Voting restrictions backed by Republicans could help Donald Trump get elected,
according to NBC News.
Many of the states that have added stricter voting regulations are battleground states, NBC News said. Minorities and younger voters — voters less likely to be supporters of Trump and the GOP — are more likely to be affected by the regulations.
A 2013 Supreme Court ruling invalidated part of the Voting Rights Act, and this will be the first presidential election without the act's protections.
Some examples of the changes include in Wisconsin, where a law championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker make it more difficult for civic groups to hold voter registration drives — which are a primary method of registering minority voters and poor voters. That state also replaced a nonpartisan election board with political appointees.
North Carolina Republicans
passed the most regressive voting law in the U.S when it cut early voting, pre-registration for ages 16 and 17, and the dropping of same-day voter registration. The NAACP pointed out that state officials moved almost one-third of early voting sites, increasing the distance some black voters would have to travel in order to cast a ballot, according to NBC News.
In Virginia, almost 200,000 registered voters, including a disproportionate number of minorities, did not have acceptable ID to vote according to new laws. The state's GOP also
sued the state to stop 200,000 felons from being able to vote.
Ohio made getting an absentee ballot more difficult. The state cut back weekend and evening voting, which threatens "Souls to the Polls" voter drives run by black churches. The state reduced the minimum number of voting machines that poll sites must have, which could lead to longer lines in some areas.
In Arizona, primary
voters waited in lines all day when voting sites were cut back by 70 percent. Areas with a high Latino population were affected, according to the NBC report. Republicans in Arizona attempted to require proof of citizenship before voting, but it is not continuing that effort.
Florida has strict laws against voting by felons, which keeps one in four African-Americans from voting.
The Iowa Supreme Court upheld its ban on voting by felons,
according to AllGov.com. That ban is on voters who have committed an "infamous crime," which the state legislature calls any felony.