National: US elections 2016: Anger over new voter ID laws | Al Jazeera
In many ways, Alabama is the cradle of the voting rights movement, a place where Wilcox County circuit clerk Ralph Ervin says “stumbling blocks” have been turned into “stepping stones”. But on Super Tuesday civil rights activists say those stumbling blocks are preventing black voters from going to the polls. The issue in this state, where a quarter of the population are African-American, is voter ID laws. In 2014, the state changed the law and now requires all voters to produce government-issued photo IDs. At first glance that does not seem like an unreasonable request and those who back the law say it prevents voter fraud. But in sparsely populated poor communities, like Wilcox County, public transport is virtually non-existent -compounding the problem is the partial closure of more than 30 drivers license offices, many in predominantly black counties.