Today, Project Vote, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., and New Orleans attorney Ronald Wilson put Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler on notice for voting rights violations in the state.
The groups called on Schedler, the Dept. of Children and Family Services, and Dept. of Health and Hospitals, to take corrective action necessary to bring the state into compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), citing evidence of the state denying numerous low-income residents of the opportunity to register to vote. The NVRA requires public assistance agencies that provide services to low-income residents to offer voter registration services to their clients.
In the letter, the groups cited evidence of the state’s failure to comply with the law, including Election Assistance Commission reports, which show voter registration originating at public assistance agencies have plummeted by 88 percent since the law was implemented in 1995.
Surveys of agency offices confirmed the dramatic decline in compliance with the law. In addition to numerous individuals recently reporting that they had not been offered voter registration services while receiving other services from the agencies, the surveys indicate agency staff and personnel at many offices were inherently unfamiliar with their obligations under the NVRA with several offices failing to make voter applications available altogether.
We are eager to work with state officials to bring the state into compliance with the NVRA to ensure all Louisianans have an equal opportunity to register to vote.
Read the press release here.
Read the notice letters here.
One Responses to “Louisiana Defaulting on Federal Obligation to Register Low-Income Residents”
Comments are closed.
Why isn’t it the responsibility of the individual to get registered? This ‘what can my country do for me’ attitude is what got us into the shape we are in. Hold the individual responsible for his own actions or inaction and quit your whining!