The Issues at Stake: Voting Rights – Voter Suppression

Creating obstacles to voter registration

• Voting ID laws have now become ubiquitous, but offer a ‘solution’ to a problem of voter fraud that simply does not exist on any significant scale. States vary in their requirements for documentation to identity and the ways in which an approved Voter ID can be obtained. They disadvantage a wide range of voters: young, poor, women, the elderly and more through the types of ID required, the costs of obtaining them and the way they are managed. The unequal impact on ethnic minorities, especially African Americans has been reliably demonstrated. Voting Rights activists see these laws as functioning as a new ‘poll tax’. See these Brennan Center Reports.

•  Laws restricting the work of organizations organizing voter registration drives..

• Purging voter rolls: via the use of  various mechanisms and criteria.

• ‘Caging’ refers to when a political party sends registered mail to addresses of registered voters. If the mail is returned as undeliverable, the mailing organization uses that fact to challenge the registration, arguing that because the voter could not be reached at the address, the registration is fraudulent. 

• Felon disenfranchisement.

Creating obstacles and confusion about voting

• Restricted early voting.
• Since the 2020 election and provisions then made to allow more flexibility in ‘mail-in voting’ and methods for ‘dropping-off’ ballots, many Republican state legislatures have begun to roll back these provisions and impose more restrictions.
• The ‘gutting’ of the Voting Rights Act. 
• Inadequate and unequal resourcing for the administration of elections: insufficient or unequal allocation of the number/locations of polling stations and the number of voting machines

• Disinformation about voting procedures and deadlines.

Gerrymandering is the creation of electoral districts in order to achieve a partisan advantage. Most of our federal legislators, all of our state legislators and many of our local legislators in towns and counties are elected from districts. Districts divide states and the people who live there into geographical territories for representation and therefore voting.

In most states, districts are drawn up by state legislators, with governors often holding veto power. Some states have independent commissions, while others have ‘political commissions’ . The decision about how to draw up districts is left to state legislatures or in some cases, ballot initiatives. This is why participating in state level elections is so important.

Redistricting is the way in which the districts are adjusted. The next redistricting is due in 2023 – 2022 and will be based on the Census. That is why filling out the Census is so important. In addition, redistricting can be mandated as a result of challenges in the courts.

In 2010 the Republican State Leadership Committee launched their REDMAP Project which was devoted to securing control of state legislatures in order to control redistricting and thereby gain more representatives at both state and federal levels.

The Economist found that “in the 2012 redistricting cycle, the boundaries of 48% of House districts were drawn entirely by Republican officials, compared with just 10% by Democratic ones.” 

To find out more about redistricting: Read “All about redistricting” : Professor Justin Levitt’s guide to drawing the electoral lines. A good general source that is regularly updated. 

The demonstrable effect of all the measures listed above has always been to suppress the Democratic vote, because those disproportionally affected have always been the poor,  people of color, young people, the elderly, and people with disabilities. In 2021, many Republicans, while still claiming the aim of combating (non-existent) voter fraud, have been more overt in speaking about the fact that their path to electoral success relies upon fewer people voting. Some of the recent provisions, for example in Georgia, are surgically precise in targeting the African American community, for example, the proposed (but withdrawn) ban on Sunday voting.  

See reports from groups such as the ACLU, the Brennan Center for more details. 

Democrats Abroad has a dedicated team working to protect Overseas Americans’ votes! Find out more here.

The Senate is now holding hearings on the For the People Act which has already been passed by the House of Representatives. Its passage would represent a major blow to efforts to suppress voting and would also institute other major reforms to the operation of our elections. See the Brennan Center’s report on the Act and what it would achieve here.

The number and range of organizations devoted to protecting voting rights in the USA has expanded since 2016. The level of activism in 2018 and 2020 was particularly high, and they are already preparing for the 2022 elections.

Their activities range from:

– Litigation: challenges in the courts,

– Research and investigations on the impact and operation of laws and regulations and the ‘motivations’ and support behind them,  

– Ballot initiatives on extending voting rights,

– Activism on a range of issues:  e.g. providing support for people to gain the required Voter IDs.