Turn Out for What

Voting Rights Under Attack

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...

This week, Texas turned away a 93-year-old registered voter because he didn't meet the stringent requirements of the state's new voter ID law. His driver's license had expired and he had never gotten a veteran's identification card. Even though he's voted his entire life, the man was unable to cast a ballot.

In Georgia, a state judge declined to act in a dispute over 56,000 voter registration applications. Because election officials didn't process the applications fast enough, say the NAACP and voter rights groups, these citizens will not be able to get to vote in their state's competitive Senate and gubernatorial races.

In North Carolina, Republicans attempted to take away a polling station from Appalachian State University – but students fought back against the voter suppression and won.

And a new Al Jazeera America investigation has found that Jim Crow is alive and well. Millions of voters – especially blacks, Hispanics and Asians – are being wrongfully purged from the rolls in 27 states because of a Republican program designed to root out "voter fraud." The Interstate Crosscheck program is supposed to find double voters, but instead sloppy methodology has led to obvious mismatches and its lists are heavily weighted with common minority surnames, who happen to vote overwhelmingly Democratic. (Read more about the six-month-long investigation here.)