La. repeals discriminatory voting law
21st June 2016 · 0 Comments
By Della Hasselle
Contributing Writer
Thanh Mai, who was born in Vietnam, was just one year old when she moved to the United States in 1996.
By the age of 20, Mai, a Jefferson Parish resident who had never been convicted of a felony, had tried three times to register to vote in Louisiana.
Each time, she was denied – not because a court had taken away her right, but because of a 142-year-old state law that required naturalized citizens in Louisiana to jump through more hoops during the registration process than natural-born citizens.
Now, thanks to the repeal of that law, Mai and other naturalized citizens will now be able to exercise a fundamental right of citizenship – voting – just in time for the upcoming Presidential election.
“Registering to vote is the culmination of a long and exciting road towards U.S. citizenship for many American immigrants,” said Carolina Hernandez, the executive director of a nonprofit organization called PUENTES|LatiNOLA. “By repealing this discriminatory requirement, Louisiana is no longer systematically blocking U.S. citizens from exercising their most fundamental right as citizens: voting.”
The issue was raised early in May, when Mai joined other plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed in federal court by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Fair Elections Legal Network, which alleged state law discriminated against naturalized citizens like her.
The lawsuit never made it before a judge, however, because in early June, about two weeks after that suit was filed, John Bel Edwards signed HB 890, which repealed the 1874 law that the law center said was unconstitutional for several groups of American citizens.
“The governor’s action means that naturalized citizens will no longer be treated like second-class citizens when they register to vote in Louisiana,” Naomi Tsu, SPLC deputy legal director, said in a statement announcing Edwards’ actions. “We are pleased that the state moved swiftly to ensure all voters have equal access to the ballot box.”
To register in Louisiana, native-born U.S. citizen registrants have historically only needed to sign an affirmation of U.S. citizenship. Although the signature is given under penalty of perjury, those born in America have never been required to submit documentary proof of U.S. citizenship in order to be registered.
Before, however, that same rule didn’t apply to those who were born outside of the country but had since become legal citizens.
In addition to signing the sworn attestation of citizenship on the voter registration application, the now-repealed law required naturalized citizens to present documentary proof of their U.S. citizenship.
Such proof included a certificate of naturalization, a current U.S. passport, a certificate of naturalization of the parent, a certificate of citizenship, or a certificate of repatriation.
Often, the Louisiana residents would receive notice that they needed to submit these documents in a way that was buried or sometimes even incomprehensible to someone not familiar with the specifics of the law, according to a representative of VAYLA New Orleans, a nonprofit organization and progressive multi-racial community-based organization that has attempted to register voters since after Hurricane Katrina.
For instance, the website for Louisiana’s secretary of state failed to mention the requirement altogether. In St. Bernard Parish, the registrar’s office would send back a letter with the words “POC” as the written reason why
And, as in St. Bernard, in Jefferson Parish, the voter registration office would send a letter informing applicants that they had only 10 days to come in with proof of citizenship.
The law also conflicted with federal law, which allowed naturalized citizens a simpler way of registering.
The obstacles created by the requirement prevented many people, including Mai, from voting, in the 2016 presidential primary.
And she wasn’t the only one. According to the lawsuit, three naturalized citizens, with the help of VAYLA, attempted to register a collective eight times, but were prevented by what the SPCL called “onerous” requirements.
Others, too, had difficulty, because they had to take time off of work to go to the Voter Registrar’s Office, and some had limited English proficiency, meaning they might not understand the instructions in the letter from the Voter Registrar’s Office.
Because of these reasons, the nonprofit organizations alleged that the law violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the National Voter Registration Act.
The law, according to the nonprofit groups, prevented some naturalized citizens in Louisiana from voting for decades.
Altogether, Edward’s appeal has the potential to affect the lives of approximately 72,250 naturalized citizens living in Louisiana, according to Minh Nguyen, executive director of VAYLA. They include large pockets of Vietnamese-American, Latino and Muslim communities in the greater New Orleans area.
“Naturalized citizens in Louisiana have been disenfranchised by this outdated statute for too long,” Nguyen said. “This is a step forward in ensuring that all people have access to meaningful opportunities for civic engagement and the electoral process.”
This article originally published in the June 20, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
