Politics –
Alabama DMV Closings Target Black Voters

The State of Alabama enacted a law requiring all voters to be in possession of a valid ID — then they closed all the DMV’s in mostly black areas of the state, leaving only 4 DMV offices in all of Alabama.  Fair or foul?

Politics
As the old joke goes, even Stevie Wonder can see there’s something fishy here.  Or, to put it more succinctly, Alabama is up to their old tricks of disenfranchising African-American voters.

Blaming budget constraints, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency announced last week that beginning October 1st, driver’s license examiners would no longer work at 31 offices around the state. In fact, 8 of the 10 counties with the highest share of registered black voters will see their offices closed. Interestingly, this number includes all 5 of the counties that voted Democratic in the 2012 presidential election.

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill insisted the closings won’t affect people’s ability to get a voter ID, suggesting there are no big problems with voting in Alabama. “I feel good about the kind of progress that we’re making and I don’t hear a hue and cry from our local officials about us not being able to meet the needs of all of our voters throughout the entire state,” Merrill said.

Alabama congresswoman Terri Sewell has formally petitioned the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the closings, making the point that it introduces yet another obstacle to black voters.

“These closures will potentially disenfranchise Alabama’s poor, elderly, disabled, and black communities,” Sewell wrote in a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch. “To restrict the ability of any citizen to vote is an assault on the rights of all Americans to equally participate in the electoral process.”

Sewell, whose district includes Selma, the historical birthplace of the push for African-American voting rights, called for “a full and thorough investigation by DoJ.”

In a letter to Gov. Robert Bentley and other state officials, Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, joined Sewell in arguing that the closings create a “substantial and disproportionate burden on Black people’s ability to participate in the political process in Alabama.” Ifill said her organization is considering challenging Alabama’s voting policies under the Voting Rights Act.

Rep. G.K. Butterfield, the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said in a statement that the decision “reminds us that 50 years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, the fight for equal access to the polls still continues today.”

Susan Watson, the head of the ACLU of Alabama said last week that “people are right to be worried,” about the closings, adding: “It’s going to have a huge impact on the ability of people to get a state-issued I.D.”

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton also weighed in, warning that the driver’s license office closings are “only going to make it harder for people to vote,” and calling them “a blast from the Jim Crow past.” Mrs. Clinton renewed her call for automatic voter registration and for a strengthened Voting Rights Act.

Alabama passed their voter ID law in 2011, which went into effect in 2014. According to the Center for American Progress, the controversial ID law affected nearly half a million Alabama residents, disproportionately African-American, in last year’s midterm and gubernatorial elections.

OK WASSUP! covers political news. Today’s article:
Alabama closes all but 4 DMV offices in the state,
making it difficult for black voters to get ID’s.