Voting Rights Act & the Wack-A-Dingers Who Disenfranchise

While we frequently target and label those states intent on racial discrimination to disenfranchise voters, let's not ignore that the Wack-A-Ding Tea Baggers have disrupted polling places in Massachusetts and the Middleboro Wack-A-Dings attempted to pass a By Law mandating Voter ID at Town Meetings. 

Local Town Meetings frequently have difficulty obtaining and maintaining a quorum - they're not MOBBING the doors.

The Uninformed Wack-A-Dings are out there threatening citizens' rights to vote at every level, hallucinating non-existent enemies and fraudulent voters.  

From Senator Elizabeth Warren in response to my emailed concerns: 

Thank you for contacting me about the Voting Rights Act.

The Voting Rights Act is one of our most important civil rights statutes. It was designed to protect voters from discrimination and has been an overwhelming success for 50 years. Despite this success, the Supreme Court recently gutted some of the Voting Rights Act's key provisions -- striking down the coverage formula in Section 4 of the Act, which identified jurisdictions with a history of pervasive discrimination and required those jurisdictions to "pre-clear" potential voting changes with the Justice Department or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before allowing those changes to take effect. I strongly disagree with this decision and believe Congress must act swiftly to override it.

The Justice Department has used these preclearance provisions to block restrictive laws in many parts of the country where racial and language minorities continue to face voting discrimination, and has called them essential to defending the rights of millions of Americans.  Now that the Supreme Court has struck down the coverage formula, it is Congress's responsibility - and obligation - to re-enact this provision according to the standards set forth by the Court.

That is why I have joined my colleague Senator Leahy in introducing the Voting Rights Advancement Act - a bill that would supply a new coverage formula to ensure we have the tools we need to protect the voting rights of all Americans.  The last time Congress reauthorized the Voting Rights Act in 2006, it passed the legislation with bipartisan majorities in the House and the Senate based on an extensive congressional record. That is as it should be.  Ensuring that every American has equal access to the polls should not be a partisan issue.

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with me about this important issue, and I hope that you will reach out to my office if I can be of assistance in the future.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Warren
United States Senator

Washington, DC 317 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Phone: 202-224-4543

Boston, MA 2400 JFK Federal Building 15 New Sudbury Street Boston, MA 02203 Phone: 617-565-3170

Springfield, MA 1550 Main Street Suite 406 Springfield, MA 01103 Phone: 413-788-2690