"The right to vote is precious, almost sacred. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool or instrument in a democratic society. We must use it."
—John Lewis
A larger share of Americans voted in 2020—with 66.3 percent of the voting-eligible population casting their ballot—than have in the past 120 years (Clement & Santamariña, 2021). This held true among all groups, particularly those with lower turnout rates in the past (Clement & Santamariña, 2021). Asian American turnout increased by 14 percent, Hispanic turnout by 9 percent. For the first time in history, more voters under 30 opted to vote rather than stay at home, with 53 percent showing up (Clement & Santamariña, 2021).
A growing contingent of Republican leaders—following the example of former President Trump—have cast a pall on this past election. Swaths of illegal aliens must have voted. Teams of Democrats must have united to cast their ballot under the names of the deceased. Deranged hyperpartisan postal workers may have tampered with mail-in ballots, dumping thousands of votes in their favor. Clearly, this election was rigged.
But wait, wasn’t the purpose of Trump’s 2017 election integrity commission to prevent just such malfeasance? Just eight months after its formation, the commission quietly slinked away, with no admission by Trump on its inability to identify credible evidence of fraud. One comprehensive study has found only 45 substantiated allegations of voter impersonation over 16 years—that’s out of over a billion votes cast (Vox Media, 2020). As to mail-in voting—in three universal vote-by-mail states, only 372 votes were suspicious out of 14.6 million (Vox Media, 2020).
Historically, voter suppression is the more substantial issue. From 1952 to 1960, Blacks made up nearly one-fifth of the voting-age population in the South but only constituted 5 percent of voters in the old Confederate states (Abramowitz, 2019, p. 23-24). From literacy tests to understanding clauses—poll taxes to physical intimidation—Southern Democrats used the enduring legacy of slavery to deny a massive segment of the population their fundamental right to vote (Abramowitz, 2019, p. 25).
The passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 largely cleared these obstacles, making the United States, for the first time, “in the full sense of the word, a democracy” (Vox Media, 2020). Suppressive restrictions from the Jim Crow era became null and void, and states with records of disenfranchisement became subject to pre-clearance from the federal government before limiting voting access in the future (Vox Media, 2020).
This concept of expanded voter access wasn’t controversial; it was a bipartisan initiative. Early voting, voting by mail, automatic voter registration—these were not politically divisive concepts. The Voting Rights Act was consistently reauthorized to prevent its expiration, with a unanimous 98-0 vote in 2006 under George W. Bush (Vox Media, 2020). It was Georgia’s Republican Party that fought to pass expansive vote-by-mail laws in 2005, though today’s Republicans have drastically different views on the subject (Vox Media, 2020).
By 2008, Black voter turnout was nearly equal to white turnout, and Obama made history as the country’s first Black president (Pew Research Center, 2013). By his reelection in 2012, Black turnout had finally surpassed white turnout, 67 to 64 percent (Pew Research Center, 2013). Pre-1965, these turnout rates would have been impossible.
But as Democrats captured a more racially and ethnically diverse portion of the American population, reliably Republican voters remained primarily white, and the bipartisan consensus on expanded voting access began to crumble. After the Supreme Court kneecapped the Voting Rights Act with Shelby County v. Holder (2013), half the country enacted new restrictions on voting—from stricter voter ID laws to purged voter rolls to downsized numbers of polling places (Vox Media, 2020).
A 2018 PPRI voter engagement survey conducted after the midterm elections found that minorities disproportionately faced obstacles at the polls (Vandermaas-Peeler et al., 2018). 16 percent of Blacks and Hispanics said they couldn’t get off work when polls were open, while only 8 percent of whites experienced the same problem (Vandermaas-Peeler et al., 2018). 11 percent of Blacks and 10 percent of Hispanics reported being told that their name wasn’t on the voter list even though they were registered, whereas 5 percent of whites encountered this issue (Vandermaas-Peeler et al., 2018). In concerns regarding polling place location, proper identification, and harassment faced while trying to vote, Black and Hispanic voters were two to three times more likely to encounter some impediment to casting their ballot (Vandermaas-Peeler et al., 2018).
With conspiracy run rampant following the 2020 election, the situation is more dire than ever. The Trump voter fraud farce has already inspired 389 bills in 48 states proposing voting restrictions (Viebeck, 2021). Between the beginning of January and September 27th of this year, 19 states passed 33 laws making it harder for Americans to vote (Brennan Center for Justice, 2021).
For the first time in history, the United States has been labeled a “backsliding democracy” by the International IDEA. The typically uneventful procedural certification of the election brought forth the violent storming of the Capitol. The legitimacy of our elections is baselessly attacked by those who seek to maintain power.
There is an effort to steal future elections, but not through rampant fraud or nefariously crafted bamboo ballots from China. Day by day, seeds of doubt are planted. Day by day, the hard-fought voting rights earned through blood and protest over the past 200 years are meticulously rolled back by self-serving politicians.
Today’s highest turnout voters are white, older, and wealthier—they reflect a piece of the population who didn’t have to fight to earn the right to vote (Vox Media, 2020). But it doesn’t have to be that way. So many people feel powerless to enact change in this country, but “if your vote [doesn’t] matter, why the hell are there so many systems and people trying so hard to prevent you from voting?” (Vox Media, 2020). Politicians are operating out of fear—they think if they can make voting just that much harder, voters will stay home.
Prove them wrong—get out and vote.
References
Abramowitz, A.I. (2019). The great alignment: Race, party transformation, and the rise of Donald Trump. Yale University Press.
Brennan Center for Justice. (2021, October 4). Voting laws roundup: October 2021. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-october-2021
Clement, S., & Santamariña, D. (2021). What we know about the high, broad turnout in the 2020 election. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/13/what-we-know-about-high-broad-turnout-2020-election/
Pew Research Center. (2013, August 22). King’s dream remains an elusive goal; many Americans see racial disparities. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2013/08/final_full_report_racial_disparities.pdf
Vandermaas-Peeler, A., Cox, D. Fisch-Friedman, M., Griffin, R., & Jones, R. P. (2018, July 17). American democracy in crisis: The challenges of voter knowledge, participation, and polarization. PPRI. https://www.prri.org/research/American-democracy-in-crisis-voters-midterms-trump-election-2018/
Viebeck, E. (2021, July 4). Here’s where GOP lawmakers have passed new voting restrictions around the country. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/06/02/state-voting-restrictions/
Vox Media. (2020). Whose vote counts, explained [Video]. Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/watch/81304762?trackId=13752289
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