Voter Suppression
America is changing. The demographics of our country are becoming “browner;” and within twenty years “white people” will no longer be a majority. This is not because the “white” population is shrinking, but other groups, particularly Hispanics, are growing faster. The America of 2040 will look different than the America of 2000, and for some that’s terrifying.
After Mitt Romney’s failed Presidential election of 2012, the Republican Party did an “autopsy” report. The bottom line: the Republican Party needed to broaden its appeal beyond the white rural and suburban populations because those groups aren’t big enough to secure victories anymore. The Party needed to expand, particularly into the growing Hispanic populations in swing states like Florida.
But, with his very first speech announcing his run for President, Donald Trump threw the report out the window. He “doubled-down” on border control and racism, speaking of “…murderers and rapists coming from Mexico” and crossing the border. He automatically limited Republican outreach, but helped generate a backlash of white voters enough to gain the Presidency.
So the Republican Party is faced with finding different means of maintaining electoral power. Their 2010 “Redmap” plan to win state governments and gerrymander districts put them in charge of a majority of state legislatures. Gaining control of the state houses allowed them not only able to draw the maps, but also set the standards for voting.
Through leaders like Kris Kobach of Kansas, the Party “created” a problem: illegal voting in elections. While every objective analysis of US voting shows there is almost no illegal voting occurring, the Republicans generated a “crisis” of “thousands and thousands” of illegal voters, changing the outcome of elections. They then passed a series of laws to restrict access to voting.
To white suburban voters some of these regulations seemed reasonable. Photo identification of voters, the need to have a current residential address, purging the voting rolls of those who failed to vote for several elections: all seemed like a good way to “secure” elections from those phantom illegal voters.
But for those who live in urban areas and don’t drive, for those who are young and changing their residence often, for those who only get interested in Presidential elections: all of these changes take away their vote. Disenfranchisement has its greatest impact on the poor, minorities, and the young. It is little surprise that those groups tend to vote Democratic; the Republican plan is to maintain power by reducing the power of the electorate.
MSNBC, in a series of recent reports, has highlighted specific areas of voter suppression directly effecting the 2018 election. The first is in North Dakota, where Native American voting may well determine the Senate election between Democratic incumbent Heidi Heitkamp and her Republican challenger Congressman Kevin Cramer. Voters in Native American reservations traditionally don’t have “street addresses,” instead receiving their US mail at a Reservation Post Office box. That PO Box serves as their “official” address for the purposes of the tribal identification documents.
The North Dakota state legislature, under Republican control, changed the identification requirements for voting. Starting with this election, all voters must have government (or tribal) identification with a “street address” listed. As the reservations don’t have “street addresses” the law effectively attempted to disenfranchise thousands of Native Americans. In 2012 the total of votes in North Dakota Senate race was 319,738; the difference between the two candidates: 1,936. The reservations voted overwhelming for Heitkamp, the Democrat.
While tribal officials are fighting a desperate battle to get their votes counted, voters on the reservations are likely to face challengers at the polls, questioning their right to vote. Even if the votes ultimately do count, it is likely that the voter turnout will be reduced by the crisis.
In Georgia, over 53,000 new voter registrations have been “flagged.” A new Georgia voting law, passed by the Republican legislature, requires that all names and addresses on registration documents must be an exact match to government identifications. This includes differences in commas and hyphens. These new registrations have not been processed, and those voters are NOT notified that they can vote. The 53,000 will be allowed to cast “provisional” ballots, but those will be challenged and the voters forced to produce documents verifying their information. Over seventy percent of the registrations are minorities.
And North Carolina, a state that has a long record of blatant black voter suppression, continues to “tweak” the process. This year they have, like neighboring Georgia, reduced the number of early polling locations; making it harder to get to them, and creating longer lines at the polls. Also the new North Carolina law makes it difficult for counties to open for Sunday early voting, requiring them to open all of their polling places if they open one. Sunday voting is favored by many black churches, who go after services.
This is all intentional: keeping Democratic voters from voting. Lower voter turnout favors Republican candidates. But, as Martin Luther King and Barack Obama both quoted: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Ultimately the changes in the American population will change our government. But for this election: Democrats must fight through the tactics of suppression, overcome the obstacles; and vote.
I’m remembering when Bush II won in Ohio and the lines were so long in Democratic strongholds that people either waited for hours or went home.
It might have made the difference. Kerry lost by a narrow margin