Why do the Koch Brothers hate democracy? #votingrights

WELLESLEY, Mass.— As a key leader in the civil rights movement of the early 1960s, Robert Moses focused on registering southern sharecroppers to vote. Today, he aims to assure the right to learn algebra — arguing that mathematics literacy in today’s information age is as important to citizenship as registering to vote in 1960s Mississippi.

“The first to highlight access to algebra as a gateway to equal opportunity, civil rights leader Robert Moses has had a huge impact on American education,” said Barbara Beatty, professor and chair of the Department of Education at Wellesley College. “Through his groundbreaking work, he has raised awareness of math and technology literacy for all students as the key to citizenship in the 21st century.”

Moses will talk about the need for high quality mathematics education during a lecture, “The Right to Learn: The Long Campaign for Civil Rights and Education Equity,” Tuesday, March 16, at 4:30 pm in Collins Cinema on the Wellesley College campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Under pressure from a federal lawsuit, the Federal Emergency Management Agency acknowledged yesterday that it does not know which Hurricane Katrina victims are living in more than 25,000 subsidized hotel rooms nationwide, or whether they have sought or be

letter to editor

Under the plan, proposed by Clerk of Criminal District Court Kimberly Williamson Butler's office, more than 50 precincts would be shifted to Municipal Auditorium and about 60 precincts would vote at Brother Martin High School on Elysian Fields Avenue. Tho

Across the state I heard similar stories: fellow Alabamans sent in their applications after having been told, correctly, by voting rights groups that a new state law required an official reply within 50 days. But months later they were still disenfranchis

[T]here is strong objective evidence that politics prevailed over the requirements of the Voting Rights Act.

The Justice Department has barred staff attorneys from offering recommendations in major Voting Rights Act cases, marking a significant change in the procedures meant to insulate such decisions from politics, congressional aides and current and former emp

Behind-the-scenes tensions became public with the revelation that Bush administration political appointees overruled career staff to approve Republican plans in high-stakes Voting Rights Act cases in Texas and Georgia. And now, some critics say, Justice h

In his Aug. 22 op-ed, "Reviving Jim Crow?" David J. Becker describes Georgia's new voting law as "one of the single most discriminatory pieces of voting legislation of recent years." Why? Simply because it requires that voters have a photo ID.

Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo obtained by The Washington Post. But senior official

Any day now the Justice Department will render judgment on one of the single most discriminatory pieces of voting legislation of recent years: a Georgia state law requiring voters to present one of only six forms of photo identification before they can ex

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, which has enforced the nation's anti-discrimination laws for nearly half a century, is in the midst of an upheaval that has driven away dozens of veteran lawyers and has damaged morale for many of those who

Cox says that she chose touch-screen systems because, among other attributes, they had the best chance of reducing the undervote. She was right: In the 2002 election, using the new machines, the undervote rate in Georgia was less than 1 percent.

Voting Machines Stolen In Georgia

votescam interview

David Dill, Michael Shamos, Tova Wang, Deborah Goldberg and others. Incl. video stream.

Presented to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science 2001

But Ms. Boxer's courage did not arise from nothing: she was encouraged and pushed into a position of moral leadership by her constituents in California. How they did it is a lesson for progressive activists everywhere, for the next few years will only be

On November 2 millions of Americans will cast their votes for President in computerized voting systems that can be rigged by corporate or local-election insiders. Some 98 million citizens, five out of every six of the roughly 115 million who will go to th

reference to yes, in my backyard

The near- doubling of the prison population since the last census and a rural prison boom during the 1990s portends a substantial transfer of economic and political power from urban to rural America. That's because, due to a little-known census provision,

In 48 states prisoners cannot vote, but the Census counts the nation's mostly urban prisoners as residents of the mostly rural towns that host prisons. Every decade, states use these "phantom" populations to redraw state legislative boundaries and re-appo

Prisonsucks.com is a clearinghouse for useful, verifiable statistics about the crime control industry. Too often prison activists use statistics that are out of date, provided without citation or simply wrong. One of these days the public will start liste

The Prison Policy Initiative conducts research and advocacy on incarceration policy. Our work starts with the idea that the racial, gender and economic disparities between the prison population and the larger society represent the grounds for a democratic

About 5 percent of Arizona's voters - 101,536 of them, to be exact - had some trouble voting in the 2004 election, and 27,878 of them had their "provisional" votes thrown out.

comprehensive, extensive footnotes