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The Greater Birmingham Ministries and the Alabama NAACP on Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Alabama, alleging that officials violated the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act when they enacted a strict Voter ID law.

Before the measure was enacted in 2011, most IDs, even those without photos, were accepted in the state.


Watch Roland Martin, Deuel Ross, Assistant Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and Bernard Simelton, President of the Alabama NAACP discuss the lawsuit against Alabama over their discriminatory Voter ID law in the video clip below.

TV One’s NewsOne Now has moved to 7 A.M. ET, be sure to watch “NewsOne Now” with Roland Martin, in its new time slot on TV One.


An AL.com report notes:

Alabama’s secretary of state had estimated that at least 280,000 registered voters would be immediately blocked from voting, the lawsuit states. “If the Photo ID Law remains in place, hundreds of thousands more eligible and registered voters will be barred from voting in the years to come,” according to the lawsuit.

“It is no accident that a disproportionate number of those disfranchised voters are African-American and Latino. Indeed, the Photo ID Law is simply the latest chapter in Alabama’s long and brutal history of intentional racial discrimination,” the lawsuit states. “For five decades, Alabama’s use of discriminatory voting schemes has necessitated repeated federal intervention. Now, Alabama again seeks to disfranchise thousands of African-American and Latino voters—all in the name of “curing” a voter fraud problem that does not exist.”

The suit seeks to block the photo ID law requirement. Additionally, the lawsuit asks the court to impose pre-clearance obligations under the Voting Rights Act, which “would again require Alabama to seek federal approval before enforcing any changes to its voting laws,” the report says.

Correction: An earlier version of this article identified Scott Douglas from the Greater Birmingham Ministries as a guest on NewsOne Now. 

SOURCE: AL.com | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty

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Civil Rights Groups Sue Alabama Over Voter ID Law  was originally published on newsone.com