Voter Suppression

One of the most important markers of a democracy is free elections that express the will of the people.  Voter suppression seriously threatens that freedom of expression.  When an entire political party practices voter suppression, democracy is seriously ill.  When the Supreme Court refuses to move against it decisively and the population is also apathetic, democracy is in deep trouble. 

When an individual or a small group intentionally interferes with voting, it is considered a crime; when performed by a political party, it is considered routine political “hardball.” 

Not since Jim Crow has the country experienced the current level of voter suppression, and we are doing little about it.  In the twelve months before the 2018 election, ninety-nine bills designed to diminish voter access were introduced in thirty-one state legislatures.  Most Americans now rightly consider the voter suppression of Jim Crow a disgrace.  But it’s happening again, and we don’t seem ashamed. 

Voter suppression is now multi-pronged.  Let me count the ways.**

• Voter-ID laws are now common, and more are in the pipeline.  Although the Supreme Court has declared strict photo-ID requirements unconstitutional, many states are finding work-arounds.  They request a photo ID, but if the voter can adequately explain why they don’t have one, there are some, often-complicated, alternatives.  For instance, some states allow provisional ballots.  This doesn’t prevent voting but severely discourages it by requiring additional visits or demanding other forms of identification.  According to a Harvard study, for instance,

  the expenses for documentation, travel, and waiting time [for obtaining voter identification cards] are significant—especially for minority group and low-income voters—typically ranging from about $75 to $175.

  After Jim Crow was dismantled, voter suppression by race was declared unconstitutional.  Left intact, however, has been voter suppression by political affiliation. 
  Voter ID laws favor Republicans exclusively: poor people (the preponderance of whom vote Democratic) are less likely to possess a picture ID.  Although the Supreme Court has struck down some of these laws, others have been found constitutional, an extraordinary violation of the principle of one-person-one-vote.

• Since the 2010 elections, twenty-five states have limited the time for voter registration or early voting.  There are also restrictions on casting absentee ballots.
• Several states, for example, Montana and Arizona, have prohibited or curbed civic groups from helping people vote with absentee ballots by collecting and delivering their completed ballots.  The results have sometimes been bizarre: just before the 2018 election, for instance, a group of African-American senior citizens was ordered “off a bus taking them to an early-voting site, on the grounds that the transportation, which had been organized by the nonpartisan group Black Voters Matter, was a ‘political activity.’”
• States have made it harder to restore voting rights to felons, even if they have served out their complete sentences.  If they had been allowed to vote in Florida in the 2000 presidential election, Albert Gore would have easily won the state and become the president instead of George W Bush.  In the 2018 election, 65% of Florida voters in a state-wide referendum backed removing all restrictions on convicted felons who had completed their sentence.  In a clear violation of that referendum, the Republican legislature has passed regulations to limit the impact of the ballot initiative.
• A number of states, for instance Georgia, Arizona, Louisiana and Texas have removed polling places from minority areas, requiring more travel to vote, .
• A number of states have purged voter rolls without notifying the voters purged to give them a chance to object.  In Georgia an “exact-match law” was used to suspend fifty-three thousand voter-registration applications for infractions as minor as a hyphen missing from a surname.
• Gerrymandering, of course, is considered almost routine but is another form of voter suppression.  Gerrymandering is certainly practiced by both parties, for instance,   Maryland’s Democratic-Party-gerrymandered state is a bizarre map of serpentine districts.  Nevertheless, since Republicans control the majority of US statehouses, gerrymandering is far more common among Republican-controlled states. 

We have become so used to these forms of suppression that we hardly notice them anymore.  The Supreme Court’s record in recognizing and limiting voter suppression has been spotty at best.   

Donald Trump is not the only force pushing us toward authoritarianism.  Voter suppression is also an essential tool that long predates this president.  We must at least recognize it for what it is.

David Hilfiker

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** Much of the following information comes from the non-partisan but progressive Brennan Center for Justice.