The more you know about the laws that affect you, the easier it is to make good decisions about your life, your family and your finances. Each year, The Missouri Bar collaborates with law schools and legal professionals from across the state to deliver Mini Law School for the Public courses. During these sessions, attendees can hear in-depth discussions about various law-related topics. This video is an opportunity to view programming from the 2016 fall lecture series.
The concept of the right to vote in the United States has a long and complex history, and the 2016 election cycle brought many questions about voting rights back into the spotlight.
In this video, recorded during Mini Law School for the Public in St. Louis, lawyer Denise Lieberman, lawyer Stephen Davis and lawyer and then-Missouri Rep. Mike Colona discuss the history of voting rights and current issues pertaining to the matter.
“There’s so many questions about who gets to vote, and how and why,” Leiberman said. “It’s really the only institution in society where truly everybody weighs exactly the same.”
This session was filmed just days before the November 2016 election, and Leiberman, Davis and Colona take turns discussing how modern voting rights were shaped, as well as what the future of voting rights might look like.
“Not only are we in the midst of a highly contentious and historic election cycle, we’re also really in the midst of a lot of open questions about the nature of the right to vote, both at a national level and even right here in Missouri,” Leiberman said. “These questions are really, really relevant.”
Other points in the lecture include:
- Photo IDs and voter fraud
- Gerrymandering
- The history of voting in the United States, including changes following the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Voting Rights Act and the 2013 The Shelby Decision
- Poll taxes, literacy tests and intimidation at polling places
- Missouri’s ties to voting rights, including Dred Scott and Virginia Minor
- And much more
Watch the lecture here:
