Vermont Suppresstion Fromm the Union South Will Rise Again
Final updated: August 18, 2021
Voting should be as easy and accessible as possible, and in many cases it is. But in recent years, more than 400 anti-voter bills accept been introduced in 48 states. These bills cock unnecessary barriers for people to register to vote, vote by mail, or vote in person. The result is a severely compromised commonwealth that doesn't reflect the will of the people. Our democracy works best when all eligible voters can participate and take their voices heard.
Suppression efforts range from the seemingly unobstructive, similar strict voter ID laws and cuts to early voting, to mass purges of voter rolls and systemic disenfranchisement. These measures disproportionately impact people of color, students, the elderly, and people with disabilities. And long before election cycles even begin, legislators redraw district lines that determine the weight of your vote.
Below, we've listed some of the about rampant methods of voter suppression across the country — and the advancement and litigation efforts aimed at protecting our cardinal right to vote.
Voter Registration Restrictions
Restricting the terms and requirements of registration is one of the nigh common forms of voter suppression. Restrictions can include requiring documents to prove citizenship or identification, onerous obstacles for voter registration drives, or limiting the window of time in which voters tin can register.
Politicians ofttimes use unfounded claims of voter fraud to endeavor to justify registration restrictions. In 2011, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach championed a law requiring Kansans to evidence "proof of citizenship" documents in order to register to vote, citing imitation claims of noncitizen voting. Most people don't conduct the required documents on mitt — like a passport, or a nativity document — and as a upshot, the law blocked the registrations of more than 30,000 Kansans. The ACLU sued and defeated the law in 2018. In 2020, the Supreme Court and a 10th Circuit Courtroom of Appeals affirmed the ruling.
Afterwards a surge in registrations during the 2018 midterm election, Tennessee legislators imposed substantial requirements on groups that foster political participation via voter registration efforts and created criminal and ceremonious penalties against those who fail to comply with these onerous requirements and turn in "incomplete" applications. The ACLU filed a federal lawsuit challenging the law and blocked information technology from going into event in 2019.
Resources on voter registration requirements
Look upwardly your country's voter registration requirements | States with online voter registration
Criminalization of the Election Box
Some states are discouraging voter participation by imposing arbitrary requirements and harsh penalties on voters and poll workers who violate these rules. In Georgia, lawmakers take made information technology a crime to provide food and h2o to voters continuing in line at the polls — lines that are notoriously long in Georgia, particularly for communities of color. In Texas, people take been arrested and given outrageous sentences for what corporeality at nearly to innocent mistakes made during the voting procedure. ACLU clients Crystal Mason and Hervis Rogers are examples of this egregious treatment.
Because of racism in constabulary enforcement and the broader criminal legal organisation, criminalization of the ballot box disproportionately impacts people of colour, who are more likely to be penalized. This method of voter suppression aims to instill fear in communities of color and suppress their voices in the democratic process.
More than on criminalization of the ballot box
American Civil Liberties Union
Crystal Mason Thought She Had The Right to Vote. Texas Sentenced Her to Five Years in Prison for Trying. | American Civil Liberties Wedlock
The case of a Texas mother is a window into how the myth of voter fraud is existence weaponized to suppress the vote.
Felony Disenfranchisement
A felony conviction tin can come with drastic consequences, including the loss of your correct to vote. Some states ban voting just during incarceration, or while on probation or parole. And other states and jurisdictions, like Maine, Vermont, and Washington, D.C., don't disenfranchise people with felony convictions at all. The fact that these laws vary so dramatically only adds to the overall confusion that voters confront, which is a form of voter suppression in itself.
Due to racial bias in the criminal justice system, felony disenfranchisement laws unduly touch on Black and Brown people, who often face up harsher sentences than white people for the aforementioned offenses. Many of these laws are rooted in the Jim Crow era, when legislators tried to block Black Americans' newly won correct to vote by enforcing poll taxes, literacy tests, and other barriers that were most incommunicable to come across. To this day, the states with the most extreme disenfranchisement laws likewise have long histories of suppressing the rights of Black people.
Felony disenfranchisement laws past state
Thirty-half-dozen states have identification requirements at the polls, including seven states with strict photo ID laws.
For more information on each land, click epitome for full display.
Map last updated February 2020.
Voter Purges
Cleaning up voter rolls can exist a responsible part of election administration because many people move, die, or go ineligible to vote for other reasons. Only sometimes, states employ this process as a method of mass disenfranchisement, purging eligible voters from rolls for illegitimate reasons or based on inaccurate information, and oft without adequate notice to the voters. A single purge can end up to hundreds of thousands of people from voting. Often, voters only learn they've been erroneously purged when they show up at the polls on Election Twenty-four hours and it'southward too late to correct the error.
Election administrators properly proceed voter rolls upwardly to date by filtering out voters who have changed their accost, died, or otherwise become ineligible to vote. Only states oft conduct such purges using inaccurate data, flawed processes, and targeting certain voters such equally those with felony convictions without enforcing federally-mandated safeguards to prevent purging voters who don't even fall under the targeted group.
The ACLU has taken action confronting unlawful voter purges and laws that enable them. In 2019, we stopped Texas' flawed, discriminatory voter purge list that targeted naturalized citizens. This twelvemonth, we blocked an Indiana police force that would have allowed county elections officials to kick voters off the rolls immediately without their explicit consent or notice, or an opportunity to correct the record.
More on voter purges
Report: Purges: A Growing Threat to the Correct to Vote | Congressional Testimony by Sophia Lin Lakin, Deputy Managing director of the ACLU'south Voting Rights Project
Redistricting and Gerrymandering
Every x years, states redraw district lines based on population data gathered in the census. Legislators use these commune lines to allocate representation in Congress and state legislatures. When redistricting is conducted properly, district lines are redrawn to reflect population changes and racial diversity. But as well oftentimes, states use redistricting as a political tool to manipulate the outcome of elections. That'due south called gerrymandering — a widespread, undemocratic practice that's stifling the voices of millions of voters.
The Census Bureau released data from the 2020 Census in August 2021, triggering this in one case-in-a-decade line cartoon procedure in well-nigh states. These new district lines volition determine our political vocalism for the adjacent decade.
The 2020 Census
In 2018, the Trump assistants announced plans to add a citizenship question to the 2020 demography, with the goal of suppressing participation of immigrant communities, stunting their growing political influence. The question would have resulted in an undercount that goes against the census' very purpose — to count everybody in this country. Accurate population information is essential in apportioning representation and public funds. The ACLU sued the assistants and successfully blocked the citizenship question earlier the demography was conducted.
The Trump Administration's Census Cover-upwards
Voter ID Laws
Thirty-six states have identification requirements at the polls. 7 states have strict photograph ID laws, under which voters must present i of a express set of forms of government-issued photo ID in order to cast a regular election — no exceptions. These strict ID laws are part of an ongoing strategy to suppress the vote.
Over 21 million U.S. citizens do non have qualifying regime-issued photo identification, and these individuals are disproportionately voters of color. That'south because ID cards aren't always accessible for everyone. The ID itself can be costly, and even when IDs are free, applicants must incur other expenses to obtain the underlying documents that are needed to get an ID. This tin can be a significant burden on people in lower-income communities. Further, the travel required to obtain an ID is an obstacle for people with disabilities, the elderly, and people living in rural areas.
Voter ID Restrictions Imposed Since 2010
For more information on each highlighted state, click paradigm for full display.
Map last updated February 2020.
Who's Affected By Voter Suppression?
The short respond is all of u.s.a.. Our commonwealth is debased when the vote is non attainable for all. But the fact is that some groups are disproportionately affected by voter suppression tactics, including people of colour, immature people, the elderly, and people with disabilities. The proof is in the numbers.
- Across the state, ane in sixteen Black Americans cannot vote due to disenfranchisement laws.
- Counties with larger minority populations take fewer polling sites and poll workers per voter.
- In 2018, Latinx and Black Americans were twice equally likely every bit whites to be unable to get off work while polls were open.
- 25 percentage of voting-age Black Americans practise not take a government-issued photo ID.
- Geographic isolation is a major barrier to Native American voters due to the inaccessibility of nearby polling locations in many reservations. In Due south Dakota, 32 percent of Native voters cite travel distance as a gene in deciding whether to vote.
- More than 1-6th (eighteen percent) of voters with disabilities reported difficulties voting in person in 2020.
Nearly two-thirds of polling places had at least i impediment for people with disabilities.
How To Protect Your Vote
The right to vote is the most key constitutional correct for good reason: democracy cannot be without the balloter participation of citizens. We vote considering it's we, the people, who are supposed to shape our government. Not the other way around.
President Biden and states can enact measures to encourage rather than suppress voting. Automatic, online, and aforementioned-twenty-four hours voter registration encourage participation and reduce chances of mistake. Early voting helps people with travel or accessibility concerns participate. And states must enforce the protections of the Voting Rights Human action.
At an individual level, the all-time way to fight voter suppression is to know your rights — and vote.
- Tell Congress to laissez passer the VRAA, which would reinstate critical protections against voter suppression left behind afterward the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Deed in 2013. This is even more urgent in the wake of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, which significantly undercut the protections of some other vital provision of the Voting Rights Act.
American Civil Liberties Marriage
Congress: Protect Our Voting Rights | American Civil Liberties Union
We must laissez passer the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to defend our democratic right. The price of inaction is high.
- Know Your Rights earlier you get to the polling booth. Read and share our guide on what to exercise if yous face registration issues, demand disability or language accommodations, or come across someone who's interfering with your correct to vote. Share the guide on Facebook and Twitter to spread the word.
American Civil Liberties Wedlock
Know Your Rights | Voting Rights
Acquire more than about how to practise your voting rights, resist voter intimidation efforts, and access inability-related accommodations and linguistic communication assistance at the polls. For assist at the polls, call the non-partisan Election Protection Hotline at 1-866-OUR-VOTE.
Source: https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/block-the-vote-voter-suppression-in-2020
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