This is a transcription of a podcast is brought to you by the National Association of Black And White Men together and today I want to add to our understanding of what is happening on voter suppression.
I’m gonna take example I gratefully received from one of our voter suppression and voter rights team and it relates to the South Carolina General assembly and Bill. This has been released and it has many sponsors been included representative Clybourn and the bill is basically a very good template on what needs to be addressed in terms of voter rights given all the difficulties we’ve gone through.
Basically it’s a bill to amend the code in South Carolina and looks like a very interesting combination of things and it is trying to make voting easier in that state.
This could represent something that might be used by other states.
In terms of absentee the bill is allowing any qualifying elector of that state to vote by such a ballot without being required to provide an excuse, justification or reason and to establish a 30 day window to do so.
All qualified voters of the state must be allowed to cast an in person absentee ballot and it establishes a procedure by which the voter may cure certain absent ballots that have a deficiency reported by the voting authorities.
This will provide another chance such that is delivered to the address specified by the state election commission
The timing on this is before the day of the election and must be delivered to the address specified by the state election commission or county board of registration.
In addition folks for whatever reason aare incarcerated and lose their right to vote are addressed. You probably know that the incarceration rate for people of color is vastly higher than people who are White.
The bill tells the department of corrections and the Department of probation parole to inform the person who has been convicted of a felony he or she will be eligible to register
There also has been a problem in people being able to use various forms of identification forms, so the bill allows you to use a college or university identification card and the only real requisite was a photograph or other form of identification that has been excepted.
If people are having difficulty with this the authorities are required to make allowances for that and make sure somebody can witness the fact.
We can get more information on voter rights and what we as a team can do and you as a person, or an organization can do.
It is critical at this time and maybe more than any other time in recent history that we are approaching this entire issue and we make our voices heard for the midterms next year.
Thanks to you for listening, if you need to email us use nabwmt@nabwmt.org and we’re on Facebook and we’re on Twitter so I will check in with her thank you for listening again and keep in touch.
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