NAACP Looks to UN in Fight Against Increasing Voter Suppression

[KoKo]

Published on Friday, March 9, 2012 by Common Dreams
NAACP Looks to UN in Fight Against Increasing Voter Suppression
- Common Dreams staff

The NAACP is sending representatives next week to a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland to argue that minority community members are facing clear voter suppression efforts in the United States, NAACP President Ben Jealous said during a press call on Thursday.



States that have adopted new laws account for 171 electoral votes in 2012 — or 63 percent of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. McClatchy reports: "The Geneva appearance is part of an NAACP strategy rooted in the 1940s and 1950s, when the group looked to the United Nations and the international community for support in its domestic battle for civil rights for blacks and against lynching."

"This will be the first time in decades that we as an organization are before the council with a specific complaint about actions being taken here in the US," Jealous said during the call. "The first time was in 1947, when W.E.B. Du Bois delivered his speech and appealed to the world." And continued:

"Now, like then, the principal concern is voting rights. In the past year, more states have passed more laws, pushing more voters out of the ballot box, than at any point since the rise of Jim Crow. We have seen ... voters have their votes blocked by specific states like South Carolina, Texas, Mississippi, Wisconsin and so forth during the past 12 months. These include strict voter-ID bills, so-called registration-ID bills, bans on formerly incarcerated people voting and a range of other mechanisms that diminish access to the polls among minority populations."

More at........

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/03/09-0

[lbrtbell]

1. I'm so ashamed of what's happening in America right now