Voting Rights and Voter Suppression
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Voting Rights and Voter Suppression
Explain how and why the United States has gone from protecting voting rights and expanding the vote to voter suppression. Is voter suppression a threat to U.S. Democracy?
What is the purpose of the Voting Rights Act of 1965?
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was one of the most important election-related legislation that opened up the country’s democratic spaces. This piece of legislation was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on the 6th day of August 1965. One of the primary goals of this law was to outlaw or did away with some of the voter discriminatory practices that were adopted and were being applied by some of the southern states after the Civil War. During this period, individuals from minority groups such as African Americans were disenfranchised since there were tougher restrictions that prohibited or reduced their chances of voting. Some of the obstacles which African Americans had to overcome were poll taxes, literacy tests, and other bureaucratic restrictions. Additionally, when African Americans sought to register to vote, they were often intimidated, harassed, and at times they had to deal with the risk of physical violence.
Evidently, there were significant challenges that African Americans in the south encountered as they sought to participate in the country’s democratic processes. Evidently, there were different sets of laws that were applied with regard to African Americans participating in voting. The enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 played a critical role in creating a space for minority groups such as African Americans to exercise their democratic rights to elect the leaders of their choice. While noting the positive impacts of the Voting Rights Act of 1945, it is notable that people from some quarters were not happy with it and sought to mutilate it in various ways.
What are the effects of the Shelby County v. Holder decision?
Shelby County v. Holder is a 2013 United States Supreme Court case that made proclamations whose impacts on the implementation of the Voting Rights were adverse. The crux of this case was that the constitutionality of two sections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was being challenged. The sections in the contest were section 5 and section 4 (b). Section 5 of the law required that before states or local governments made changes to their voting and other election practices, they would have to seek preclearance from the federal government. On the other side, section 4(b) provided the formula that would be used in the preclearance of states and local governments, based on the history of election discrimination by the concerned states. The impact of these clauses is that they made it difficult for states that had a history of voter discrimination to go back to those practices. In the ruling, the Supreme Court declared section 4(b) as unconstitutional. Although the judges did not touch section 5, it is necessary to note that it was section 4(b) that created a foundation for its implementation. Thus, with section 4(b) out of the way, there is no basis upon which section 5 would be implemented. The impact of this ruling is that it made it easy for individual states and local governments to enact laws and practices that would hinder targeted groups of people from exercising their voting rights.
What is the difference between in-person voting fraud and election fraud? (hint: A Dream Undone)
The term in-person voting fraud occurs when someone seeks to vote by impersonating another person, seeking to vote more than once and when one is seeking to vote, but they are ineligible to vote. This practice is almost negligible in the United States (Rutenberg, 2015). On the other side, Rutenberg (2015) described election fraud as “ballot stuffing, vote buying, and machine rigging” and that the practice is fairly common in the United States. There is a reason why it is necessary to create a distinction between these two forms of election malpractices. One of the reasons why it is necessary to create these distinctions is to make it possible to have a clear picture of the nature of the threats that the country’s election processes encounter and make adequate plans to counter them in the event where there is an attempt by some people to interfere with the country’s voting processes. For example, when there is evidence that the elections in the United States are more characterized by election fraud than in-person-voting fraud, the institutions that run the country’s elections should make plans that would prevent election fraud from taking place.
What were forms of voter suppression put in place after Shelby County v. Holder?
As indicated above, it was inescapable that the verdict in Shelby County v. Holder was going to have effects on the country’s laws and practices, especially among the states that had traditionally shown tendencies for voter suppression and discrimination. It did not take long before the country witnessed the impacts of the ruling. After five years of ruling, a wave of the closure of voting stations was witnessed in some states in the south. Incidentally, most of the polling stations that were closed were in regions that were dominated by people of color. When there is a reduction in the number of voting centers, two outcomes are likely to be seen. One of the outcomes is that the number of registered voters in the region will stagnate, and the voter turnout will be low. It is important to note that when voting centers decline in a region, voter registration will cease to take place, and on Election Day, the voter turnout will be low since some people will have lost their voting centers. It was also noted that after this ruling, the country witnessed changes that saw a reduction in early voting, the imposition of unnecessarily harsh voter ID laws as well as the purging of voter rolls. The impacts of these changes on the country’s democracy were enormous.
Do you think that voter suppression is something to be concerned about? Is it a threat to U.S. democracy?
Voter suppression is a phenomenon that must now be of concern to all Americans. While it is not yet at a level that is likely to tilt the outcomes of the country’s elections, one has to be worried when it is apparent that many states are adopting policies that are capable of reducing voter turnout. Johnson and Fieldman (2020) indicate that since 2013 when the Supreme Court made the ruling on the Voting Rights Act of 2013, many states have been coming up with voting policies and regulations that have contributed significantly to voter suppression. For example, in Texas, the laws have been changed to have a handgun license use to vote, but student ID cannot be used to vote. Interestingly, in this state, 80% of individuals with handgun licenses are whites, while more than half of students in Texas colleges are from minority groups (Johnson & Fieldman, 2020). The implication of this regulation is that it will allow as many whites as possible to vote, but individuals from minority groups will have limited voting opportunities.
Similarly, Georgia has a regulation referred to as ‘exact match.’ In this regulation, it is required that for individuals to be allowed to vote, there must be a perfect match between the names on the identification and the names on the voter roll. In the 2018 election, it was found that close to 80% of the persons who had problems were of color (Johnson & Fieldman, 2020). The data demonstrated that the regulation was developed with the primary interest being to deny African Americans and other minority groups an opportunity to vote. In the face of these changes, it is evident that voter suppression is a serious problem that must now be given attention.
The president has said several times that mail-in voting leads to voting fraud. He has also suggested that if he loses, it will be because of voter fraud. Is the president trying to undermine the legitimacy of the election?
Yes, when the president says that mail-in voting leads to voting fraud and goes ahead to say that he is not going to accept the outcome of the election, if he loses, he is trying to undermine the legitimacy of the election. There is no doubt that the main-in voting has been one of the critical elements of the country’s democratic processes. This practice makes sure that individuals who may not get time or who may not be available on Election Day, as a result of any factor, get an opportunity to vote. The main-in voting is verifiable and accurate, and in the event where there are malpractices, the same may be detected. Patterson (2020) says that “But Trump and his party are fundamentally opposed to that most basic tenet of democracy: an honest and inclusive election.” The statements by the president not only suggest that he is not a democrat but also that he is not interested in an inclusive process. Trump is aware that due to the risks posed by the novel coronavirus, many people have decided that voting on Election Day may expose them to the virus, and choosing main-in-voting is one of the ways of dealing with the challenge. Thus, President Trump is playing mischief with the country’s election, and this is likely to undermine the legitimacy of the country’s election processes.
References
Johnson, T. & Fieldman, M. (2020). The New Voter Suppression. Brennan Center for Justice. Retrieved from https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/new-voter-suppression
Patterson, R. (2020). Donald Trump vs. Democracy. Retrieved from https://thebulwark.com/donald-trump-vs-democracy/
Rutenberg, J. (2015). A Dream Undone. New York Times Magazine, 29.