Vice President Joe Biden had tough words for lawmakers who’ve tried to limit voting rights Tuesday, warning that they may ruin their chances of winning minority voters.

“If they keep this up you can be assured, minorities of all stripes will never vote for anyone who makes it more difficult for them to exercise right to vote,” Biden said in a speech at the annual gala for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

“To me it is the most immoral, callous thing that can be done, the idea of making it more difficult to vote,” he said, without specifically naming Republicans, but appearing to make a thinly veiled warning to the party that has been behind the vast majority of voter suppression efforts in recent years.

He lamented the recent debate over Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, pointing out that one-time Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond eventually supported the measure in his career.

Biden called it “an irony” that “just a few years after electing the first African American president in the history of the United States of America,” more than 80% of states in the U.S. introduced or passed 180 laws that “make it more difficult for minorities to vote.”

Read more at MSNBC.

Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday bashed voting rights requirements — calling them “immoral, callous” — and warned of political consequences for those who try to impose barriers to casting a ballot.

“To me it is the most immoral, callous thing that can be done, the idea of making it more difficult to vote,” Biden said at the annual gala dinner of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a minority-focused public policy organization.

The vice president pointed to data indicating that in 2011 and 2012 at least 180 bills in 41 states were introduced that aimed to stiffen requirements for voting — voter identification measures, for example.

“If there’s one thing people who want to restrict the vote didn’t understand, they didn’t understand what it means when you tell someone, ‘I’m going to make it difficult for you to vote,’” Biden said, appearing to take a swipe at Republicans. “It means, and I was certain and Barack and I talked about it, you did too, that it guaranteed people would show. The more they attempt to restrict the right of minorities, the greater the determination and the stronger the will to turn out, and that’s exactly what everyone saw in 2012.”

Read more at Politico.

With public attention focused on the Voting Rights Act, many have overlooked a second critical voting case that will be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday.

The latest case involves the simple question of whether Arizona can refuse to accept a federal voter registration form. But the stakes are much higher. A victory for Arizona could accelerate a nationwide trend of political operatives attempting to manipulate election rules for political gain, and could undermine the power of Congress to protect voting rights.

The National Voter Registration Act requires that all states "accept and use" a single, uniform voter registration form for federal elections. States can still use their own registration forms, but they must also accept and use the Federal Form. The purpose of the Federal Form is to increase participation by preventing states from erecting barriers to voter registration.

The Federal Form requires that prospective voters check a box and sign the form affirming they are U.S. citizens under penalty of perjury. Arizona, however, adopted a state law requiring "satisfactory proof" of U.S. citizenship to register, such as a birth certificate, U.S. passport, or state driver's license that shows citizenship.

As a result, Arizona initially rejected over 31,000 voter registration applications -- including citizens who registered using the Federal Form. Community-based registration drives were hit especially hard, because they rely on approaching individuals who may not be carrying a birth certificate or similar documentation (or unwilling to give a photocopy of these sensitive documents to a registration-drive volunteer). For example, community-based registration drives in Arizona's largest county -- Maricopa County -- dropped 44%.

Read more at The Huffington Post.

Voting districts designed to increase the chances of electing minority candidates, a fixture in the South, could be dismantled if the Supreme Court invalidates a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.

The court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a case that challenges Section 5 of the 1965 landmark law. The section bars all or part of 16 states, including Louisiana, from making any changes to their election procedures without first proving the changes wouldn’t discriminate against minority voters. A ruling is expected in a few months.

If the court rules Section 5 is no longer necessary, states and counties and local governments subject to the provision would not have to submit new election maps to the Justice Department for review.

Civil rights advocates say that would open the door for jurisdictions like many in the South — where blacks tend to vote for black candidates and whites tend to vote for white candidates — to redraw districts in a way that makes it harder for minorities to get elected.

“There is no doubt in my mind that if there is no Section 5, the eight black (state) Senate districts in Alabama would disappear in the very near future,” said Democratic state Sen. Hank Sanders, who holds one of those eight seats.

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Most state legislatures would push more minority voters into one district, said David Bositis, a senior fellow at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank that focuses on issues affecting blacks.

“White voters in most of the Southern states, not all… are Republicans and so the whiter the district, the more likely it’s going to be a Republican district,’’ Bositis said. “They’re going to want to pack black voters into as few districts as possible.’’

Read more at the Shreveport Times.

The Voting Rights Act that goes on trial at the Supreme Court on Wednesday has helped boost African Americans' presence in Southern legislatures. But in a twist of irony, it also has contributed to their loss of political clout.

Since its passage in 1965, the law's Section 5 has forced states with a history of racial discrimination to clear changes in voting procedures with the federal government. The Justice Department, in turn, has insisted that drawing district lines is one of those procedures – one that should give blacks and other minorities ample opportunity to elect their preferred candidates.

That has led to the creation of so-called majority-minority election districts dominated by blacks or Hispanics, nearly all of them Democrats. Achieving that goal, however, has required the simultaneous creation of more heavily white, Republican districts in surrounding areas.

Although the Voting Rights Act has played a major role in the South's racial transformation, it also has played a supporting role in its political transformation. In 1965, every state legislature was Democratic. In 2013, they are all Republican.

"African Americans are totally and completely shut out of any political influence, with a few exceptions, in the Southern states," says David Bositis, senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

Read more at USA Today.

It’s easy to understand why some Republicans and pollsters dismissed the idea that the Obama coalition from 2008 would be fired up and ready to go in 2012. Not possible. Not with the unemployment rate at 14.3 percent among blacks, 10 percent among Hispanics, and 11.8 percent among adults under 30.

Yet, fired up or just trudging to the polls, those groups were among President Obama’s principal bulwarks against defeat in decisive states. In some cases they made up a greater share of the national electorate than they did in 2008. The outcome confounded some conservatives and surprised even some pollsters.

African-Americans, for instance, made up 13 percent of the national electorate in the historic 2008 election. This week, after years of a down economy, months of a dispiriting campaign, and long-running rumblings about whether Obama has neglected the black community, distanced himself from it, or taken it for granted, they were still at 13 percent of the electorate.

“Black voters were absolutely not going to let Obama lose if they could help it,” said David Bositis, senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. They proved particularly useful to Obama in swing states. Black voters went from a 12-percent share of the electorate in Michigan in 2008 to 16 percent this week, exit polls showed, and from 11 percent to 15 percent in Ohio. Under-30 voters accounted for 19 percent of the national electorate, up from 18 percent. Hispanics, meanwhile, rose from 9 percent to 10 percent.

Read more at the National Journal.

For many African Americans, this election was not just about holding on to history, but also confronting what they perceived as a shadowy campaign to suppress the black vote.

Black voters responded with a historic turnout here in Ohio and strong showings across a range of battleground states, according to exit poll results. Buoyed by a sophisticated ground operation by the Obama campaign, African Americans helped provide the edge in Virginia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and perhaps Florida, which remained too close to call Wednesday. Their support narrowed President Obama's losing margin in North Carolina.

"This is a man who is fighting for the opportunity for all people to reach the American dream," said retired Marine Andre Baird, 55, as champagne dripped down his bald head at an Obama victory party in Cleveland on Tuesday night. "These hands," Baird added, his right hand clenching into a fist, "have knocked on at least a thousand doors!"

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African American voters had more concrete relationships with Obama in this election and had benefited from his first term, said David Bositis, a researcher with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. Obama's health-care overhaul, in particular, offered a disproportionate benefit to African Americans, 36 percent of whom previously lacked health coverage, as opposed to whites, 12 percent of whom lacked coverage, he said.

In North Carolina, the African American vote held at 23 percent, the same level as 2008, even as the pull of making history faded.

Read more at The Independent.

The strong showing from blacks and Hispanics at the polls on Tuesday that helped re-elect President Barack Obama and boosted several Democrats into office across the country will force the Republican Party to change its strategy in the future, says Dr. David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

“This was not simply a re-election, but 2012 will be the last campaign where one of the major parties seeks to get elected, solely with the white vote,” Bositis said during a briefing today on the Role of African American voters. “A successful political movement will have to appeal to a broader swath other than non-Hispanic white people.”

The 2012 election was a clear showing that America is now multi-racial, multi ethnic country, he said.

According to the Joint Center, when Democrat John Kerry faced George W. Bush in 2004, 79 percent of American electorate was non-Hispanic white. By 2008, that percentage had dropped to 74 and this year, it was 72 percent.

At the same time, the share of African American voters and the share of Hispanic voters increased.

The share of African American voters has grown from 11 to 13 percent, while the share of Hispanic voters has grown from 6 to 10 percent, Bositis said.

Read more at Black America Web.

The Grand Old Party is still asking why and engaging in Presidential Election post mortem after their candidate Governor Mitt Romney lost the election. Over the weekend some Republicans began blaming a possible loss of momentum on Superstorm Sandy. Since Wednesday morning, they are simply pointing fingers. For many the answer is clear; the GOP walked away from their prior umbrella approach to include the nation’s minority populations.

The Party walked away from something former RNC Chairman Michael Steele made a priority while leading the RNC. Steele included outreach to those in “Harlem” and to those in “Little Havana” as well as other minority communities.

President Obama, prior to the election, told White House reporters Romney would “lose” because he did not reach out to the Latino population.

David Bositis, Senior Fellow at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, contends “One of the big stories of this campaign is how much Hispanics were alienated by the Republican Party.” Stories on the black vote are not as newsy. Bositis contends, “African Americans were already alienated before the campaign started.” Translation from the media mindset; that was nothing new.

Read more at AprilDRyan.com.

In the days immediately following the presidential election, Martin Mendez was in a blue funk.

A Latino Republican, he watched with dismay as poll after poll revealed that not only did President Barack Obama win a second term in office, but he did so with a sizable portion of the Hispanic vote.

The loss was especially painful for Mendez, who spent hours knocking on the doors of Hispanics around Denver in an effort to convince them to give the GOP a try.

"Out in the field in Denver, the comments I got ... the feedback was Mitt Romney's for the millionaires. We're these poor Hispanics, so we're going to vote for Obama because he's for the little guy," Mendez said, his voice full of exasperation.

"There is this class warfare game that Democrats play every single election cycle. We have to start now, reaching out now and not sit on the sidelines until the next cycle," he said.

The growing influence of Latinos, blacks, women and young people in America is not a new story. Demographers have known that at some point the country would become more non-white than white. Social scientists knew that the American landscape was changing, and that change would begin to have profound impact on the nation's shifting identity.

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Over the next several generations, the wave of minority voters -- who, according to U.S. Census figures released earlier this year, now represent more than half of the nation's population born in the past year -- will become more of a power base in places like Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. That hold will extend across the Southwest all the way to California, experts say.

The coming political revolution could result in a massive changing of the guard on nearly every level of government, potential cultural clashes from big cities to rural towns, and the type of political alliances that are now considered rare.

"I do think that the era that began with Ronald Regan where there was a conservative dominance powered by conservative voters and Southern whites. That era is over," said David Bositis, a senior political analyst, at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. "Any candidate that wants to run a campaign [now] only at whites is going to lose."

Read more at CNN.