Most say federal rules are necessary to ensure equal voting access — CBS News study
CBSN
Most Americans decry the politicization of election and voting rules in the U.S., but at the same time, they echo the partisan rhetoric around voting access and security. And they differ in how much involvement they think the federal government should have in how states run elections.
As some state legislatures enact voting restrictions, and Democrats in Washington push for legislation increasing federal oversight of states' voting rules, a majority of Americans feel such oversight is indeed necessary today to make sure minorities have the same access to voting as White people do. But fewer think it's necessary today than when they look back at the 1960s. The debate over federal oversight of the voting system echoes the debate over equal access in the 1960s. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act expanded federal oversight of state elections with the aim of reducing racial disparities in access to voting. At the time, about three in four Americans supported the law, according to a 1965 Gallup survey.Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.