header_blog.jpg

Voting Rights Act, Southern Style

Posted by on June 26, 2006 at 12:48 PM

Alabama's Huntsville Times features a story today about the Voting Rights Act. The author makes the point that the South became a major focus of the VRA because discrimination in the South was so widespread.

Of course the bill focuses on the South. That's where discrimination was most rampant. And in some places still is, in more subtle forms. Karen Narasaki of the Asian American Justice Center writes of the 2004 election in Bayou La Batre where a Vietnamese American ran for office and the only challenges that were filed were against voters with Asian names.
USA Today wrote an article back in February about this same runoff election where outside observers had to be sent in from the Justice Department.
After being urged by several candidates to vote in the municipal election, many of the Southeast Asian-Americans in the town of about 3,000 had their ballots challenged. Nearly 50 of them were forced to fill out paper ballots and have another registered voter vouch for them.

Despite these hurdles, Phuong Tan Huynh - the first Asian-American to run for City Council there - defeated Jackie Ladnier in the October runoff, but only after the Justice Department intervened.

Tuesday, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a non-partisan group, released a 187-page report that argues the need for reauthorizing the sections of the Voting Rights Act that are set to expire next year. One of them empowered the Justice Department to send observers to monitor Bayou La Batre's runoff election.

Last week the renewal of the Voting Rights Act was put on hold when some Republican members balked at the VRA provisions which required alternate language ballots and special procedures for some Southern states. Their argument was that these protections were no longer needed. I beg to differ.

Comments - 13 »

Comments are now closed for this entry.