Thank You For Voting (HarperCollins, adult + kid editions). Bylines NYT/WSJ/Reuters. eringeigersmith@gmail.com Insta: 
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Election Day in NYC and Pub Day for me! Thank You for Voting evaluates our history, our problems, and how to make them better. And highlights those already doing the work! Plus so many fun facts! I hope it encourages you to get everyone you know to vote.https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062934826/thank-you-for-voting/ …
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A Thank You for Voting DID YOU KNOW? courtesy of @JamieStelter @racheld @katierosman @candacejackson and @EHolmespic.twitter.com/wY5rQRGoG5
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Shelby County, the Supreme Court case that nullified a key section of the Voting Rights Act, was decided on this day in 2013. States *immediately* began putting in place laws (Voter ID, early voting changes, etc) that previously would have required federal approval.
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The Chief Justice, John Roberts, wrote the Shelby County majority opinion. It came 30 years after he’d argued, as a young lawyer in the Reagan Administration, to vastly raise the stakes on what it would take to prove a Voting Rights Act case.
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I wanted to make Thank You for Voting Easy to flip through and pick up quick facts, too (including for reporters who don’t always read the book
), so I wrote several sidebars.
The first: Who was “Jim Crow”? (Answer preview: a white actor.)Show this thread -
Second Sidebar: Arguments for & against women’s right to vote, via the ads and pamphlets of the time. One pro: “Women bring all voters into the world. Let them vote.” One con: “A vote for federal suffrage is a vote for organized female nagging forever.”
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The 26th amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, was ratified on this day in 1971. The age change was first included in a Voting Rights Act extension, but SCOTUS ruled the change could only apply to federal elections, which would have caused a logistical mess.
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So in March 1971, the Senate voted to amend the Constitution to change the voting age, and by July enough states had approved it. It was the swiftest ratification process in history. As I stress in the book ... now we just need to all do our part to get those kids to the polls.
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Happy August! Happy women's suffrage month! The 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote nationwide,* was ratified 100 years ago this month. *It would take another 45 years before the 1965 Voting Rights Act fully protected that right for all American women
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“Remember the Ladies … If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.” - Abigail Adams to John Adams, 1776
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On this day in 1965, the Voting Right Act was signed into law. President Johnson said at the signing that the Act “flows from a clear and simple wrong” and that its purpose was to “right that wrong.”
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Black leaders in attendance included Roy Wilkins (head of the NAACP), John Lewis (head of the Student Nonviolent Ccordinating Committee), and Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Johnson said it wasn’t just a victory for Black Americans, but a “challenge which cannot be met simply by protests and demonstrations. It means that dedicated leaders must work around the clock to teach people their rights...and lead them to exercise those rights...
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Though the VRA was repeatedly renewed through both R and D administrations, the Supreme Court in 2013 “struck down the heart” (in the words of
@adamliptak at the time) of the VRA, freeing up states with histories of discrimination to change their voting laws w/o federal approval.Show this thread
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