to the “administrative record.”
Read 11 tweets
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Ali Adair #WaveCast #WaveCastFL
@AliAdair22
🏆In the astonishingly corrupt world of politics in Washington today, it is important to acknowledge people that do the right thing no matter the consequences. I think we should acknowledge the 58 members of the 115th Congress who did the right thing.

#ImpeachTrump
🥇These members of the 115th Congress didn’t think about the political ramifications, their reputations or the timing; they just voted honorably not to table the measure to impeach a prez who is clearly not abiding by the law or representing our country the way it deserves to be.
🏆Most of these members of the 115th Congress are still in Congress, but some are Governors or in new positions. One member, Louise Slaughter D-NY, sadly died in 2018. More on her later.
Read 80 tweets
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Rick Hasen
@rickhasen
On this Independence Day, when we celebrate the U.S. as a democracy and as we await a Scalia-like successor to Justice Kennedy to be nominated for #SCOTUS, some thoughts on how the Court could set the cause of voting rights back significantly in the years to come: /1
The first way that the Court can negatively affect voting rights is by holding that democracy-enhancing laws like the Voting Rights Act or campaign contribution limits are unconstitutional. The second way is by upholding state laws making it harder to register and vote. /2
In the first category, at the top of my list is that #SCOTUS with a fifth hard conservative on race could either hold that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is an unconstitutional racial classification or interpret it so weekly it dies death by 1,000 cuts /3
Read 24 tweets
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Let America Vote
@letamericavote
THREAD: It's the 5th anniversary of Shelby County v Holder, the #SCOTUS case that gutted key provisions of the Voting Rights Act. #RestoreTheVOTE 1/5
As Justice Ginsburg said in her dissent, gutting the VRA "is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet." 2/5
Since 2013, Republicans across the country have been putting up barriers to the ballot box, making voting harder for students, low-income Americans, people of color and seniors. 3/5
Read 5 tweets
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Omar GP
@omargp
And here you go, tweeps! We're going to #SCOTUS! The Civil Rights Act protects #LGBT people from discrimination. lambdalegal.org/in-court/legal…
So we at @LambdaLegal are asking #SCOTUS to settle whether sexual orientation discrimination is a form of sex discrimination. #LGBT
We are honored to represent Jameka Evans in this case. A proud, gender-nonconforming lesbian woman fired because of her sex. #SCOTUS #LGBT
Read 6 tweets

Trending hashtags

#BlueTsunami2018 #SouthCarolina #SCOTUS #Ohio #DecadeinReview #CensusNerd #Illinois #Mexico #CitizensUnited #2020Census #Texas #Houston #LGBT #Mobbity #Ignore #VotingRights #ForThePeople #ImpeachTrump #Kentucky #Idols #MENA #CitizenshipQuestion #AbbottvPerez #S949 #break

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