Voter Suppression: Coming to a State Near You?

If you’re planning on voting in November, here’s a few things you should know.

<a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=84813442&src=id">Lisa S.</a>/Shutterstock

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Since the start of 2011, more than 180 bills have been introduced in 41 states (and counting) that could make it harder for you to register to vote, prove that you’re eligible to vote, vote early, or vote by mail. In fact, the Brennan Center for Justice estimates that at least 5 million voters nationwide could be affected by these bills. Thanks, local legislators!

To find out how new restrictions might affect your vote, click on the hypothetical profiles we’ve created below. You can also track where your state’s restrictions currently stand at our database, powered by research from the Brennan Center for Justice, National Conference of State Legislatures, and ProCon.org, which are monitoring these bills.

Block The Vote

Choose a voter to see how these laws could affect someone like you.
 

Additional research by Maya Dusenbery and Ryan Jacobs

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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