In Alabama, it is required to show government-issued ID if you intend to vote. In a move that recalls the civil rights struggle of the 1950s and '60s, the NAACP and the Greater Birmingham Ministries filed a lawsuit against the state of Alabama on Dec. 2 for allowing this rule to keep hundreds of thousands of voters away from the polls. The requirement of voter ID denies access to the voting polls for many minorities and members of poor communities.
The lawsuit explains that requiring government-issued ID keeps more than 280,000 people from voting and that in the past several years, Alabama has sharply reduced access to driver's license and state ID offices in rural and minority-concentrated areas, reported Reuters. With the 2016 elections coming up, the NAACP and the Greater Birmingham Ministries want the issue addressed now.
"It is no accident that a disproportionate number of those disfranchised voters are African-American and Latino," said the lawsuit, reported Alabama Media. "Indeed, the Photo ID Law is simply the latest chapter in Alabama's long and brutal history of intentional racial discrimination. For five decades, Alabama's use of discriminatory voting schemes has necessitated repeated federal intervention. Now, Alabama again seeks to disenfranchise thousands of African-American and Latino voters-all in the name of 'curing' a voter fraud problem that does not exist."
