The Obama campaign continues its fight against voter suppression. There are 22 new laws in 17 states that will restrict voting in November — among them 10 states with laws requiring voters to bring a photo ID in order to vote. A new report by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University takes a look at just how hard it can be for a voter with a photo ID to get one. Critics say these voting laws unfairly target minority, poor, and older voters. Despite studies finding that a person is more likely to be struck by lightning than to commit voter fraud, Republican state legislatures continue to push these laws through.
The latest state is Ohio, where Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal spent yesterday campaigning.
The Obama campaign, along with the Democratic National Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party, have filed a lawsuit this week against Ohio’s new law that limits in-person early voting for most of the state’s voters the three days prior to the election.
The Obama campaign calls the new law unconstitutional.
Ohio is one of 32 states that allows voters to vote in-person at a polling station before election day. In 2008, nearly 100,000 Ohioans voted in-person during the three days before the election.
Joy Fowlin