Friday Newsmaker looks at voting rights

A Newsmaker news conference at 10 am Friday will look at the changes to voting across the country and problems that voters could face at the polls in November.

Speakers in the club’s Zenger Room include: Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Wade Henderson, president and chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union; and Cory McCray, member of the Maryland House of Delegates.

Republican-controlled states such as Texas and North Carolina imposed new voter-ID requirements, which the U.S. Justice Department said discrminates against minorities. Other states, like Florida, are disenfranchising thousands of former felons, while in Maryland and Virginia, former felons are gaining the right to vote. Some Arizona voters stood in line for hours at polling places in the March primary, while in Oregon, voters this month will cast their ballots by mail.

The changes came after the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the requirement that the federal government pre-clear voting changes in states and jurisdictions with a history of discriminating against minorities. Republican-controlled legislatures in those areas began imposing new voting rules that otherwise could have been blocked under the Voting Rights Act. The 2016 presidential election will be the first since these changes were approved.

Some states are making it easier to vote. California and Oregon are expanding access this election cycle through automatic voter registration and 25 other states are considering similar actions.