Voting rights is the latest subject to be examined in the magazine Human Rights, a publication of the American Bar Association. The current issue features our own Estelle Rogers, who writes that the “job of fighting back” against regressive voting laws is in the hands of the people.
“What the current period has shown us, once again, is that when faced with a crisis, the American people respond, taking action to rescue their rights,” she notes.
In addition, key federal laws, if properly enforced, can counteract the spate of regressive voter registration and voting laws in the states. For example, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (commonly called “Motor Voter”) are in place to protect against state laws that restrict access to the ballot.
“Clearly, the federal voting laws are powerful weapons to combat many of the state laws that have proven so popular with regressive legislators (some armed with model bills written by the American Legislative Exchange Council, better known as ALEC),” writes Rogers.
“The increased public awareness of the far right’s concerted attack on voting, awareness due in no small part to the increased media attention to it, gives me hope that what we are seeing is merely another cycle in American political history, and it too shall pass.”
Read the voting rights-themed edition of Human Rights here.