ICYMI: Democrats and voters filed lawsuits in three states asking for courts to get involved in the redistricting process to ensure fair maps are in place for the 2022 elections.
Take a look at the states involved and read the complaints⤵️🗺🧵
⚜️In Louisiana, voters asked for the courts to step in and draw congressional districts since it's unlikely that the state government can agree on maps due to a Republican-controlled legislature and a Democratic governor. democracydocket.com/2021/04/voters…
🐟Minnesota voters have turned to the courts to draw both its state and congressional legislative districts, in anticipation of disagreement between the Democrat House and Republican Senate. Courts have drawn MN's maps since 1970 due to political impasse. democracydocket.com/2021/04/voters…
📜Over in Pennsylvania, voters want the court to draw state and federal districts, believing that a consensus between the Republican legislature and Democratic governor is unlikely. democracydocket.com/2021/04/voters…
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🚨ALERT: The redistricting process starts NOW. This year, lawmakers across the country will use census data to redraw state and federal legislative districts that will impact voters for at LEAST the next 10 years.
Get the facts on redistricting and litigation below👇🧵
So what exactly is redistricting? It’s the process of defining the borders of electoral districts. In the U.S., when someone says “redistricting,” they’re usually referring to the task of drawing new legislative districts every ten years.
Article I of the Constitution describes how the House of Representatives is composed of elected officials based on population. Each state has a certain number of reps in the House relative to its population. But how do we know the population of a state?
🚨ALERT: There are now THREE voting rights lawsuits challenging #SB202 in Georgia. All three cases make crystal clear that the law would hit minority voters the hardest. Check out the complaints and learn more about who brought each suit... #gapol mini-🧵
"[T]he grab bag of voting restrictions that populate SB 202 make clear that the Bill was animated by an impermissible goal of restricting voting." democracydocket.com/cases/georgia-…
Here are the 9 provisions they’re challenging in the suit… 🧵
1. Requiring photo ID submission with a VBM request. This rule will harm elderly, poor & minority voters the most since they’re the LEAST likely to have ID. Studies have shown that 25% of Black voters do NOT currently have valid government photo ID, compared to 11% of all voters.
2. Banning mobile voting, except in cases of emergencies. In 2020, Fulton County—where 44% of residents are Black—turned to mobile voting to mitigate long lines. The new ban will disproportionately affect Black voters and will inevitably drive up wait times at the polls.
ICYMI: 5 major Georgia companies have NOT outright condemned voter suppression bills #HB531 and #SB241, despite growing pressure from community activists. Take a look at who these companies are and what their statements say🧵⤵️
.@aflac released a statement calling for “secure voting while preserving election integrity”—language that parrots the baseless voter fraud claims made by Trump and Republicans. Make no mistake: these bills do not stop fraud—they stop young people and people of color from voting.
.@CocaCola has long highlighted its activism in the Civil Rights Movement and its backing of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. Yet, they've failed to condemn voter suppression legislation that poses a direct affront to the very issues they claim to care about.
🎓THREAD: College students make up nearly 20 million eligible voters across the country and are often the target of voter suppression, especially students who move to another state for school. Let’s break down the ins and outs of student voting⤵️
✅Starting with the basics: College students can register to vote using their campus address. In 1979, #SCOTUS affirmed in Symm v. United States that blocking college students from using their school address to register to vote violated the 26th Amendment.
The 26th Amendment, ratified in 1971, lowered the federal voting age to 18 and prohibited voter discrimination based on age. Voting laws targeting college students usually incorporate some aspect of age, so Symm fell under the 26th.🗳