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Senator Bernie Sanders may be shaking up the 2016 presidential election already, but he’s also continuing to make waves in Congress. The senator from Vermont has proposed something pretty radical: free college for all at public four-year colleges and universities for those who meet admission standards.
During the 2012 and 2014 elections, thousands of Texans arrived at the polls having registered to vote at the Department of Public Safety (Texas’ motor vehicles department), only to be told that they were not on the voter rolls.
Jeff Jacoby ends his June 29 column by asserting that black citizens’ right to vote “is no longer endangered anywhere in America.” What America is he talking about?
North Carolina’s recent voting law changes will disproportionately affect black voters in the state, according to a study published Wednesday by Dartmouth University.
“The study provides powerful ammunition for the pending legal challenges,” says Brenda Wright, a voting rights expert with the liberal think tank Demos. “It shows that virtually every key feature of North Carolina’s election legislation will disproportionately cut back on registration and voting by African Americans in North Carolina as compared to whites.”
Voting matters. Though many Americans believe that voting is either useless or merely a civic duty, in reality it carries huge consequences for the decisions of politicians.
Having to register to vote is a practical barrier for some people, especially those who are poor and marginalized. So shifting that burden to the state leads to more people voting.
The debt-free college initiative is based on a plan sketched out by liberal think tank Demos. It calls for the federal government to award grants to states that increase spending on higher education and increase need-based grant aid.