American Civil Liberties Union

What’s new in voter suppression land today? South Dakota is trying to prevent Eileen Janis — and hundreds of other citizens — from voting.

Eileen grew up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and does suicide prevention work. She registered to vote for the first time in 1984. “I always vote because my mom told me to,” she says.

A federal court today struck Texas’s discriminatory voter ID law, which would have prevented many eligible citizens from exercising their fundamental right to vote. 

The ACLU had intervened in the case in order to represent individuals and organizations who would be negatively impacted, and protect the right to vote. Today’s decision by a three-judge Washington, D.C. panel comes at a time when the right to vote is under attack nationwide.

“By blocking this law, the court reaffirmed the right of all people in this country to participate in our democracy,” said Nancy Abudu, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Voting Rights Project, which intervened in the case along with the ACLU of Texas.

This week marked the opening of the trial in the ACLU of Pennsylvania’s challenge to the state’s restrictive voter ID law. The trial began with testimony from Ms. Viviette Applewhite, a feisty 93-year-old African-American great-great-grandmother who uses a wheelchair. Ms. Applewhite, who once marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., has voted in almost every election for the past 50 years and cast her first vote for president for FDR. Despite her age and limited physical mobility, Ms. Applewhite traveled two hours from Harrisburg to Philadelphia to testify as to how she may not be able to vote in this year’s presidential election because she does not have has not been able to obtain an acceptable ID under the state’s new law.

As we head into the 2012 presidential election, we’re sure to hear competing claims on where our electorate stands and speculations on why.

Last week, The Washington Post reported on 2010 U.S. Census data that shows the number of Black and Latino registered voters fell sharply, with 2 million fewer voters in 2010 than 2008. Some election experts attributed the decline in Black and Latino registered voters to the bad economy, families relocating to find work and not re-registering to vote.