The U.S. Department of Justice filed suit yesterday to block North Carolina’s new voter suppression law that would disenfranchise more than 300,000 voters, mostly African American, young people and seniors. In a press conference, Attorney General Eric Holder said the law passed by the Republican-dominated legislature and signed by Gov. Pat McCrory (R) in August was a deliberate attempt to exclude voters of color. 

Information about the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) working in secret to push state-level policy to more extreme levels is coming to light more and more and America's working families are starting to stand up to the group's corporate-driven agenda. While ALEC's agenda is all over the policy map, the organization has a particular focus on pushing new laws that attack working families and undercut the rights of workers, both in the workplace and in retirement.  Here are eight of the most dangerous and most widespread ways that ALEC is targeting workers and their right to a voice on the job.

Jake Long, chair of the Harrisburg Region Central Labor Council’s COPE committee and a baker by trade, does not spend most of his days in Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court in Harrisburg, but it did not take him long to form an opinion of the proceedings surrounding the court’s review of the state's contested voter ID law.

Apparently unwilling to face up to the North Carolina voters who are taking them to task each week for the extremist tea party/corporate agenda they are enacting, North Carolina legislators yesterday moved their normal Monday evening sessions back several hours to avoid the 12th Moral Monday protest at the state Capitol in Raleigh.

But once again, nearly 2,000 civil rights, union, student and other working family activists rallied yesterday evening to spotlight the legislature’s and Gov. Pat McCrory’s radical  actions, with a special emphasis on the continuing rollback of voting rights in North Carolina.   

Following the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling in the Shelby County v. Holder case striking down a portion of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), several states immediately took steps to increase voter suppression efforts. The court ruled unconstitutional the formula used to determine which states and locales needed to get preclearance from the Department of Justice before making changes in voting process. In recent years, Republicans have ramped up efforts to limit the right to vote, particularly through the use of voter identification laws that require eligible voters to purchase state-issued IDs before they can cast their ballots.

On Friday, Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) introduced legislation that would effectively ban requirements that voters show some form of official identification in federal elections. Under the proposed law, voters without required identification would still be able to vote by signing a sworn affidavit that they are the person they represent themselves to be.

Here's a look at some of the key battles in the states from the past week.

While government in Washington, D.C., remains divided and marked by long-term gridlock, governments in the states are much less divided. Of the 50 states, 37 now feature state governments where the governor and majorities in both legislative houses are controlled by one party—24 of those are controlled by Republicans. Extreme, anti-working family Republicans have repeatedly assaulted the rights of people in recent years and, by all accounts, the trend looks to expand in 2013. Working families are mobilized and fought back in 2012 and will continue to fight in 2013.  The response to the "right to work" for less push in Michigan was so strong, that governors in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have since declared that they won't push for right to work in their states.

Here’s a look at a number of other key working-family races and ballot issues from yesterday’s elections.

In several U.S. Senate races where Republican, corporate and super PAC cash looked like it would make the difference, union members’ get-out-the-vote activism and votes helped push working-family candidates to victory. Democrats now have 55 senate seats. Elizabeth Warren defeated Sen. Scott Brown in Massachusetts. Tim Kaine beat George Allen in Virginia. Rep. Tammy Baldwin overcame Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin, Sen. Jon Tester defeated challenger Rep. Denny Rehberg in Montana and Sen. Sherrod Brown won over Josh Mandel in Ohio. Other Senate wins include Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.). 

As unpatriotic as it sounds, some people would deny American citizens the right to vote, even those who are fully entitled to cast their ballot. The only way to make sure to avoid being the victim of such tactics is to know what your rights are and know who to talk to if you have a problem.