Voting Rights and Civic Engagement
Louisiana has always stood at the forefront in the struggle for black voting rights. Even though voting rights were gained by blacks immediately following the Civil War, after Reconstruction blacks in New Orleans lost the right to vote. Katrina displaced more than half of New Orleans’s 460,000 residents, the vast majority of whom were African-American. Once again, blacks faced loss of the right to vote.
As a direct result of the Acorn vs. Blanco federal litigation filed against the Louisiana, led by counsel from Advancement Project, with LJI Board Member Bill Quigley and LJI President & CEO Tracie Washington serving as local counsel, several civil rights organizations were granted unprecedented access to election monitoring for each of the 2006 elections held in Orleans Parish. Attorneys monitored the absentee ballot process from start to completion, including on-site review of the ballot count. Moreover, during the Spring 2006 elections, counsel mapped, photographed, and reviewed every polling place in New Orleans, which led to significant changes for disabled voters.
Voters today continue to face major obstacles to voting in Louisiana including major registration purges, last minute changes in polling places and a heavy dose of apathy. LJI has partnered with other major civil rights organization through the Louisiana Voting Rights Network, to monitor polls at every election, insure access of all Louisiana voters to the ballot, particularly those still displaced, and provide all voters with the information they need to make informed decisions. Later this year LJI plans on beginning the process of gathering and analyzing voting patterns in Louisiana post-Katrina among communities of color to help inform future projects aimed at increasing civic engagement and voter turnout.
In addition to protecting voting rights and our other strategies to enhance civic engagement, LJI is also committed to supporting and offering legal services to groups that are trying to establish and provide structure for community based organizations. LJI helps these groups with the process of incorporation, connects them with resources and other groups doing similar work, and also helps develop media and legal advocacy angles. LJI believes that this is just one more way to raise up the voices and the energy of community members to pursue lasting change. LJI is currently working with three such groups who are in the process of forming community based organizations.
