SuppressionVoter

The Fight for Voting Rights: Voter Suppression in American Elections

By Lina Benredouane Edited by Quinn Bunke

“I am American and it Took Me 7 Hours, 45 Minutes and 12 Seconds to Vote”

I was as shocked reading that quote as you probably are right now. Or, perhaps, you were already aware that voter suppression is as grave a problem as it has ever been in American elections, and that it disproportionately impacts Black voters and people of color now more than ever before. In 1965, the United States of America adopted the Voting Rights Act. The Act had section 5 and section 4(b) to prevent states from making laws that infringe on people’s right to vote in democratic elections. States with history racist legislation like voting tests and literacy tests cannot make laws to limit people of color to vote without the Federal Government's permission (Eaton and Backen 2020). This preventative measure was removed in 2013, when the Shelby County v. Holder landmark decision of the US Supreme Court was made. The landmark decision was about the constitutionality of two provisions of the voting rights act of 1965 section 5 and section 4 (b). The main argument was that section 4 (b) is unconstitutional because the coverage formula is based on data over 40 years old. voter discrimation was out of date. It convinced the jury and the Supreme Court ruled by a 5-to-4 vote. The Shelby decision made it so that states would be able to change voting laws without the permission of the federal government. Shelby effectively took away an effective tool in regulating state voting rights (Eaton and Backen 2020).

“Republicans control the State House, Republicans control the Legislature, and they are, frankly, to implement the voting laws they see fit.”

- Astead W. Herndon 2020

There are 5 common vote suppression tactics:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Voter ID laws Polling place closures Proof of citizenship requirements Voter Roll Purges Cuts in Early voting

Hours after Shelby's decision, the state of Alabama implemented a law requiring photo ID as Missippi did. North Carolina eliminated seven days of early voting. Different legislations happened across the country to contribute to voting suppression, but the state that ticked every box is Georgia (Root 2020).

“In 2018, during the Governor’s election, County Chatham in Georgia removed nearly 300 voters from rolls because their name didn’t appear on a water bill”

- Eaton & Backen

The gubernatorial election featured polar opposites as the major party candidates: Stacey Abrams, a Black progressive woman running for the Democrats, and Brian Kemp, a White conservative man running for the Republicans. Shocking statistics emerged from the 2018 Midterm Elections: Georgia has 157 counties and each county manages their own territory with the Secretary of State as top official which means that each county decides on how they want to establish vote offices (Eaton and Backen 2020). Several motions and complaints from voting rights advocates were expressed after the 2018 election cycle in Georgia. For example, Randolph County tried to close seven out of nine polling places in a county that has a population that is 60% Black (Eaton and Backen 2020). A study showed that the average minimum wait time at the polls in Georgia was around 51 minutes in 90% of communities that have visible minorities as the dominant demographic, versus only 6 minutes in 90% of predominantly White communities (Eaton and Backen 2020).

The voter suppression that took place in 2018 across the country made Americans skeptical about the upcoming 2020 Presidential Election. The COVID-19 pandemic is an added element that has had a direct impact on this election. In April 2020, in response to the pandemic, the Secretaries of State across the country sent out absentee ballots. On October 20 2020, the New York Times confirmed that 83.6 million mail-in ballots were sent out or requested in 47 states and the District of Columbia (Gamio and Denise Lu 2020). However, since the idea of mail-in voting was introduced to limit in-person voting, there has been much discussion in the public discourse surrounding voter fraud. Mail-in voting is significant that the waiting line is going to be shorter which will encourage more people to vote.

President Donald Trump has expressed a lot of misinformation about voter fraud and has increasingly attempted to convey the message that the 2020 Election may be fraudulent. Trump is suspicious about mail-in voting because statistics indicate that Democrats receive more favorable outcomes as the voting process is simplified (Dazhanova 2020). Statistics released from the Brennan Center for Justice showed that the national voter fraud rate is between 0.0003 to 0.0025 %. It is less than one percent. The percentage of american voters casting ballots by mail has increased incredibly since 1996. In 1996, we counted only 7.8% voters who cast a ballot by mail versus 18. 5 in 2012 and 20.9 2016 (Harting, Jones and Gomez 2020). The numbers will definitely increase with the 2020 presidential election due to the pandemic context. Post-Shelby decision had a real impact on how people of color face voting suppression. Mail-in voting can be a way to simplify voting and make it more accessible for Americans whatever their ethnicity.

“You know, this is America, we can put a Tesla in space, but we can’t vote?”

- An American citizen

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