Voter Suppression 2020

Voter Suppression Compromises Democracy

Voting is the right we exercise to protect all others. Your vote is your voice in your government, and critical issues impacting you are on the line this Fall. Voting also is about divvying up resources. Every day our tax dollars go into the government’s pot and then we rely on elected officials to determine where to spend that money.   

If we don’t vote people into office who have our best interest and advocate for initiatives that support our daily livelihood, then we can’t expect our tax dollars to be spent in our best interests. Being complacent and not voting is not an option; unless you simply concede to giving your hard-earned money away to people, programs and ideals that you do not support in everyday brass tacks. When you don’t vote, you inadvertently support those contrary issues with your money.

Voting isn’t often seen that clear, cut and dry. Voting should also be as easy and convenient as possible, and in many cases it is. But across the U.S., too many politicians are passing measures making it harder to cast a ballot. The goal is to manipulate political outcomes, and the result is a severely compromised democracy that doesn’t reflect the will of the people. Our democracy works best when all eligible voters can participate and have their voices heard.

Suppression efforts range from the seemingly unobstructive, like voter ID laws and cuts to early voting, to mass purges of voter rolls and systemic disenfranchisement. And long before election cycles even begin, legislators can redraw district lines that determine the weight of your vote. Certain communities are particularly susceptible to suppression and in some cases, outright targeted — people of color, students, the elderly, and people with disabilities. 

Below, the ACLU has listed some of the most rampant methods of voter suppression across the country — and the advocacy and litigation efforts aimed at protecting our fundamental right to vote. 

Impact of Voter Suppression

• Across the country, 16 million people were removed from voter rolls between 2014 and 2016. 
• Right here in New York City, 200,000 people were purged from voter rolls in Brooklyn, preventing them from voting in the 2016 primary election.
• Since 2013, over 1,000 polling centers were closed across the country, disproportionately in communities of color. Texas alone closed 750 polling centers, creating long lines. One man waited 7 hours to vote.

Voter Purges

Cleaning up voter rolls can be a responsible part of election administration because many people move, die, or become ineligible to vote for other reasons. But sometimes, states use this process as a method of mass disenfranchisement, purging eligible voters from rolls for illegitimate reasons or based on inaccurate data, and often without adequate notice to the voters. A single purge can stop up to hundreds of thousands of people from voting. Often, voters only learn they’ve been purged when they show up at the polls on Election Day. 

Voter purges have increased in recent years. A recent Brennan Center study found that almost 16 million voters were purged from the rolls between 2014 and 2016, and that jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination — which are no longer subject to preclearance after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act — had significantly higher purge rates. 

The most common excuses for purging voter rolls are to filter out voters who have changed their address, died, or have failed to vote in recent elections. States often conduct such purges using inaccurate data, booting voters who don’t even fall under the targeted category. In 2016, Arkansas purged thousands of voters for so-called felony convictions, even though some of the voters had never been convicted of a felony at all. And in 2013, Virginia purged 39,000 voters based on data that was later found to have an error rate of up to 17 percent.

False Claims and Misinformation

Since April 4, President Donald Trump has repeatedly – without evidence – charged that voting by mail is rampant with fraud. This type of incendiary remark is nothing new from Trump. Remember his unsubstantiated claims after the 2016 election of millions of “illegal voters” in California?

Here are the facts. First, it is undisputed among top election researchers that voter fraud is exceedingly rare, including elections using mail ballots. Further, states with extensive mail-in-balloting systems have enacted safeguards such as signature verification requirements that make fraud virtually nonexistent. And there is no clear research that supports a partisan disadvantage for Republicans – a charge Trump made recently.

Second, about a quarter of Americans already use mail-in ballots conveniently and securely. However, access to mail-in voting varies widely across the country; from all vote-by-mail elections in five states – Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah – to only allowing mail balloting when voters provide an excuse, in about a third of U.S. states.

Third, current modeling of the coronavirus pandemic has led election officials in every state to plan for the very real possibility that we won’t be able to hold a status-quo General Election. 

The claim that election fraud is a major concern with mail-in ballots has become the central threat to election participation during the Covid-19 pandemic and to the legitimacy of the outcome of the election across the political spectrum.

Gerrymandering

Gerrymandering is the notorious practice of tweaking legislative maps to maximize one political party’s advantage and deny voters equal representation. Methods include the techniques referenced in the show’s title: “packing” voters of the same party into one district to reduce their voting power in surrounding areas, and “cracking” open a region where a party already has a clear majority, so its voters are split into smaller, weaker groups in surrounding districts.

Every 10 years, states redraw district lines based on population data gathered in the census. Legislators use these district 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 too often, states use redistricting as a political tool to manipulate the outcome of elections. That’s called gerrymandering — a widespread, undemocratic practice that’s stifling the voice of millions of voters.

How it Will Begins.

Redistricting is front and center in 2020. In April, the Trump administration will conduct the 2020 census and states will use its results to redraw district lines across the country. Those new district lines will determine our political voice for the next decade.  The census ended early, on October 15th, leaving a portion of Americans uncounted. New York City announced a self-response rate of nearly 62 percent. (Self-response means people respond on their own, either through the mail, telephone or via internet; people who respond to census takers who canvass neighborhoods aren’t included in this number.) 

It’s no coincidence that the administration — which has a lengthy track record on voter suppression and attacking immigrants — wanted to add a citizenship question to the census. The goal was to reduce census participation by immigrant communities, thereby stunting their growing political influence and depriving them of economic benefits. 

Some might wonder what the problem is in adding a citizenship question to the census. But the purpose of the census is to count everybody in this country, citizens and noncitizens alike. Accurate population data is essential in apportioning representation and public funds. By trying to suppress participation, the administration made clear that it doesn’t want certain people to count — namely immigrants and even citizens who live in mixed-status households, who might have hesitated to participate if the Administration had succeeded in adding a citizenship question to the Census. 

The ACLU sued the Trump administration over the citizenship question and successfully blocked it last year. In the process, we uncovered documents proving that attacking immigrants was the administration’s goal all along, and that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross lied to Congress to hide it. 

The 2020 census will no longer include a citizenship question — but the administration’s attempt to add it is yet another example of how politicians can use redistricting to suppress and manipulate the vote. 

 Who's Affected By Voter Suppression?

The short answer is all of us. Our democracy is debased when the vote is not accessible for all. But the fact is that some groups are disproportionately affected by voter suppression tactics, including people of color, young people, the elderly, and people with disabilities. There’s proof that certain groups have been deliberately targeted -- for example, the government documents uncovered in the census case proved that the citizenship question intended to harm immigrants. Other times, the proof is in the numbers.

• Seventy percent of Georgia voters purged in 2018 were Black. 
• Across the country, one in 13 Black Americans cannot vote due to disenfranchisement laws.
• One-third of voters who have a disability report difficulty voting.
• Only 40 percent of polling places fully accommodate people with disabilities. 
• Across the country, counties with larger minority populations have fewer polling sites and poll workers per voter. 
• Six in ten college students come from out of state in New Hampshire, the state trying to block residents with out of state drivers’ licenses.

Voting Protections

• Track the status of your absentee ballot at https://nysballot.elections.ny.gov/TrackMyBallot/Search.  Contact your local election officials with any questions.
• As states make emergency election changes due to COVID-19, we encourage you to return to this page to get more updated information.
• To encourage voting by mail during the COVID-19 pandemic, some states are proactively mailing vote-by-mail ballot applications or actual ballots to all registered or active voters. We recommend that all voters request a vote-by-mail ballot to help ensure that one is sent to their current address.
• Most states have deadlines to apply to vote by mail. We recommend you make the request as soon as possible, and well before the deadline (at least two weeks before) to ensure enough time to receive, vote, and submit a complete ballot.
• Instead of licking ballot envelopes, please use a wet sponge or cloth to seal them.
• Know Your Rights before you get to the polling booth. Here’s a guide on what to do if you face registration issues, need disability or language accommodations, or come across someone who’s interfering with your right to vote. Share the guide on Facebook and Twitter to spread the word.