Voting in America is far from guaranteed
The Efforts to Curtail Voting Rights
By Jones William & D.S. Mitchell
Fundamentals
Voting is fundamental to our democracy. The right to vote however has been the target for disenfranchisement since the founding of the country. Our Constitution (before amendments) does not clearly stipulate who can vote. In the early years state legislators voted for the president.
Another Amendment
From the beginning many of the states used every means available to limit voting. At the origin of the United States, many groups, including slaves, landless white men, women and free blacks could not vote. But many amendments to the Constitution (XV, XVII, XIX, XXIII, XXIV, XXVI) significantly expanded voting rights and other political freedoms to previously unprotected groups.
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The passage of multiple constitutional amendments was geared towards enhancing voting rights for all citizens. The federal government was spearheading the expansion of voting rights throughout the United States. Numerous states, particularly the states of the old confederacy, habitually passed laws that did not specifically bar black citizens from voting but placed unrealistic burdens on them. Poll taxes and “guess how many beans are in the jar” kinds of absurdities. For that reason, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was introduced and President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it into law.
Expand or Contract Participation
The aim of the 1965 Act was to abolish legal barriers established at local and state levels that were specifically aimed at barring African-Americans from participating in the election process. People of color have had to battle the governments of many states to guarantee their right to vote. In 2013, the Supreme Court abolished an important part of the Voting Rights Act, which required states with racial discrimination history to get the consent of the DOJ before making changes to their state voting rules. Since the weakening of the original law, southern states have gone back to their old ways. As a result, politicians in many states have gone on a new offensive to suppress the right’s of voters through meddling with 1) the Electoral College, 2) passing unnecessarily strict voter identification laws and 3) partisan gerrymandering 4) purging of the voter rolls.
1) Electoral College
“The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect a President. Each state’s entitled allotment of electors equals the number of members in its Congressional delegation: one for each member in the House of Representatives plus two for each state Senator.” Wikipedia
The founding fathers of our nation designed the Electoral College (EC). One main reason for its creation was to prevent the direct election of the president by popular vote. Quite honestly, the founding fathers feared the mindlessness of the uneducated “mob”. They feared an oppressor could exploit the (stupid) public and a demagogue would come to power. In fact, according to Wikipedia, “The Electoral College serves as a compromise between the election of the president by a vote in Congress and choice of the president by a popular vote of “qualified citizens”. The founders believed that it would be better for a president to be elected by the popular vote of “qualified citizens”, thus the Electoral College. Most Americans do not understand the Electoral College and its role. Basically, the founding fathers designed the voting system so that the “masses could not have their way” with the government. The founders were no where close to seeing one-person, one-vote as necessary, or desired.
Changing the Plan
Even though many Americans trust the Electoral College to give them the most suitable president, the institution currently suffers manipulation. Forty eight of the 50 states give all the votes to popular vote winner. However, two small states, Nebraska and Maine, allocates two electoral votes to the popular winner of the statewide popular vote, and then one apiece to the winner of each congressional district. Unfortunately, many Republican legislators around the country are proposing to follow the Maine and Nebraska strategies. This idea is to mandate electoral votes allocated by congressional district mainly in states where Republicans fear they will lose the statewide popular vote. If a candidate wins big in one part of the state but loses the state he (or she) will at least get one vote. If they manage this feat, it will dramatically change the way presidents are elected.
One person, one vote?
For countries that treasure the principle of one-man, one-vote, the Electoral College system seems bizarre and undemocratic. In other words, in today’s world the founding father’s would never conceive of something as hobbling to democracy as the Electoral College, much less legislate such undemocratic policy. Yet this is the procedure our Constitution directs that we follow.
Not very democratic
We have a system that appears undemocratic because it is. In five elections, Americans have been rewarded with presidents who failed to acquire the popular vote but won in the Electoral College. The most recent ones are Bush and Trump who are both Republicans. It seems logical that a president who lost the popular vote and was installed by an antiquated undemocratic system would never win citizen support. How can we trust someone we perceive to be illegitimate? Therefore, with all the rot in our Electoral College, why should we compromise our voting rights to an institution that doesn’t care about what the majority of us think? The end of the Electoral College would be a gigantic step toward one person one vote in the United States.
2) Voter ID
“A voter ID law is a law that requires a person to show some form of identification on election day. In many jurisdictions requiring voter IDs, voters who do not have photo ID often must sign a Challenged Voter Affidavit in order to receive a ballot to vote”. Wikipedia
A decade or more ago, Republicans were able to achieve massive take overs of state legislatures around the country. During this time of Republican state legislative control more and more voter identification laws were enacted. Although voter identification requirement has somewhat of a history originating back to 1950, laws governing the requirement gained traction in 2005 in Indiana and Georgia. Today, over 33 states, which represents more than half of our population have voter identification laws in place. Other than those with religious protestations, all voters in 17 states are required to produce a photo identification to vote. The remaining states accept non-photo identification like bank statements. In Wisconsin, voters present US passports, state-issued driver’s’ license and perhaps IDs provided by Wisconsin accredited colleges or universities.
Legal challenges
Consequently, there have been a series of legal battles between states that have adopted voter ID laws and voting rights advocates. States like Alabama, Texas and Wisconsin have defended their voter ID laws, citing it is nothing more than a lawful tactic to prevent voter fraud. Voting right’s advocates have argued in court pleadings that these laws deliberately tamper with minority voters. Voting right’s advocates further claim voter ID laws substantially deny particular voters of their voting rights. Studies show such tactics lower overall participation in the process by people in the targeted groups.
Money and miles
Certainly, many Americans are not in a position to acquire identification now demanded by many states. The voters most effected are the low-income, the elderly, people with disability, and racial and ethnic minorities. Such voters have difficulty getting the ID because they are unable to afford or acquire the underlying prerequisite documents to get photo ID cards. Often there is only one office designated for such identification but it is a hundred miles or more away. The time, fuel, cost and energy to get that new ID is often discouraging and down right depressing, leaving many unable to vote.
3) Gerrymandering
“Gerrymandering is a practice intended to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district boundaries. The resulting district is known as a gerrymander; however, that word is also a verb for the process. The term gerrymandering has negative connotations”. Wikipedia
Every thinking American knows that our government has grown increasingly unrepresentative. There are states with an evenly split population among Democrats and Republicans. But due to gerrymandering, the constituency of Congress in both state and national governments is skewed to favor one party over the other. Thus, voters from the losing side feel justifiably unrepresented in Congress.
Packing and cracking
So how exactly does gerrymandering work? As the definition indicates, gerrymandering is the practice of dividing boundaries of the electoral district into political units to favor one political group over another. This exercise has legally existed since the founding of the United States. When a political party is in control of a state government they have the power to redraw voting districts. Gerrymandering happens when districts are drawn to favor the party drawing the lines. It is done by ‘cracking and packing’ of voters. “Cracking” is the technique that spreads out opposition voters into many districts to weaken their power while “packing” concentrates the opponents voters in few districts to reduce the seats they can win.
Powerlessness
Most states are required to draw new congressional district lines every 10 years following completion of the United States Census. Those states comprising only one congressional district are not required to re-district. There seems to be no value placed on our right to vote, by either of the political parties, otherwise state legislators would stop fine-tuning districts to favor a specific group. Regrettably, the 2010 census resulted in unprecedented gerrymandering by Republican states houses. If we actually had a history of one person one vote, gerrymandering has put it on life support. In the 2012 election Democrats won 1.4 million more votes than Republicans. But, because of how Republicans had carefully crafted the districts to their advantage, Republicans won a 33-seat House majority. What the hell? Gerrymandering is stealing millions of citizen’s votes, leaving us all with a sense of powerlessness.
4) Purging Voter Rolls
Another tried and true method to suppress the vote is to “purge” the voter rolls. Since the Supreme Court removed constitutional protection of voter’s rights at least 9 states of the old south have started aggressive campaigns to remove voters from the rolls; possibly by illegal methods. Cleaning up and removing bad data is routine maintenance. However, these purges seem to be focusing on people of color. These purges are bad for the system. A voter won’t even know he has been removed from the rolls until he shows up to vote. Inexcusable.
To Conclude
Powerful forces are converging to create a nation that consciously suppresses the vote of large segments of its population. Open discrimination against all those that oppose a certain line of thinking should be criminal. Voting is a basic right. No matter what team you are on; we will be a better country when all citizens are allowed to vote without oppression and discrimination. We have to stand up against any electoral malpractice that limits voting rights. Americans must stand up and fight every effort made against their voting rights. We need a call to action. Besides the Electoral College, unreasonable voter ID laws, gerrymandering, and purging of the voter rolls are only part of the problem. The people in power will fight till the death to keep up their advantages. In addition to those problems noted in this article other factors systematically pressuring voters rights include Citizens United, political PAC’s, lobbying, corruption, wealth inequality, cyber manipulation, and foreign money in our elections. It seems a daunting task, but we must try, our democracy is hanging by a thread.
Reference:
https://www.vox.com/2016/10/26/13408990/election-day-how-to-vote-right-access-intimidation-voter-id-voter-identification-state-voting-rules
https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-sheet
https://madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/voter-id-linked-to-lower-turnout-in-wisconsin-other-states/article_ee2115f3-d2ad-5223-a1f9-e19a8dcd862f.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2018/11/12/the-problem-with-our-democracy-isnt-gerrymandering-its-integers/#ccb4ca1899c6
Latest attempt to manipulate Electoral College vote isn’t new
