Blue Cross and Reynolds Tobacco are teaming up with the Koch brothers to take over North Carolina’s Supreme Court. That sounds sensational but an article in today’s New York Times documents over $1 million that business and right-wing groups have spent just in the primary to defeat incumbent Justice Robin Hudson. Buying a seat is [...]
North Carolina is apparently becoming the poster child for how self-serving billionaires can protect their profits by buying a state’s elections. The New Yorker has a gruesome profile of the ramped-up manipulation of West Virginia’s people and politics by the energy/chemical industry after a disastrous spill ruined the drinking water for hundreds of thousands of [...]
A new column by Chris Kromm of the Institute for Southern Studies reveals how this week's release of jaw-dropping numbers about alleged double voting in North Carolina is more about whipping up hysteria to justify voter suppression measures than actually finding real cases of fraud. In state after state, after sensational releases based on the Interstate Voter [...]
Bob Hall, executive director of Democracy North Carolina, released two statements following news today about (1) the US Supreme Court's decision to repeal limits on the total amount a donor can contribute to all federal candidates and parties in an election cycle, and (2) the State Board of Elections's announcement that it found thousands of [...]
Click here for a one-page briefing, loaded with data, about the damaging and discriminatory changes to North Carolina’s election rules, prepared by Democracy NC for a press briefing held by the NC NAACP.
The bipartisan Presidential Commission on Election Administration today issued a report with a series of recommendations designed to help elections officials “improve all voters’ experience in casting their ballots.” On the topic of long lines, the commission concluded that no citizen should have to wait in line for more than 30 minutes to vote, and [...]
Ari Berman of The Nation provides a good summary of the bipartisan legislation introduced yesterday to amend the Voting Rights Act to address some, but not all, of the damage resulting from the US Supreme Court’s ruling last June. Voting rights expert Spencer Overton says that, despite serious shortcomings, the bill includes “real building blocks [...]
In his PBS broadcast last week, Bill Moyers showcased North Carolina as a battleground between the politics of greed symbolized by Art Pope and the vision of a moral society strengthened by our mutual ties to one another, symbolized by the Moral Monday movement. One point to clarify in the video’s important data and interviews: When [...]
Mecklenburg County has seen a net increase of 14,700 Democrats and 26,100 black voters since 2008, but a loss of 13,900 Republicans and 11,800 white voters, after taking into account deaths, moves, and party registration changes. By contrast, next door in Gaston County, Democrats have lost 2,400 members over the past five years while Republicans [...]
It’s been a rough year for democracy in North Carolina – but there were some positives worth noting, too. Check out Democracy North Carolina’s special wrap-up report, “2013: The Good, the Bad and the Unclear.” There are 12 items, 4 for each category. You may have some candidates to add to the list. Share them [...]