The United States has a long history of suppressing minority votes. For example, even after legislation “protected” the voting rights of Black Americans, other laws and policies—such as poll taxes, literacy tests, and the grandfather clause—kept them from voting. Similarly, Native Americans were granted citizenship in 1924, but had to engage in legal battles for their right to vote in all states for decades, and were still prevented from voting afterwards. Asian Americans couldn’t vote until the Immigration and Nationality Act (1952) made them citizens. Today, things like poll taxes and literacy tests are illegal, but legal practices like mass incarceration, felon disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, and Voter ID laws have been suppressing the minority vote for years. 

Instead of trying to fix this problem and make the United States a more fair and democratic place, many state legislatures are trying to increase voter suppression. Lawmakers are angry and scared that Democrats won the presidency and Congress in the recent elections. In order to stop it from happening again, they are preventing Democratic-leaning minorities from exercising one of their basic rights. They are stopping the country from being a democracy.

Many states that are making it harder to vote are swing states with a Republican-controlled state government, as well as upcoming races for a Senator or governor in 2022.

According to this voting bill tracker, 361 voter suppression bills have been introduced throughout 47 states so far this year as of March 24. 

Let that sink in. Our elected officials are shamelessly and publicly trying to keep Americans from voting. Not once, not twice, but three hundred sixty-one times. In forty-seven states - not just red states. 

These laws target people of color (especially poor Black people) - some of the communities that most desperately need to make their voices heard. After all, people of color tend to be hit hardest by many of the issues about which we vote, so their voices will help us find the best solutions to our problems. 

Furthermore, after the long lines and misinformation in last year’s elections, we should be making it easier to vote, not harder. The rhetoric of many of the voter suppression bills is that they prevent voter fraud. “Voter fraud” as these bills refer to it means illegal votes, such as people voting multiple times or when they aren’t legally allowed to. However, voter fraud rarely ever happens. As proven in this fact-check of Donald Trump's election claims, if voter fraud happened in 2020, it was on a scale so small that it wouldn’t have made a difference in the outcome of the election.

On the other hand, the thing that does make a difference in the outcome of elections is preventing whole groups of people from voting.

The recent voter suppression bills include increasing Voter ID laws, reducing mail-in voting, reducing early voting, reducing Election Day voter registration, not automatically sending ballots to voters, not allowing people to help their friends or family return their ballots, closing polls earlier, banning early voting on Sundays, and, in Georgia, not allowing volunteers to hand out water and snacks to people waiting in long lines at the polls. 

Although these bills don’t explicitly say, “Black people and other people of color can’t vote,” they are specifically tailored to harm those communities. For example, Voter ID laws are discriminatory because wealthy white people are far more likely to have an ID. 9% of otherwise eligible white voters, 16% of otherwise eligible Hispanic voters, and 25% of otherwise eligible Black voters do not own an ID, and it is time-consuming and expensive to get one. Additionally, many Native American people don’t have a “traditional address,” which makes it hard for them to get an ID. Closing polls earlier and not allowing snacks and water to be handed out to people in long lines also harms minority and poor voters. These voters are more likely to work long hours and to work jobs that pay by the hour. Therefore, it is harder for them to vote if polls close earlier because they might be unable to take time off of work to wait in long lines. Banning early voting on Sundays makes it harder for Black people to vote because they often use church on Sundays to convince people to vote early. Not being able to deliver another person’s ballot or participate in ballot collection harms Native American communities, some of whom live as far as 70 miles from the nearest P.O. box. 

Furthermore, these laws would undo the hard work of grassroots organizations and activists, such as Stacey Abrams, who mobilized voters in last year’s elections and other past elections. Many of the electoral votes that Joe Biden won in 2020 were won by a small margin. They would not have been possible without these efforts to mobilize voters—especially minority voters. 

The expansion of mail-in and early voting in the 2020 elections led to 73% of the electorate voting before Election Day, as well as the highest voter turnout in over a century. This shows that making it easier to vote isn’t for the purpose of favoring Democrats, it’s for the purpose of furthering democracy. 

To provide context, voter suppression bills are not seen in many other democracies. Even voter registration isn’t necessary in many places outside the United States; most countries automatically register people or require registration. On the other hand, Republican Governor Greg Abbott of Texas recently said that voter suppression bills are needed because of laws that increased turnout. He tried to argue that the election process is jeopardized when more people vote. 

It is clear that something must be done to protect our decency and our democracy. 

First, we must work to stop the current voter suppression bills from being turned into laws; most of them are still pending. This means that, if a bill has not yet been passed in state governments, anyone can write or call state legislators to tell them not to pass it. If a state government has passed a voter suppression bill, people can write to the governor of that state to ask them to veto the bill. A list of voter suppression bills can be found in the “Bills Restricting Voting Access” section of the voting bill tracker linked earlier in the article.  

A voter suppression practice that needs to be ended is felon disenfranchisement. In every state but two, incarcerated people are not allowed to vote. In eleven states, even formerly incarcerated people—who have finished serving their sentence—cannot vote. Because mass incarceration targets people of color (specifically Black people), felon disenfranchisement targets Black people as well. As of 2016, 6.1 million Americans—2.5% of otherwise eligible voters—could not vote because of felon disenfranchisement. This rate is about four times higher for Black Americans: 1 in 13 Black Americans cannot vote because of felon disenfranchisement. However, incarcerated people still count towards the population of the place where they are imprisoned, which is usually a rural, conservative area. We must speak out against this discriminatory practice.

In addition to advocating for the end of certain practices, people can ask their representatives to vote for beneficial legislation that is being considered. For example, the last section of this article (the section is called “Kentucky, Delaware, and Vermont are poised to expand access to the ballot”) lists policies that will make it easier for people to vote. These policies include letting all voters vote early, mailing ballots to all voters, and implementing automatic voter registration and same-day registration. People in any state can contact their representatives asking for these policies to be implemented. 

Finally, there is a piece of legislation in Congress that, if passed, can help solve a lot of the voting problems we see today. The For the People Act (H.R.1/S.1) would implement policies to make it easier to vote. For example, it would automatically register voters, have the government keep voter registration up-to-date, let same-day registration happen on Election Day or during early voting, require states to provide 15 days of early voting for at least ten hours a day with time either before 9 A.M. or after 5 P.M., and limit the purging of voter rolls. It would also end partisan gerrymandering, change campaign finance laws, create new ethics rules for SCOTUS justices and representatives in Congress, and require presidential candidates to release their tax returns. This article provides a good breakdown of the act.  

The For the People Act has passed in the House of Representatives, but, because of the filibuster, it will be hard for it to pass in the Senate. Therefore, we must contact our senators to voice our support for the act. This website provides a phone number to call and link for writing a letter to the editors of local newspapers. (Here’s a link to the letter I wrote, if you don’t want to write your own). Myreps.datamade.us is a helpful resource for finding your representatives and their contact information.

Voting is the most basic right of an American. It is what makes this country a democracy and not a dictatorship. To protect our democracy, to avoid continuing centuries of discrimination, and to the protect the human rights of millions of people, we must help everyone vote. 

To get more information:

• https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/15/us/voting-rights-advocates-filibuster.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210314&instance_id=28065&nl=the-morning&regi_id=135530746&segment_id=53424&te=1&user_id=655946c7299fd9771156d20884ad158f 

• https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/timeline-voter-suppression-us-civil-war-today/story?id=72248473 

• https://www.vera.org/blog/how-systemic-racism-keeps-millions-of-black-people-from-voting 

• https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/felony-disenfranchisement-a-primer/ 

• https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/06/opinions/three-vaccines-protect-voting-rights-eisen-lydgate/index.html 

• https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/georgia-s-jim-crow-voter-suppression-bill-now-law-here-ncna1262254 

Good places to donate: 

• https://www.aclu.org/ 

• https://money.com/donate-support-voting-rights/ (this lists many places to donate)