America Needs Guaranteed Voting Rights

Something rather unprecedented in American history has occurred since the Presidential election of 2020. While the majority of Americans readily accepted the reality of President Joe Biden's electoral victory over former President Donald Trump, a sizable and consistent percentage of the population has fully bought into the so-called "Big Lie" which states Trump was the true winner and the election was stolen from him. This has resulted in one of the most stilted public reactions to an exchange of power from one President to another both in modern memory and all of American history. Due to this infamous and disturbing lie, and many other falsehoods which surround it (such as the claim Donald Trump is secretly still leading the country from his home in Mar-a-Lago), there has been a momentous and terrible attack on voting rights in many Republican-leaning states around the nation. The impact of many of these blatant attacks on democracy will begin to be felt starting with the upcoming midterm elections of 2022.

From the beginning of 2021 through May of this year (2022), 27 states have proposed at least 148 election interference bills. In the same time period, 18 states have passed 34 election interference bills, and many more are being considered. Heading into the midterm election cycle, there are at least 6 Trump-backed Republican candidates for governor who will not publicly commit to accepting the results of the upcoming midterms or future elections. Another 6 Republican candidates for the federal Senate have openly refused to do the same. When included with state and local election candidates, there are scores of pro-Trump, pseudo-fascist Republican candidates on the ballot this election season, and each of them have the potential to chip away ever further at our already fragile democratic system. If we're not persistent, to the best of our abilities, in ensuring such candidates are defeated, the United States will be looking down the proverbial barrel of authoritarianism and autocracy within a generation or less.

Unfortunately, the right to vote is not specifically enumerated within the US Constitution, and has instead been declared a right of all Americans through legislation, primarily the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The problem with legislation is, it can be overruled by new legislation passed by a future Congress, and it can be partially or entirely dismantled by the judiciary system. Even more unfortunately, this dismantling is exactly what's been happening to voting rights. For more than a decade now, the conservative-leaning Supreme Court of the US has been steadily hollowing out the Voting Rights Act, notably with its Shelby County v. Holder ruling in 2013, striking down the federal government's ability to enforce voting rights in states which have historically violated them (such as southern states during the Jim Crow era). Now with hyper-partisanship, rampant conspiracy theories, general political polarization and authoritarian rhetoric on the rise, the US is ripe for a decline in voting protections unlike anything we've seen since the Civil Rights era.

While no state is currently allowed to completely deny voting rights on a whim, there are many methods which right-leaning states are employing to dampen voter turnout in their domains, primarily focusing on declined turnout for low-income and ethnic-minority voters. Voter ID requirements, lack of language access, purging of voter rolls, closing polling places, lack of funding, provisional ballot requirements, reduced early voting and voting hours, poorly trained poll workers and partisan election administrators are all being deployed to strongarm residents into giving the desired election results. These tricks have existed for years, yet after the defeat of Donald Trump in 2020, these trends are likely to intensify. For example, the current governor of the state of Georgia, Brian Kemp, barely defeated his Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams in 2018 in large part due to purging voter rolls of disproportionately black, Latino and young voters. Heading into the 2022 governor's race in Georgia between the exact same candidates, now-governor Kemp appears to be purging the voter rolls even more aggressively than before, and there's currently no federal framework in place to stop it.

What can be done to protect voting rights across the nation at this point? Well, there are a multitude of options, yet all require federal or state government to pass legislation and/or an amendment to protect. The most clear and direct way to prevent crackdowns on voting rights would be for the US Congress to pass legislation protecting voters. While several voting protection bills have been debated since the start of the current Congress in 2021, nothing has yet managed to pass through the Senate, House and become signed by the President. That said, we the People cannot stop pushing our local, state and federal representatives to do what is right, what is needed and just to protect one of the most fundamental rights of American citizens. Congress needs to pass legislation which would stop the closure of polling sites, open up mail-in voting, expand early voting, prevent voter intimidation, safeguard the voices of low-income and minority voters, and improve access to voting for those with disabilities. We need to enact and guarantee automatic and online voter registration, multilingual voting resources, extended poll hours and expanded polling locations, protect and expand mail-in and early voting, eliminate ballot notary and signature requirements, extend registration deadlines, relax or eliminate ID requirements and add protections for in-person voting (such as mandating states allow water bottles and snacks to be passed out by private citizens while in line waiting to vote).

Additionally, reforming voting so we use a ranked-choice selection system and host open primaries would allow for third-parties to develop and emerge as legitimate alternatives to the two major parties America currently hosts. Making voting compulsory by providing a tax benefit to those who vote would further encourage the practice, and banning corporate money from politics across the nation would help give voice to the common citizens again, allowing the true will of the People to become the most effective way to gain elected office. Finally, passing a Voting Rights Amendment to the US Constitution would finally and definitively give all American citizens the unassailable right to vote in free and fair elections, and grant the federal government the authority to enforce these rights if need-be. While voting reform alone will not fix our nation and its many issues, it will go a long way in ensuring the democratic-republic form of government we hold dear continues to thrive in a stable and authoritarian-resistant environment, allowing us to problem solve more effectively than we ever have before.

The alternative to voting reform is, sadly, to allow the cancerous hold of autocracy and fascist rhetoric to continue to build and grow. The corrupt Neoliberal order which currently rules in Washington DC will continue to allow greed and short-term profits to rule this country, and America will continue to witness its middle and working classes decline as we have for nearly half a century. We can change this, we can set America on a renewed path towards prosperity and freedom for the many, yet it will take a Herculean effort to overcome the many adversities before us. Fortunately, there are many people on the side of justice and true freedom, and we can chip away at the corruption in our system one piece at a time. It's up to us to educate ourselves and others, and create the grassroots networks needed to deliver electoral victory and reform. Together, we can restore the promise of America not only for ourselves, but for our children, grandchildren and those of millions of immigrants yet to make this nation their home. We can begin to set things right, and it all begins with the first step forward.


References:

1) https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-may-2022

2) https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/18/us/politics/trump-republicans-midterm-election-results.html

3) https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/27/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-00042478

4) https://www.carnegie.org/our-work/article/11-barriers-voting/

5) https://www.apmreports.org/story/2019/10/29/georgia-voting-registration-records-removed

6) https://www.naacpldf.org/six-ways-vraa/

7) https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-can-vote/voting-reform

8) https://www.lwv.org/voting-rights/expanding-voter-access

9) https://fairvote.org/archives/reform_library-right_to_vote_amendment/

Location: California, USA

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