Marc Veasey Quotes

I don't think everyone should vote. If you have to be dragged into the polls, carried into the polls and smelling salts have to be used, you probably shouldn't be voting. However, we shouldn't be putting up barriers to voting that target certain groups.

You've got to jump through all kinds of hoops to vote in America.

When I was growing up in rural Alabama, it was impossible for me to register to vote. I didn't become a registered voter until I moved to Tennessee, to Nashville, as a student.

As long as there have been elections, there have been attempts to keep eligible people from voting.

They don't want you to vote. If they did, we wouldn't vote on a Tuesday. In November. You ever throw a party on a Tuesday? No. Because nobody would come.

I try hard to convince them it's important - but there's a history of discomfort with minorities voting in some parts of this country, so most especially the older people have to get accustomed to it.

According to the U.S. Census, the most common reason people give for not voting is that they were too busy or had conflicting work or school schedules.

There are a number of Americans who shouldn't vote. The number is 57 percent, to judge by the combined total of Clinton and Perot ballots in the 1996 presidential election.

Having personally watched the Voting Rights Act being signed into law that August day, I can't begin to imagine how we could have all been so wrong in believing that more Americans would vote once they were all truly free to do so.

Voting in Florida is like there’s some kind of goody in a box and you want to get it, but you’ve got to be persistent to get it.

Americans need national voter registration reform to break down the barriers that discourage and discriminate.

Officials who wish to deny minorities the right to vote adopt one tactic. When a lawsuit finally gets decided that the tactic is unconstitutional or otherwise illegal, the official just switches tactics…. Election enforcement lawsuits are different and demand more [than typical lawsuits.]

Voter suppression is wrong even if it’s not racist. Any legislation that exists for the sole purpose of making it more difficult for an otherwise eligible person to vote is unethical. It’s straightforward cheating.

Language has historically stood as a barrier for some voters seeking to participate in the electoral process.

If we don't allow people to vote in America, what is our democracy? It's a sham.

Elections aren't just about who votes but who doesn't vote.

I know lots of people in Mississippi who have lost their jobs trying to register to vote.

Voting shouldn't be a challenge. It should be as easy and accessible as possible. We shouldn't require forms of ID that folks don't have. We shouldn't restrict days or hours that allow working people a chance to both do their job and exercise their democratic right, and we damn well shouldn't be throwing up new obstacles midstream.

In Selma, Alabama, in 1965, only 2.1 percent of blacks of voting age were registered to vote. The only place you could attempt to register was to go down to the courthouse. You had to pass a so-called literacy test. And they would tell people over and over again that they didn't or couldn't pass the literacy test.

I don't think we should be about the business of denying voters in Michigan and Florida the right to be heard.

If people of colour do not exercise their democratic right to vote, they will remain an invisible, voiceless, and largely ignored part of the electorate.

Voter ID laws have a disproportionate impact on groups that lean democratic - including blacks, hispanics and students.

Alabama and other states had a terrible record in terms of depriving people of their right to vote, making it difficult for them to vote, discriminating against people.

During my time in the Texas State Legislature, I witnessed firsthand the lack of evidence behind the rampant claims of voter fraud and the obstacles voters would face if the 2011 photo Voter ID were put in place.

You can get elected to Congress without ever talking to black voters at all, and I think that's bad for the party.