Martin Luther King’s daughter will devote holiday to targeting voter suppression

Bernice King, daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said this week that she will devote the holiday that celebrates her father’s legacy to targeting voter suppression.

King, who serves as chief executive of the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, told Reuters, “You can’t take away someone’s right to vote just because they haven’t decided to exercise it.”

“When you take people off the voter rolls because they haven’t chosen to exercise their rights, to me, is suppression.”

She also said that she thinks that her father would be disappointed by some states’ efforts to purge their voter records.

Advocates for these purges have said that getting rid of inactive voters lowers the risk of voters casting multiple ballots at multiple places, but research shows that voter fraud in the U.S. is exceptionally rare.

Political analysts of voter purging have noted that the purges disproportionally affect low-income and minority populations — voting blocs that are historically more likely to vote Democratic.

On Monday, the King Center will host a voter registration drive at the Ebenezer Baptist church where Dr. King preached.

Last month, a federal judge allowed Georgia officials to purge roughly 300,000 voters who had not voted since 2012.