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The Justice Department will beef up its civil rights unit as part of an aggressive effort to fight policies and legislation that restrict voter access and discriminate against marginalized voters, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday.
"To meet the challenge of the current moment, we must re-dedicate the resources of the Department of Justice to a critical part of its original mission: enforcing federal law to protect the franchise for all eligible voters," Garland said, noting a recent wave of legislation in several states that restrict voter access.
Garland said within the next 30 days, the department will double the enforcement staff of the civil rights unit, a powerful division within the agency that investigates hate crimes, police abuses and other civil rights violations.
#DemocratsNeedDoJSupportforVotingBills
The 2016 election showed us how powerful voter supression can be, in terms of preventing groups of people from voting. In contrast, the most recent election showed us how powerful voting is, in terms of turning the country's political landscape largely from red to blue, as well as how necessary it is to enforce existing legislation that expressly prevents unfair restrictions on voting.
Over the next few weeks, we should pay close attention to what standard the Justice Department is using to address these recent new laws in the states mentioned in Wa'il's post, and others, and see how effectivly they intervene in those new laws being passed.
We need to do a better job mobilizing people to engage in local elections. While federal election turn out is regularly over 70% you can see local elections are much lower:
The only way to properly do this is to get rid of those in power who are working to make voting harder
Will there be tangible improvements? I doubt it! Everlasting change needs to come from the people. We need to make sure our voices are heard.