Voter suppression is any strategy to discourage people from voting or create barriers to voters’ access to the ballot.
How is disinformation used in efforts to suppress the vote?
How are racism and opposition to a more diverse electorate key factors in voter suppression efforts?
The United States has a long history of voter suppression – especially against Black Americans – from denials and obstacles to violent repression. A central goal of the Civil Rights Movement was ensuring Black Americans could exercise their right to vote. And this movement for voting access often faced violent opposition. But voter suppression is not simply a historical fact.
Strategies to suppress voting continue to undermine our democracy today and have increased over the past two decades in response to political participation becoming more pluralistic. From purging voter rolls, restrictive identification rules, redistricting efforts, limited polling places and inadequate voting machines in some communities, threats to election workers and many other changing rules and requirements, these efforts create obstacles to voting, especially for communities of color.
“Don’t Let Down Your Guard: Learn How Voter Access Laws Affect You in 2024”
As the Southern Poverty Law Center continues to encourage voter turnout through its The South’s Got Now | Decidimos campaign, this article includes information about some laws Southern voters need to watch out for this election year.
For example, in 2024, Alabama passed laws that can make voting absentee harder and expanded the list of felony convictions that disqualify a person from voting. And a 2022 Florida law “mandates that vote-by-mail ballot requests expire every two years.” The crucial 2024 election is the first that will be affected by this law. In addition, voter purging efforts in some states, such as Alabama, target naturalized citizens under the rationale of removing noncitizens from registration and further fuel anti-immigrant sentiment with false narratives about noncitizen voters. And Georgia’s governor recently signed new laws that create challenges to voting rights and access to the ballot.
Many of the recent attempts at suppressing voting are responses to voter turnout in the 2020 election. The ability of states to create new barriers increased with the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which removed a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA). The provision had required states with a history of discriminating against voters of color to be cleared by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) before changing their voting laws. The provision in the VRA had offered important protection against voter disenfranchisement, with the DOJ objecting to more than 1,000 “discriminatory voting changes between 1965 and 2006.”
Leading up to the 2020 elections, crowds of voters in several states stood in long lines for hours during the deadly pandemic. More Black people – disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic – were turning out to vote despite risk of infection because they understood what was at stake in the election. Instead of acknowledging voters’ commitment to the democratic process across the South, new laws seek to restrict engagement in the political system.
Following the 2020 presidential election, 440 bills were introduced nationally aimed at restricting voting rights, largely in Black and Brown communities. This trend continued in 2023 with 356 bills introduced. Understanding voter suppression strategies is an important step in addressing efforts to disenfranchise targeted groups.
To overcome voter suppression, being informed about election and voting processes is critical. Importantly, voters need to pay attention to deadlines. Long before an election begins, research where your polling location is, what forms of ID you will need to vote, and seek information about early voting and voting by mail.
Even if you’re registered to vote, check your status online or with your local election office, as election officials often purge voter rolls. It’s especially important to make sure you are registered if you’ve made recent changes, such as an address or name change or if you’ve moved out of state.
Finally, know that you have power and voice for change. Find ways to get involved that suit your needs and community. Your involvement is worth its weight in gold and will help strengthen our local, state and national communities.
Civil Rights activist Jo Ann Bland, who participated in the Selma to Montgomery march known as Bloody Sunday when she was 11 years old, reminds us: “How hard fought to get the vote was. And people died. People died for us to have the rights we have today, beaten and killed.”
We should never take for granted our rights and our responsibilities to engage in civic action and vote in every election – local and national. As we consider voter suppression in today’s election process, Bland’s question about our voting rights resonates: “If it was not valuable, why are people always trying to take it away from you?”