Selma to Selma: Modern Day Voter Discrimination in Alabama
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Selma to Selma: Modern Day Voter
Discrimination in Alabama
Amy Ericksont
[A]ll types of conniving methods are still being used to prevent
Negroes from becoming registered voters. The denial of this
sacred right is a tragic betrayal of the highest mandates of our
democratic tradition. And so our most urgent request to the
[P]resident of the United States and every member of
Congress is to give us the right to vote.
Give us the ballot, and we will no longer have to worry the
federal government about our basic rights. - Martin Luther
King, Jr., May 17, 19571
Alabama's long and regretful history of racial discrimination
begins, and does not end, in Selma, Alabama. The home of the
modern day voting rights movement is also home to one of the
country's most stringent voting laws.2 Passed by the Alabama
Legislature in 2011, House Bill 19 requires voters to present
photographic identification before casting a ballot,3 and is
estimated to disenfranchise between 250,000 and 500,000 voters.4
t. J.D. Candidate, University of Minnesota Law School, 2017; B.A. Gustavus
Adolphus College, 2009. Amy would like to thank the staff and editors of Law &
Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice, especially Executive Editor Bojan
Manojlovic, for all of their help preparing this Article for publication. Amy would
also like to thank her family and her partner, David Archer, for their continued
advice and support.
1. Martin Luther King, Jr., Address at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom
(May 17, 1957) (transcript available at http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edul
encyclopedia/documentsentry/docgiveus the ballotaddress at the.prayer-pilgri
mage-for-freedom/).
2. Compare ALA. CODE § 17-9-30 (2011) (requiring that voters, with very few
exceptions, present a government-issued photo ID at the polls), with Wendy
Underhill, Voter Identification Requirements: Voter ID Laws, NAT'L CONFERENCE
OF STATE LEGISLATURES (Sept. 26, 2016), http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-
and-campaigns/voter-id.aspx (noting that 18 states do iot require voters to present
photo IDs at the polls, but instead use other methods to verify the identity of
voters).
3. § 17-9-30.
4. BEN JEALOUS & RYAN P. HAYGOOD, CTR. FOR AM. PROGRESS ET AL., THE
BATTLE TO PROTECT THE VOTE: VOTER SUPPRESSION EFFORTS IN FIVE STATES AND
THEIR EFFECT ON THE 2014 MIDTERM ELECTIONS 8 (2014), https://cdn.american
progress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/VoterSupression-report-Dec2O 14.pdf.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/lieq35&div=7&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Selma to Selma: Modern Day Voter Discrimination in Alabama
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