News & Commentary

On today’s 50th anniversary of the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the ACLU of Rhode Island issued the following statement to highlight that even in our state, people of color continue to face barriers to voting that undermine the spirit of that monumental Act.

By Johanna Kaiser, Communications and Development Associate

Despite official reports that there were few voting problems during this week’s primary election, the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island related today that it had received reports of voters being given incorrect information about their right to vote during Tuesday’s primary election, raising nagging concerns about the implementation of the state’s new photo ID law.

Cranston residents and the ACLU of Rhode Island won a significant victory today in their fight for equal voting power in City elections when Judge Lagueux of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island denied a motion to dismiss their one person, one vote lawsuit, allowing their case to move forward.

The primary election is still a day away, but the ACLU has already received its first complaint about poll workers unlawfully preventing people from voting under the state’s Voter ID law.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today commended the Senate Judiciary Committee for approving legislation ending the counting of prisoners as residents of Cranston for the purposes of drawing voting districts. The legislation eliminates the practice of giving extra political power to the voting districts that include the ACI, the result of what is known as "prison-based gerrymandering."

Local residents joined the ACLU of Rhode Island today to sue the City of Cranston, charging that the 2012 redistricting plan for the City Council and School Committee violates the one person, one vote principle of the U.S. Constitution by counting incarcerated people in their prison location as if they were all residents of Cranston. Because those incarcerated were counted as Cranston residents, three voters in the prison’s district have as much voting power as four voters in every other city district, according to Census Bureau data. Cranston residents Karen Davidson, Debbie Flitman, Eugene Perry, and Sylvia Weber have joined the ACLU of Rhode Island as plaintiffs in the case. They are represented in federal court by Demos, the Prison Policy Initiative, and the ACLU. Plaintiff Davidson said today: “As a long-time resident and taxpayer of Cranston, I am deeply concerned that the City Council decided in 2012 to perpetuate this voting inequity, especially after the ACLU pointed out the constitutional problems with it. It is time for city officials to show some leadership and stop wasting taxpayers’ money defending themselves from legal challenges like this.”