Your voice should be heard.
If your voting rights in North & South Carolina are being violated by voter suppression, we can help you take on powerful opponents.
Defending Voting Rights in North and South Carolina
Your voice should be heard. The 15th and 19th Amendments to the Constitution expanded the right to vote to include all races and genders. Unfortunately, unjust ploys to reduce access to voting or suppress voter turnout are disturbingly common.
Our nation relies on fair elections to map its future, and an attempt to prevent an individual or group from lawfully voting is a violation of their civil rights. If your voice is being suppressed, contact a civil rights lawyer today.
What Are Voting Rights Issues Today?
Sadly, there are numerous and ongoing attempts to limit Constitutionally-protected voting rights. These attempts to limit, alter, or reduce voters’ voices can be subtle, and they generally fall into three categories: voter suppression, gerrymandering, and barriers to voting.
Voter Suppression: Any attempt to invalidate a legal voter could be voter suppression. Strict Voter ID laws, for example, can have a chilling effect on voter turnout. Purging voter rolls causes confusion and may delay or deny some people’s right to vote. Measures such as these often disproportionately affect minorities, students, the elderly, and the disabled.
Gerrymandering: Politicians have a great deal of power to enforce their agenda regardless of their party. One of the most sinister manipulations can be gerrymandering – redrawing voting district boundaries to include or exclude a bloc or class of voters to ensure that a certain political majority is obtained or sustained.
Barriers to Voting: Barriers to voting attempt to discourage voting. These barriers can include making it illegal to provide water to voters; intimidation at the polls; changing polling locations to make travel onerous; making parking at a polling site difficult; and many other tactics.
These acts are not really aimed at individuals but are aimed at entire groups. As such, fighting these transgressions is almost always a group effort. Our election lawyers are prepared to fight on your behalf. We know which groups to work with and what steps to take to move your case forward.
Fighting Voter Suppression
Suppression tactics in the United States are as old as the nation itself. The most famous attempts at suppression are known as the Jim Crow laws, which included barriers like poll taxes, literacy and language testing, and land ownership requirements.
We’re still fighting voter suppression today.
In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court neutralized the Voting Rights Act, which previously required states to submit any alterations to voting rights to the Department of Justice for review. After the Court’s decision, dozens of states introduced new laws that made voting harder, including:
- Laws requiring proof of citizenship
- Limited mail-in voting
- Limited early voting periods
- Purging voter rolls
- Signature Matching software to “confirm” vote validity
- And many other suppression tactics
Voter suppression is a violation of one of your most basic civil rights. If you believe you’re experiencing an attempt to suppress or otherwise limit your opportunity to vote, contact a voting rights lawyer right away at 1-866-900-7078.
The Biggest Problem With Gerrymandering
Gerrymandering limits or silences one voting group in favor of another. Politicians redraw the boundaries of everything from school districts to voting districts to please their constituents or to ensure their own political standing.
A Harvard study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that gerrymandering can create relatively “safe” seats of power from which politicians, fearing no challenge, stop caring about the will of the people and instead serve the will of their party.
The results can be disastrous for voters trapped in heavily gerrymandered districts whose voices are effectively silenced. Gerrymandering leaves you the ability to vote but largely erases the impact of your vote. It disempowers voters in their own districts.
But you are not helpless. A civil rights attorney can help you level the playing field and take on powerful opponents.
Barriers to Voting Have an Impact on Voter Turnout
A close relative of voter suppression is any barrier to voting. Think of these as procedural barriers that are designed to limit voter participation directly.
Some of these tactics are subtle. Moving a polling location may be necessary, for example, but where it goes should not create a barrier to voting. It is vital to monitor these behaviors to ensure that voters aren’t being turned away before their voices can be heard.
If you believe someone is putting a barrier between you and the ballot box, call us at 1-866-900-7078 or contact us online for a thorough, professional, no-obligation review of your case.
Election Lawyers Help Protect Your Voting Rights
Election and voting rights cases can become extremely complex. Our civil rights team understands the stakes and knows how to move your case forward, including which organizations to partner with to seek justice and how to present your case in court if needed.
Our team is led by Nichad Davis, a passionate advocate for justice and civil rights.
We’ve been fighting for our clients’ rights since 1997, including leading a team of attorneys in one of the largest civil rights cases in history, called the Black farmers case. The case resulted in a $1.25 billion dollar settlement for thousands of Black farmers after years of discrimination by the USDA.1,3
Taking on tough, institutional opponents to pursue justice is a core part of who we are. We don’t quit when things get tough. We have more than 60 attorneys, deep resources, and the will to fight for you.
Don’t stay silent. Call the Law Offices of James Scott Farrin at 1-866-900-7078 today or contact us online. We’ll listen and evaluate your case at no cost or obligation.
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