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While all Southern states have laws disenfranchising people while they are incarcerated and on probation or parole, Florida stands out with one of the nation's most restrictive felony disenfranchisement laws — one of only four states that impose a lifetime ban on voting for anyone convicted of a felony. The others are Virginia, Kentucky and Iowa.

Should anything go awry with the 2020 count, it could have political implications affecting how voting districts are drawn or how language minorities can access the ballot. Important funding decisions are also driven by Census data. Nationwide, nearly $600 billion in federal funding is allocated to states based on Census numbers, according to a recent report by the George Washington Institute of Public Policy. Southern states receive $179.2 billion of that total.

The Justice Department “simply has no more credibility in this litigation,” Dunn told the Texas Tribune after the government’s latest brief. “For six years, the Department of Justice stood on the side of voters arguing that Texas’ unnecessary voter photo ID law was enacted with discriminatory intent, then after the new administration was sworn in, one of DOJ’s first acts was to back out of the case.”

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Today, the N.A.A.C.P. carries the weight of history and burden of bureaucracy. But it does not seem willing to shed blood, literally, or in terms of the uncomfortable work that characterizes effective activism.

Mantell Stevens is an activist, organizer, speaker, and lobbyist with Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, a grassroots social justice organization working on a number of issues, including ending Kentucky’s policy of lifetime disenfranchisement. Kentucky is one of only three states that continue to impose lifetime disenfranchisement, permanently barring citizens from the ballot box as a consequence for any felony conviction.

Kris Kobach is the GOP mastermind behind a secretive system that purged 1.1 million Americans from the voter rolls.

A federal judge ruled that Texas’ voter ID was intended to discriminate against blacks and Latinos. The Department of Justice tried to argue otherwise.

Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union have focused on challenging voter ID mandates in court. That’s essential, but it’s not enough. As court battles proceed, we must acknowledge our collective obligation to voters by investing in on-the-ground, in-person support.

In a country where nearly 93 million eligible Americans did not vote in the 2016 presidential election, government officials should be investigating how to make the nation’s electoral process more inclusive, rather than searching for ways to place additional burdens on eligible Americans’ access to the polls.