Voting Rights

Access to information is a critical component of a functioning democracy, one that has only become more important in our increasingly hyperconnected world. We look to others to discover and analyze occurrences in the public and political spheres and their implications, and we trust that our media is providing us with a holistic view of the most important issues of our time. However, in the era of “fake news” and nearly unprecedented levels of political polarization, it has never been more crucial that we, as Americans, critique and examine the news we consume. Over a period of three weeks, we explored the coverage of voting rights by a variety of media outlets coming from a variety of perspectives. We found that when it came to voting rights, an issue that disproportionately impacts minority voters, those voices were troublingly not particularly emphasized in the conversation.

The right to vote seems like a pretty common sense thing. However, not only do structural barriers make it difficult for many Americans to vote, but certain groups, such as felons, still lack the ability to vote at all. In our investigation of coverage of voting rights in the lead up to the 2020 election, we found these issues to be largely absent from the conversation. Instead, the media tended to focus on issues that impact a majority of Americans, such as mail-in voting. We found news coverage to be clearly polarized, with many news sources jumping to conclusions and failing to consider other perspectives. When it came to coverage of voting rights, we found that many news sources failed to examine why certain issues pertaining to voting rights were important, instead just reporting a curated version of the facts of certain situations.

Perhaps the most visible example of this was coverage of mail-in voting, on which the media was hyper-fixated this summer. This is understandable, as because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the magnitude of people voting by mail, as well as the support (and criticism) of universal voting by mail has ballooned. Throughout the summer, the president and the GOP made moves to limit access to mail-in voting, which garnered much attention from the media. Articles focused on the incentive structures and political consequences of the Trump administration’s push against mail in voting, but the coverage of the issue did very little digging into the underlying issue of voting rights, particularly in relation to voter suppression.

We found that even the most liberal of media sources didn’t fully delve into why suppression of mail-in voting is particularly harmful for minorities, or other issues related to the suppression of minority voting, such as voter ID laws and law enforcement at the polls; they also didn't cover well the confusion over how to vote by mail and difficulties with getting to the polls. When it came to mail in voting, due to the politically polarized coverage, it was only during the second week of the news cycle that reporters began to evaluate what prospective changes might mean for voters of color, and even then, the coverage was pretty minimal.

Overall, most media sources turned out to be limited in scope, failing to provide in-depth coverage of topics impacting everyday Americans. How can we truly evaluate the experience of a voter in America if it's usually seen through one, politicized, lens? One prospective solution to the issue we observed in political journalism is to diversify newsrooms. Increased diversity among journalists could perhaps reflect the way that events impact average Americans, with all of their diverse backgrounds and experiences. As electoral season gets closer, it's imperative that journalists better help facilitate political discussion that prioritizes communication across party lines.