Super Tuesday Minority Voters Were Latest Victims of the Voting Rights Act Gutting
Nation’s Oldest & Largest Latino Civil Rights Organization Demands Action to Correct Lack of Polls in Minority Areas, Long Lines, Broken Machines, and Other Barriers To Vote, Experienced by Latino and African American Voters on Super Tuesday
Washington, DC – Today, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) is demanding measures by state governments and state political parties to address voting issues at the polls on Super Tuesday, such as sparse poll stations, lack of poll workers, and malfunctioning voting machines at stations in minority neighborhoods. LULAC National President Domingo Garcia issued the following statement on the voting suppression issues voters faced on Super Tuesday:
“Latinos have become the largest minority voting bloc in 2020, and our community is at the heart of the voting base in states like California and Texas. Yet, it is precisely in the largest minority communities around the country –specifically districts where the Latino vote makes the difference – that we are witnessing the biggest barriers for people to vote.
The calculated effort to suppress the minority vote during Super Tuesday is a danger to our democracy. In my home state of Texas, we heard from hundreds of minority Americans unable to vote due to too many people at too few polls and malfunctioning machines causing long lines. In California, we also saw how a lack of poll workers delayed lines for hours. This is on top of years of blatant attempts to reduce the number of polling sites in places where the Latino and African-American population is growing by the largest numbers through the gutting of the Voting Rights Act.
This history of voting discrimination has made it especially difficult for low-income Americans to participate in elections, due to hardships around child care, work flexibility, and even transportation. Simply put, if you earn an hourly wage, it is unfair to have to choose between feeding your family or exercising your civic duty. The Voting Rights Act was supposed to protect our communities from this systematic disenfranchisement. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County vs. Holder put minority voter disenfranchisement on display this Super Tuesday.”
Background
LULAC has been at the forefront of protecting voter rights for Latinos and all minorities. The organization is a party in the case challenging the Texas “winner-take-all” voting system, which violates the “one-person, one-vote” principle arising from constitutional equal protection and freedom of association rights. In October 2019, LULAC celebrated a victory when District Court Judge Scott D. Rosenberg ruled in favor of the organization in a lawsuit that challenged Iowa’s voter ID law and resulted in the court rejecting a controversial rule that would have allowed state voter records to be compared to the federal immigration database. Similarly in Texas, LULAC won a lawsuit against the state over a voter purge list attempting to suppress Latino voters, as ruled by San Antonio Federal Judge Fred Biery in 2019.
About LULAC
The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) is the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights volunteer-based organization that empowers Hispanic Americans and builds strong Latino communities. Headquartered in Washington, DC, with 1,000 councils around the United States and Puerto Rico, LULAC’s programs, services and advocacy address the most important issues for Latinos, meeting critical needs of today and the future. For more information, visit https://lulac.org/