News
September 2012
While advocates of voter identification laws say the goal is to prevent fraud at the polls, Rep. Elijah Cummings insists that what is really at work is voter suppression during a campaign that promises to be a tighter than ever race for the presidency.
“As many as one in four African-American voters, more than one in six Hispanic voters, and about one in ten eligible voters overall do...
September 2012
Deidra Reese isn't waiting for people to come to her to find out whether they are registered to vote.
With iPad in hand, Reese is going to community centers, homes and churches in nine Ohio cities, looking up registrations to make sure voters have proper ID and everything else they need to cast ballots on Election Day.
"We are not going to give back one single inch. We have fought...
September 2012
Fresh from a controversial NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll which stated that Mitt Romney will receive 0% of the Black vote, the Joint Center for Political and Economic studies followed up with its own poll of the Republican National Convention Attendees.
The report discovered that there were 47 African Americans who were part of convention delegates at the 2012 Republican National...
September 2012
Enveloped by red, white, and blue, thousands of black and brown faces will stand out this week at the Democratic National Convention, mirroring an increasingly diverse America and contrasting with scenes from the Republican convention that just ended.
Led by a president with a black father and a white mother, Democrats will tout diversity and sell themselves as inclusionary, sensitive to the...
July 2012
When President Barack Obama arrives in New Orleans on Wednesday to speak before the National Urban League annual conference, he will touch down in a state where his party, less than a month before the qualifying deadline, has yet to find a congressional candidate for any district outside the black-majority seat held by Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans.
For Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, D-New...
July 2012
The cliche "every vote counts" is sure to get a workout this election season. A new report from the National Urban League says the African-American vote could play a critical role in November. Host Michel Martin talks with Chanelle Hardy of the National Urban League and David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
Read more at National Public Radio.
June 2012
On largely a party-line vote, legislators agreed Thursday to allow Secretary of State Ross Miller to spend $800,000 for a voter registration effort.
Two of the nine Republicans and all 12 Democrats on the Interim Finance Committee backed the plan, which Democrat Miller said was prompted in part by a lawsuit from the NAACP, La Raza and other groups against his office, which oversees voting in...
Press Release
September 2012
The voting booth is the one place where we all are presumed equal, yet the reality this year is that the playing field is far from level. This core American value is threatened this year by some politicians who have manipulated laws for their own gain by passing restrictions that could make it harder for millions of Americans to vote. Numerous independent, non-partisan studies...
September 2012
The Joint Center for Political and Economic studies today released its quadrennial report, Blacks and the 2012 Democratic National Convention, which tracks both African American participation at the event and, more broadly, the relationship between African Americans and the Democratic Party.
The Convention Guide provides a comprehensive look at African Americans, their voting patterns and...
Audio
July 2012
From National Public Radio's Tell Me More. The cliche "every vote counts" is sure to get a workout this election season. A new report from the National Urban League says the African-American vote could play a critical role in November. Host Michel Martin talks with Chanelle Hardy of the National Urban League and David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.