At the top of the show we had some Good News about the restoration of voting rights for some people in Maryland.Unfortunately, we also have some Not Good News about the right to vote. For one thing, New Hampshire's voter photo ID law has gone into effect.
For another, if a suit now before a federal district court fails, voters in North Carolina will soon face that same sort of hurdle, a hurdle that in North Carolina as elsewhere is faced disproportionately by the poor, the elderly, and people of color.
The law was passed within weeks after the Supreme Court ripped the heart from the Voting Rights Act, ruling in 2013 that states with a history of discrimination no longer needed federal approval for voting law changes affecting minorities.
The law has a number of other provisions with the effect of suppressing voter registration and increasing the ability of rich donors to influence elections, several of which are the subject of a separate suit.
It seems so long ago that the argument was over how to get more people to vote. But that was before the right wing realized that the fewer people who can vote, the better it is for them.
Sources cited in links:
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/02/09/3747158/new-hampshire-voter-id-2/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/north-carolina-voter-id_us_56a671bfe4b076aadcc77201 http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2013/06/left-side-of-aisle-114-part-3.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2013/08/1216-update-voter-suppression-comes-to.html
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