Voting Rights Are Under Attack
In his remarks as he signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law, President Lyndon B. Johnson said voting is “the basic right without which all others are meaningless. It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies” and “the most powerful instrument ever devised by human beings for breaking down injustice.” Today, across the country, that right is under attack. From Florida to Alaska, efforts are underway in nearly every state to make it harder to vote and to limit voters’ say in who will represent them at the local, state, and federal levels.
The Brennan Center for Justice, a leading voice for voting rights and equal justice, has found that since 2021 more than 440 bills making it more difficult to vote were introduced in 49 states and enacted in 19, amounting “to the most dramatic curtailment of ballot access since the late-19th century.” These new restrictions might make it more difficult for 1 in 5 Americans to cast ballots this November. In the run-up to the 2024 election, new laws in Florida, Texas, Ohio, and Georgia will limit ballot drop boxes, impose new ID requirements, and implement criminal oversight initiatives targeting virtually nonexistent election fraud.
In Arizona and Virginia, proposed legislation would eliminate or greatly reduce ballot drop boxes and Wisconsin’s Supreme Court recently outlawed their use in the state’s elections. In Missouri, a bill introduced last year would allow ballots to be rejected for having a signature that “does not appear to be valid.” No explanation for the phrase nor any details on how it is meant to be administered are included.
This onslaught of new barriers to voting led the Department of Justice to issue an unprecedented warning in July 2021 that states must comply with federal law when changes to election procedures.
The battle over voting is not entirely new — since its founding, the United States has repeatedly experienced efforts to expand and contract voting rights. Nonetheless, the last two years have seen a marked increase in proposals to restrict voting, gerrymander election districts, and allow anonymous groups to pour unlimited amounts of dark money into campaigns.
In Georgia, Senate Bill 202, which was signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp in 2021, made it illegal to give voters a bottle of water while they’re standing in line to vote, made it harder to register to vote, harder to vote by mail, and imposed stricter voter ID laws. In the Peach State, “Republicans have also passed a law that gives a commission they control the power to remove local election officials.” This comes after Brad Raffensperger, the state’s Republican Secretary of State, rebuffed efforts in 2020 to overturn the results of the state’s elections
Last year, Florida enacted new limits on ballot drop boxes, voting by mail, and voter registration drives. After Texas reduced early voting and implemented more restrictive ID requirements for mail-in voting, tens of thousands of ballots were flagged for rejection in the 2022 primary in the Lone Star state, a huge increase from the prior election.
These laws aren’t exclusive to the south. Montana has reduced the types of IDs which may be used when voting and eliminated same-day voter registration. Iowa passed a new law shortening voting hours during early voting and on election day, changing the deadline when mailed-in ballots must be received, and limiting who was eligible to receive an absentee ballot.
Other states want to go further still. In Tennessee, a state senator proposed ending all early voting, though withdrew the bill when it found no support in the House. Arizona lawmakers have sought to limit which voters automatically get absentee ballots mailed to them and to require ballots to be postmarked by the Thursday before election day, even if they are received before polls close. One Arizona Representative has even gone so far as to propose legislation that would authorize the state legislature to nullify the results of an election and award the state’s electoral votes to the candidate selected by the state legislature regardless of who receives the most votes in an election. Six other states are considering legislation permitting elected officials to overturn the results of an election, leading to worries that the 2024 election could be decided, not by voters, but instead by state legislatures.
These efforts are in stark contrast to what citizens want: 80% support expanded voting hours, 78% want additional polling locations, 66% think Election Day should be a federal holiday, 59% believe there should be more ballot drop boxes, 58% favor drive-through voting, 55% back same-day registration on Election Day.
Starting with the colonist’s struggle for self-representation in the Revolutionary War, to the legislative fight to pass the 15th Amendment following the Civil War, to the protests of the Women’s Suffrage movement, to the modern arguments over ID laws and mail-in ballots, the battle for voting rights is ingrained in our nation’s history. President Ronald Reagan called the right to vote “the crown jewel of American liberties.” Today, across the country, efforts are underway to roll back hard-fought victories to ensure voting is available to all adult citizens, regardless of race, gender, or income. It is time to man the trenches in defense of the right to cast a ballot and protect our ability to have a say in who represents us in local, state, and federal government.
Nicholas Monck served as the Deputy Director for Voter Protection for the Colorado Democratic Party in 2018 and Boulder County Democratic Party Legal Team Co-Lead from 2017–2019. Opinions expressed are his own and do not represent the views of his employer.
