Voting Rights
Hank Chambers areas of expertise include voting rights, criminal law, constitutional law, and employment discrimination. He is a Professor of Law and Austin E. Owens Research Scholar at the Univeristy of Richmond.
He has been widely published on these issues, and he has specifically written about voter ID laws and how local poll workers interpret the law. He has also researched and written about technological changes and voting rights.
Chambers can discuss the nuances between voting rights and the right to vote.
"In theory, voting rights and the right to vote are one in the same, and they should be coexistent. Voting is treated more as a privilege where a person has to do things in order to exercise their right, like register to vote. If a governor restores a felon's right to vote, that person still has to register, so when they show up to the polls their name is still in the poll book. People don't realize they have to do this in order to actually exercise their right," Chambers explains.
"Voting rights have a broad impact not just on the outcomes of elections. If voting means participating in a community, what message does it send that people are being excluded from participating? We need to consider who gets to be a part of these decisions and how they build a community," Chambers added.
Contact Sunni Brown (sbrown5@richmond.edu), director of media and public relations, to connect with Chambers.
