This is as heated and competitive a primary season as we've ever seen. For you to weigh in and have your voice heard, you need to be registered to vote by TODAY, May 23rd.
Click here to register to vote.
You can also look up your ballot, polling place, and other important information here.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Historical Restrictions to Voting - Why Your Vote MATTERS
Since our country was formed, people have fought and died for the right to vote.
Southern states were livid at the passage of those three "Reconstruction Amendments," and they passed "Jim Crow laws" to make it difficult for black citizens to register and vote. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and laws prohibiting people with a criminal conviction from voting were specifically designed to suppress black political power.
This voter suppression was aided by many religious and paramilitary groups until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, and the U.S. put teeth into prohibiting racial discrimination in voting. The VRA resulted in the mass enfranchisement of racial minorities, most notably in the South, and is considered the most effective piece of civil rights legislation ever enacted in the country.
Sadly, since 2008, states across the country have passed measures making it harder for Americans to vote—especially people of color, the elderly, students, the poor, and people with disabilities. These measures include voter ID laws, cuts to early voting, purges of voter rolls, and ongoing "felony disenfranchisement," the stripping away of a person's right to vote because of a criminal conviction.
Be part of the civil rights movement! Register to vote, and then exercise your right to vote on Tuesday, June 7th!
