Racial Justice and Voting
Voting has historically not been open to all and continues to be restricted for many. Today's situation requires more than just reaching for the ballot. Still, we continue to call for policy changes through the electoral system. Now is therefore a time to examine how voting is harder for some than for others and how that makes real social change harder to sustain. This page covers issues related to voting and racial justice with a focus on two questions. First, and more broadly, how does voting intersect with issues of racial justice? Second, and more directly, in what ways is voting today harder for people of color?
Criminal Justice Related Issues
Our criminal justice system often has a direct impact on voting laws and regulations. The criminal justice system has an overwhelming negative impact on Black and Latinx communities, and members of these communities are significantly more likely to be victims of mass incarceration, creating a structural minority-targeted pattern of voter suppression.
Felony Disenfranchisement
Felony disenfranchisement is the loss of the right to vote due to a felony conviction. The most recent comprehensive state-level research from 2016 found that about 6.1 million Americans were disenfranchised due to a felony conviction, with 1 in 13 Black Americans—compared to 1 in 56 non-Black Americans—nationwide having lost their right to vote due to a felony conviction.
Many states have recently changed their laws. Governor Kim Reynolds of Iowa is planning to sign an executive order that would restore voting rights to all of the state's people with felony convictions in time for the 2020 election. Iowa is currently the only state that disenfranchises all people with felony convictions for life. In California, voters in 2020 will have the opportunity to vote on a proposition that would restore the right to vote for people on parole. Some other states allow incarcerated people to vote immediately after exiting prison, while others can only vote after completing their parole and all other parts of their sentence. Maine and Vermont stand out as the only states that allow all incarcerated people to vote while in prison.
Further Reading
You can view this map from the Brennan Center that has the most up to date information regarding state-by-state laws on incarcerated disenfranchisement.
This article from the NCSL provides additional background research and tables that show discrepancies in states' laws on people's rights to vote.
Case Study: Florida
In 2018, Amendment 4 passed in Florida, automatically restoring the right to vote for people who completed their sentences for felony convictions, except those convicted of murder or sexual assault. This restored 1.4 million people’s right to vote. A disproportionate share of people arrested in Florida are Black people and, in 2016, 17.9% of Black voters were unable to vote due to their past felony convictions.
In response, the Florida legislature and Governor Ron DeSantis interpreted the law through new legislation so that people were required to pay court fines, fees, and other legal obligations before having their voting rights restored.
A lawsuit was filed and the court found that this law was unconstitutional due to wealth discrimination. As of May 2020, the court ruled that “it is unconstitutional to put a price tag on voting rights restoration.”
A federal appeals court granted a stay requested by Governor DeSantis to review the law in early July. Hearings are not scheduled to be held until August, after the state's voter registration deadline.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, along with other groups, has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to lift a stay on the ruling
The Supreme Court upheld the stay placed by the federal appeals court in mid-July.
Until further legal action is taken, this move bars all people with felony convictions from voting until they have paid back all court fees and fines, removing the ability to vote from thousands of convicted people that have finished serving their time.
It is currently unclear how this will affect the 2020 general election. There will likely be further legal challenges and appeals. There is currently no procedure in place to allow these individuals with felony convictions to vote in November, and it is unclear if an appropriate system will be created in time. Even if it is, it is unclear how many of those with felony convictions will register to vote.
Prison Gerrymandering
Prison gerrymandering is the practice where incarcerated people are counted by the Census Bureau in official counts as living in the place they are imprisoned. Since the census count determines representation, counting incarcerated people in this way inflates counts in areas with prisons and deflates them in areas that incarcerated people come from.
Prison gerrymandering specifically distorts voting power by transferring more to predominantly white, wealthy areas. By counting incarcerated people in the jurisdiction their prison is located during the census, rather than where they’re from, states concentrate representation in rural, mostly white communities (where many jails are) rather than in urban, more diverse neighborhoods. Prison gerrymandering itself violates most state constitutions and statutes, while also being explicitly illegal in 9 states that have passed legislation outlawing it.
Further Reading
This resource page from the Prison Policy Initiative contains most resources you would need on the topic of prison gerrymandering. From introductory information, how to get involved, data on your specific location, and podcasts and articles, this page has it all.
This article from NPR also covers the issue well with an approachable style.
Case Study: Waupun, Wisconsin
Waupun is a predominantly white, rural town about an hour
and a half outside Milwaukee.
It is also home to three prisons, housing the majority of 2 Waupun state representatives' constituents—one district’s constituency is 61% incarcerated citizens. However, the incarcerated people cannot vote and their elected officials have never visited them. These people are counted as bodies to give Waupun increased representation, but they are denied any voice in the political process.
In Wisconsin around 1 in 8 Black men under age 64 are behind
bars, the highest incarceration rate of Black men in the country.
Slide 3 of 3.
Solution Focused Resources
These organizations/resources are working to address the problem of felony disenfranchisement, prison gerrymandering, and other criminal justice-related issues.
Sentencing Project is a non-profit that advocates for reforms in sentencing policies and against unjust racial disparities. They also highlight the problem of mass incarceration and provide educational. resources and opportunities for action.
Prison Policy Initiative is a non-partisan non-profit that fights against mass incarceration and prison gerrymandering. Their efforts have successfully changed how district lines are drawn in 7 states and 200+ municipalities. Their Prisoners of the Census webpage also has lots of information and resources on the issue of prison gerrymandering to educate yourself.
The Appeal provides a helpful map and spreadsheet guides to finding where criminal justice candidates are running in 2020. You can use this resource to find out who will be on your ballot and in charge of your municipality and county's criminal justice apparatus.
Legislative Barriers to Ballot Access
Across the nation, many states have passed laws that restrict the right to vote in ways that disproportionately affect people of color. These structural limitations, such as voter ID laws, stop many Black and Latinx Americans from voting often before they even get to the ballot box. In the process, they silence voices in these communities.
Voter ID Laws
Voter ID laws require voters to show some form of official identification on Election Day to vote. 7 states require strict photo ID and 27 states require either strict non-photo ID, a photo ID requested, or an ID requested but a photo is not required. Check out this map to see your state’s requirements.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, 25% of Black voting-age citizens do not have a current government-issued photo ID. In comparison, 8% of white voting-age citizens do not have a current government-issued photo ID.
Further Reading
This article from FiveThirtyEight gives a good overview of the state of voter ID laws and cites a number of other important studies.
Case Study: Texas
Texas allows handgun licenses as an official form of identification,
but not student IDs from state universities.
Statistics from 2018 show that more than 80% of licensed gun holders were white whereas more than half of the students enrolled in the University of Texas system were racial or ethnic minorities.
Gerrymandering
As EVC has previously highlighted, gerrymandering allows politicians to “pick” the voters who support them to maximize their advantage, rather than allowing voters picking their political leaders. Gerrymandering also disproportionately affects people of color, and especially Black people. Why does this happen? There are a few ways.
District lines in some states are drawn to “pack” in as many people of color, safely Democratic voters, into as few districts as possible. Republicans can then pick up other districts more reliably, since they will have a more concentrated white constituency who are more dependable voters for Republicans.
On the other hand, Democrats can gain advantages by “cracking” districts. By spreading out communities of color between multiple districts, they can more reliably secure victory in those districts and not waste as many votes in non-competitive races, such as those that occur in a “packed" district.
Both of these tactics can also be used in reverse depending on the circumstances. For example, Republicans also sometimes "crack" a Democratic district by spreading out their voters into multiple districts which individually have a slim chance at electing a Democrat.
Further Reading
This article from ProPublica discusses racial gerrymandering and how it has been used as an effective tool to suppress people of color for many decades.
Case Study
North Carolina
North Carolina A&T State University is the largest HBCU in the nation
District lines were drawn between dormitories in order to split the campus between the 12th and 13th congressional districts—effectively diminishing the students’ collective voting power by dividing their votes across multiple districts.
Voter Roll Purging
Voter roll purging is the removal of eligible, registered voters from voting lists due to claims of ineligibility to vote. Though clean voter rolls are good, there are important differences between maintenance and purging. Purges usually occur too close to elections to correct any mistakes, causing legitimate voters accidentally swept up in the purge to be barred from casting a ballot. Purges often also clear out voters who have smaller errors, such as a misspelled name or non-matching signatures, whereas maintenance focuses on removing people who are deceased or who have not voted in a few election cycles. Some states have declared voter roll purging as illegal under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Nevertheless, voter roll purging still persists today, particularly in states that have a history of discriminatory voting practices.
Further Reading
This article from the Brennan Center gives a good overview of voter roll purging and discusseshow its impacts
Case Studies
Cincinnati, Ohio
According to the Center for American Progress, Ohio purged hundreds of thousands of voters for failing to vote since 2008. 10% of voters in African-American neighborhoods near downtown Cincinnati were purged for failing to vote since 2012, in comparison to 4% of voters in surrounding majority-white suburbs.
Georgia
In 2017, then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp purged over 560,000 Georgians from voter rolls. There were also tens of thousands of voter registration applications left "pending" for the 2018 midterm elections, allegedly due to missing hyphens or apostrophes in people’s names. Out of the 53,000 registrations labeled as “pending", 70% of them were Black people. In the 2018 midterm elections, Kemp beat Stacy Abrams by around 55,000 votes.
Just as in 2018, Georgia intended to purge around 300,000 voters in October 2019 according to the New York Times, In December 2019, a federal judge ruled in favor of purging 100,000 voters. However, by March 2020, 87,000 voters had already re-registered to vote.
Signature Matching Requirments
Mail ballot rejection due to signature matching also disproportionately disenfranchise people of color. While 99% of mail ballots are counted in each election, the Election Assistance Commission found that the top reason for a ballot being rejected was due to the signature on the ballot not matching the one on record, which some states require. People of color were more than two and a half times more likely than white voters to have their ballots rejected for this reason.
Further Reading
This article from NCSL discusses signature matching and gives state-by-state guidelines.
Case Study
Gwinnett County, Georgia
In Gwinnett County, Georgia, infamous for its history of mail ballot rejection, 17.4% of all rejected ballots were from white voters; 45% were from Black voters.
This resulted in 8% of Black voters’ ballots being rejected.
Solution Focused Resources:
These organizations/resources are working to address the problems of voter ID laws, gerrymandering, voter roll purging, and signature matching requirements, among other issues.
The ACLU is a law-based organization that works to defend civil liberties all around the nation. In this crisis, they are especially focused on Black people's disenfranchisement at the ballot box and provide constantly updated information on the state of litigation surrounding the most recent disenfranchisement laws.
Racial Equity Tools is an organization is an educational resource that provides a variety of materials dedicated to voting, in addition to other topics. They also supply a number of options for action listed below their resources.
Technical Barriers to Ballot Access
Some restrictions to voter participation are the result of technical barriers that make it practically difficult to vote. Often, these limitations have a disproportionate effect on people of color. Many of these restrictions are closely connected to legislation, and laws can be passed to address these limitations and make the system of voting more fair.
Poll Closures
Poll closures, which condense more voters into a single voting station, can create a myriad of issues on Election Day. Long lines, overcrowding, and inaccessibility are all likely outcomes. This issue has become increasingly intertwined with racial justice in recent years after the landmark Supreme Court case, Shelby v. Holder. In 2013, Shelby County, Alabama filed a lawsuit to declare Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. Section 5 requires jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to propose changes in voting procedures before they go into effect. The Supreme Court ruled that Section 5 was constitutional. The lawsuit, however, also contested Section 4(b) which determines what jurisdictions are covered by Section 5. The court agreed and ruled Section 4(b) as unconstitutional because it was based on an old formula. Without Section 4(b), states can close polling places at their own discretion without notice or transparency.
Further Reading
This map highlights the decrease in number of polling places per county.
Case Studies
Texas
A study by the Guardian showed that in Texas, the 50 counties that had the highest number of Black and Latinx residents closed 542 polling sites between 2012 and 2018 as opposed to 34 poll closures in 50 counties that had the fewest Black and Latinx residents.
Dodge City, Kansas
In 2018, Election Officials closed the only polling station in Dodge City, Kansas and moved it outside of city limits. Dodge City is one of the only majority-minority cities in Kansas, with a 60% Latinx population.
The city’s new polling site, located in a suburb beyond the reach of public transportation, was expected to serve all of the city’s 13,136 voters. The average polling place serves 1,200 voters.
Long Lines
In the 2012 election, long lines were estimated to have stopped around 730,000 Americans from voting. Long lines prevent people from casting a ballot, and most long lines are found in communities of color. A study by the Brennan Center found that Black voters waited 45% longer and Latinx voters waited 46% longer to vote on average than white voters in the 2018 midterms. Thus, while long lines turn away voters of all races, they disproportionately block Black and Latinx voters from casting a ballot—in addition to contributing to a disorganized and overcrowded polling station.
Further Reading
While the Presidential Commission on Election Administration has declared 30 minutes as the highest acceptable threshold for Election Day wait times, 7% of Black Voters and 6.6% of Latinx voters reported waiting longer during the 2018 midterm elections. Only 4.1% of white voters reported waiting this long.
According to the Brennan Center, counties that become less white over the past 10 years had, on average, fewer electoral resources in 2018 than counties that became more white. A lack of electoral resources is a key cause of long lines.
Case Study
Atlanta, Georgia
Long lines were reported in Georgia's 2020 primary election. More than 80 polling places were closed in Atlanta, many machines were broken, and some poll workers were not even given the necessary access codes to start the machines.
The long lines that were created were largely located in communities of color and disenfranchised voters who could not afford to wait in a line for up to 5 hours. Some reported that they were easily able to vote in suburban, mostly white, polling locations that they drove out of their way to find.
Voter Harassment and Intimidation
It’s hard to quantify the extent of voter intimidation largely because it is hard to categorize and recognize. Many voters throughout the country, however, have reported being subjects of voter intimidation, and some notable examples have been widely reported in the media. Cases of voter suppression have allegedly increased in recent years and, according to the NAACP, Black voters are particularly vulnerable to these practices. Voter Intimidation can take many forms; some common types of intimidation include asking voters for unnecessary photo ID or proof of citizenship, intentionally disseminating false information about election procedures to confuse voters, or bothering voters as they wait in line. Latinx voters also face high levels of voter intimidation. In the 2016 election, 1 in 10 Latinx voters reported themselves or a household member being bothered at the polls.
Further Reading
This article from the New York Times is a guide to voter intimidation and gives advice on reporting sightings.
Case Studies
Dallas County, Texas
During the 2018 midterm elections, 3 polling sites in Dallas County, Texas reported incidences of voters being subjected to intimidation from people outside the polls. According to one election official, the levels of harassment reached a 30 year high.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Voters in Milwaukee reported receiving flyers that stated ICE would be monitoring the polls in 2018. The information on the flyers was confirmed fake by ICE, but still served as an intimidation tool to suppress voter turnout.
Langugage Limitations
Language limitations can pose a serious barrier to voting for some communities. While the Voting Rights Act requires some jurisdictions to provide language assistance to voters, 1 in 6 Latinx voters still reported a “lack of Spanish-language assistance or materials” as being a voting barrier. Many voting information websites lack a Spanish option and Latinx voters are significantly less likely than white voters to be contacted about the election prior to voting.
Further Reading
This memo from MIT gives an overview of the history of legislation in this area and the status of language barriers today.
Case Study
Florida
In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, 450,000 Puerto Ricans came to Florida, adding to the large number of Puerto Ricans already in the Sunshine state. While many of the new residents spoke English, many received public schooling in Spanish.
Even though they are required under the Voting Rights Act,
13 Florida Counties failed to provide bilingual voting assistance, ballots,
and other election-related materials to their large Puerto Rican populations. This likely made it more difficult for thousands of eligible voters to cast their ballots.
After a lawsuit, a federal court ordered 32 counties to provide voters with a Spanish sample ballot for the 2018 general election. The court, however, acknowledged that there were additional steps which could help Spanish-speaking voters but that could not be ordered due to the election's proximity.
Solution Focused Resources
These organizations/resources are working to address the problems of poll closures, long lines, voter harassment, and language barriers.
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights has conducted extensive research on polling poll closures since 2013 and has all of the data laid out in an informative report. Additionally, their website provides an easy way to sign on to their letter and send a message to your representatives.
Fair Fight is an organization founded by former Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacy Abrams to make sure elections are held safely and securely in 2020 and beyond. You can donate and volunteer for the organization.
General Further Reading and Resources
There are many great resources available that discuss the connection between racial justice and voting laws. Below are a few helpful articles and resources that offer further information about these issues and related topics.
This article from Business Insider is about voter suppression tactics and how they have affected communities of color in recent years.
This article from Business Insider discusses the connection between elections, elected officials, and criminal justice reform. Most law enforcement offices are local, and Sheriffs are elected.
This report by We Vote, We Count discusses the history of voting rights and the limitations that still exist in society. It includes many stories of personal encounters with voter suppression as well as suggestions for addressing these issues.
This letter from the Leadership Conference of Civil and Human Rights, an organization made up of the League of Women Voters and the ACLU among others, is a response to the COVID-19 crisis. This is a good template, albeit a bit long, for advocating voting rights to your legislators.
This article from the New York Times highlights the relationship between racial justice and corporations giving their employees paid time off to vote.
This resource from the Students Learn Students Vote Coalition provides additional resources, including anti-racism reading and further organizations.
More Organizations Working on Racial Justice and Voting Issues
Many other organizations have set up great websites and resources that have immense educational value. Listed below are some organizations who do great work for racial justice, with an emphasis on organizations run by Black Americans and work also done beyond the voting rights sphere. These resources are good for learning more about and taking action on some of the topics mentioned.
Black Voters Matter is an organization dedicated to expanding voter registration in Black communities, with the mission to help these neighborhoods determine their own destinies.
Campaign Zero is an organization focused on ending police violence and proposing substantive policy reforms.
Showing Up for Racial Justice is a national group that aims to mobilize white people through education.
Equal Justice Initiative is an organization that aims to change the narrative surrounding race in America by working in communities of color and creating educational resources.
The NAACP Civic Engagement Program's Black Voices Change Lives campaign is working to mobilize Black voters in the 2020 election.
The NAACP Youth & College program is organizing to engage young Black people around the country to vote this November. They are providing classes, trainings, and other weekly and daily material.
Tuft University's YESI Index lists the top races in which young people will have the most influence, and specifically points out races in which young voters of color will have outsized impact.