A team of lawyers for Hillary Clinton are bringing some of the nation’s most restrictive voting laws to court in an effort to help improve access to the polls ahead of the 2016 elections.
So far, cases have already been filed in Ohio and Wisconsin, where lawyers are challenging voter ID requirements, restrictive poll times, and they are working to extend early voting by several weeks. Both Ohio and Wisconsin are considered battleground states in the upcoming election, and Ohio especially could tip the election one way or another.
The lawyers are expected to bring similar suits in states throughout the country to ease the burden on American voters. Some of the states that Hillary Clinton has singled out as being the most restrictive are North Carolina, Texas, and Florida. While Clinton’s campaign is not involved in the lawsuits, members from her campaign have said that Clinton and her campaign support the suits, and that Clinton intends to continue fighting for extended early voting to help make sure that everyone that wants to vote will get to vote.
The Brennan Center For Justice says that 14 states will have new, suppressive voting laws in place for the first time for the 2016 election, which all will disproportionately affect minority voters.
Obviously, the Republican Party isn’t too happy about these lawsuits or the Democratic Party’s challenge to their voting restrictions. In fact, Republicans have said that the efforts of the Democratic Party here are just a ploy to help get more Democrats to the polls in 2016.
Think about that. Republicans are angry because repealing their voter suppression laws will allow more Democrats to vote. Doesn’t that give you a very clear idea as to why these laws were passed in the first place?
The right to vote is essential to American democracy, and rather than making it harder, we should be doing everything possible to make sure that every eligible citizen gets to cast a ballot in every election. Bernie Sanders’ solution to the problem is to make election day a national holiday so that people won’t have to worry about missing work or struggling to find a way to fit it in, which is a brilliant idea.
There is no question that the Democratic Party is clearly trying to make the right to vote accessible to the American public, while the Republicans are trying to take away our basic rights to contribute to our democracy. That’s probably one of the most un-American things the Party could do.