Many who believe in equal access to the ballot box were shaken when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key section of the Voting Rights Act that helped monitor states with a history of discrimination. That decision helped spur Ohio state representative Alicia Reece into action. She plans to introduce a bill amending the Ohio state constitution to include a voter bill of rights. It is meant to curb efforts by well-funded conservative groups, like ALEC, to suppress Black and poor voters, state by state, with voter ID laws.
“It can be a model for other states around the country, [with] Ohio being such an important state,” Reece said of the bill she’s developing. “We have a two-prong approach as it relates to voting. One, we’re running a candidate for secretary of state, Nina Turner; and, number two, we have a … campaign to change the constitution, because once [the bill of voter rights is] in the constitution, that means it has to be carried out.”
Reece says that she is leading a campaign, starting on Jan. 16, to get 385,000 signatures from registered voters so that the amendment question can be added to the 2014 ballot during November. The deadline for signature collection is July 2, 2014.
Listen to what else she had to say about the effort, below.
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Ohio Lawmaker Fights Voting Setbacks By Pushing A State Voter Bill of Rights was originally published on newsone.com
