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Voter suppression continues to be a serious concern as we get closer to November’s presidential election. While the federal government has overturned some laws restricting voter access, other states have managed to continue their discriminatory practices. The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division last Thursday agreed to the Republican led Florida Legislature’s early voting plan which reduces the number of voting days in five Florida Counties. The plan will allow for 96 hours of early voting over 8 days but no voting on the Sunday before election day which has historically been a day with strong voter turnout among African Americans.

Also on Thursday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court heard arguments for and against the state’s strict voter ID law which was put into place in March after Republican Tom Corbett took over as governor. While Texas, Florida, South Carolina and Wisconsin, have had to overturn their voter ID requirements and voter registration restrictions due to Federal court rulings, opponents of the laws are worried that other rulings, like the one in Pennsylvania, may not come in time for the November election. Over 30 states almost all with Republican Governors have instituted some form of voter ID law, some of them more restrictive than others.

While most Americans take government issued photo IDs like their driver’s licenses for granted, there are as many as 21 million people or 11 percent of all eligible voters who do not possess a government issued photo ID. Among African Americans a staggering 25 percent do not possess a government issued photo ID. Senior citizens, people with low income and young people also have very high percentages without photo IDs.

GUEST: Aura Bogado the community journalism coordinator and blogger for Voting Rights Watch 2012, a joint project of the Nation Magazine and Colorlines.com. She is also one of Uprising’s 2012 Election Analysts