New Voting Restrictions May Affect 5 Million Voters
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on October 3rd, 2011 4:38 am by HL
New Voting Restrictions May Affect 5 Million Voters
A Brennan Center study finds 19 recently passed voting laws in 14 states could make it significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012, leading to “significant electoral impact in next year’s hard-fought races.”
“The states that have already cut back on voting rights will provide 171 electoral votes in 2012 — 63% of the 270 needed to win the presidency.”
Minorities, poor and young voters will likely be most affected.
How One Man Took Control of North Carolina
The New Yorker looks at the effects the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling striking down limits on corporate spending in campaigns has had on North Carolina, and finds that conservative businessman Art Pope has achieved enormous influence in the state.
Pope helped flip the state’s legislature from Democratic to Republican, and he is poised to exert huge influence in the 2012 Presidential election — in a state that most experts say President Obama must carry in order to be re-elected.
“For years, Pope, like several other farsighted conservative corporate activists, has been spending millions in an attempt to change the direction of American politics.” Now, with the Citizens United ruling, in swing states like North Carolina “an individual donor, particularly one with access to corporate funds, can play a significant, and sometimes decisive, role.”
