Politics
Obama administration to join voting rights cases in Ohio, Wisconsin
African American voters
The Obama administration plans to join lawsuits in Ohio and Wisconsin over Republican-backed changes to state voting laws that plaintiffs say violate the U.S. Constitution and Voting Rights Act.
“We have already filed suit in Texas and North Carolina. I expect that we are going to be filing in cases that are already in existence in Wisconsin, as well as in Ohio,” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in an interview with ABC News, according to a transcript provided by the U.S. Department of Justice.
In May, the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio sued the state on behalf of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) of Ohio, the League of Women Voters of Ohio and several African American churches for cuts made to Ohio’s early voting period. State lawmakers in the GOP-led General Assembly eliminated Golden Week, a five- or six-day period when Ohioans could both register to vote and cast a ballot.
In June, the NAACP and other plaintiffs asked a federal court judge to restore those days and force Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted to establish more in-person, early voting hours on more weekend days and weeknights. Husted, a Republican, had previously released a statewide, uniform early voting schedule that excluded Sundays, ruling out “Souls to the Polls” voting drives by African American churches.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Southern District Court of Ohio, alleges the cuts violate the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Lawyers for the NAACP say the cuts make it more difficult for lower-income and African American Ohioans to vote.
Earlier this year, a federal judge used Section 2 to strike down a voter ID law in Wisconsin, saying the law discriminated against racial minorities who are more likely to not have a photo ID.
“I am attorney general of the United States. I will not stand for, I will not allow people to take away that which people gave their lives to give, and that is the ability for the American people to vote,” Holder said in the interview.
