Klein Joshua Without conservative Supreme Court majority, voter-law challengers make gains (Washington Post By Robert Barnes September 5 at 3:37 PM

Link to article https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/without-conservative-supreme-court-majority-voter-law-challengers-make-gains/2016/09/05/5ac74948-704e-11e6-9705-23e51a2f424d_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_courtvoting-350p%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Summary: A group of civil rights organizations and other Democratic groups have recently worked to overturn strict voting laws in several states around the country. After Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died the Supreme Court is now split 4 conservatives to 4 liberals because the Senate has not confirmed President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee. If Justice Scalia were still alive these voting laws might be ruled as unconstitutional by a more conservative Supreme Court. North Carolina had a number of voting restrictions in place like eliminating early voting and requiring voters to present identification but only certain types of identification were allowed by the law including IDs that were held disproportionately by white people. A lower federal court ruled that the North Carolina law was unconstitutional and the Supreme Court did not hear arguments on the case because they are currently split 4 to 4 along ideological lines. 

Author:  Robert Barnes is a reporter for the Washington Post and he wrote the article. He has written articles for the Washington Post since 1987. He started his career writing about Maryland politics. He has written articles about the Supreme Court since 2006. It is hard to tell if the reporter is in favor of keeping more restrictive voting procedures in place or not. He seems to be pretty balanced.

Place and Time:  The article was published on September 5^th, at 3:37pm in Washington, D. C. Since the article was written today, it probably has the most up to date information about this topic. Also, since the reporter who wrote the article is based in Washington, D.C., he may have good information about the topic since the Supreme Court is located in Washington.

Prior Knowledge:  I did not know anything about this topic before I read it. I knew about the Supreme Court and that it had some members that are conservative and some that are liberal. It is a complicated set of issues. So, there was a lot of new material to learn about, but it was interesting. 

Audience:  The article was written for readers of the Washington Post or a general audience. 

Reason:  The Article was written to inform readers about a current event.

The Main Idea:  A number of laws that restrict voting have been overturned by lower courts. As a result of the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court is now split between 4 liberals and 4 conservatives. If Scalia were alive the Supreme Court would likely reinstate some or all of those voting restrictions.  

Significance:  Voting restrictions in place in states like North Carolina and Wisconsin have more of a negative effect on minority voters who tend to vote for Democrats. The more restrictions that are removed the more likely Hilary Clinton and other Democrats running for office in the November will.

Synthesis:  The restrictions that are in place affect African Americans and other minorities more than they do White Americans. Before 1960s, Southern States had a lot of voting restrictions in place to prevent African Americans from voting. For example, some states required voters to pay a tax to vote. Many African Americans in the South were poor, so this tax was more of a barrier to them than White voters. Also, some states required voters to prove that they could read and write, but many African Americans could not read or write well enough to pass these tests.