How the Courts Have Crippled Voting Rights
2013, the year we got “We Can’t Stop” by Miley Cyrus, and when voting rights took a crippling blow at the hands of the Supreme Court. The 5-4 Shelby v Holder decision struck down section 5 of the Voter Rights Act. A section that said that any new elections laws in certain flagged jurisdictions had to first be reviewed in order to ensure they were not tools of voter suppression. The late Justice Ginsburg dissented to Shelby’s ruling, writing that declaring the review of laws unconsittuional because there was no evidence of discrimination, as a result of the very same section in the Voter Rights Act, “is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” A flurry of laws followed, ones that had racist implications and severely wounded our democracy.
In Texas, you can’t register to vote online, a far cry from the more democractic system that exists in other countries, like Canada, where voter registration is automatic. Texas has also garnered attention recently for a move made by Republican Governor Greg Abbottt, who ordered that every county can only have one location to drop off absentee ballots. In smaller counties, this wouldn’t be as big of an issue. But Texas is home to Harris County which has a population of nearly 5 million people spread over 1,700 square miles, and prior to Abbott’s order, had 12 locations to drop off ballots. Initially a District Judge had overruled the order, but the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, and Abbott’s voter suppression tactic was allowed to remain in place.
Another infamous state for voter suppression is my home state of North Carolina, where a voter ID law had to be struck down by the state’s Court of Appeals, but is at risk of being reinstated, because it “target[s] African Americans with surgical precision.” But that ruling can still be appealed, and the fate of this suppression tactic is still very much up in the air. North Carolina also joins twenty states in not guaranteeing any time off from work, rendering voting farther out of reach for many.
And while the examples I’ve used so far are in Republican held or toss up states, voter suppression is by no means exclusive to them. In 31 states, including California and New York, a voter's signature on their absentee ballot must match with the one on file. While that may sound innocuous it allows for ballots with slight differences, that can be accounted for by the fact that people’s handwriting changes frequently and is not always identical, to be thrown out without them ever knowing. In fact New York has been a poster-child for voter suppression in court; 2020 is the first presidential election in which New York will offer early voting. Previously, New York had been cited in lawsuits to claim that other states who had limited early voting were not engaged in voter suppression because unlike New York, they offered it at all. On October 24, when early voting first began, lines wrapped for blocks down New York City streets. Lines this long would last for hours, significantly longer than the model 30-minute wait time.
This leds us to the precarious future of voting rights. While there have certainly been victories recently, like the US Supreme Court declining to stop Pennsylvania's mail-in ballot extension, a lot remains unknown. That Supreme Court ruling was narrowly decided 4-4, with Chief Justice Roberts joining the liberal wing of the court, but the likely ascension of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the court casts doubt on whether voter rights would truly be protected. There are renewed efforts to pass a Voting Rights Act that reinstates protections in an age of rampant voter suppression. It was named in honor of John Lewis and voting rights advocates rallied for its passage following Lewis’ death in June. But in a McConnell controlled Senate, there is little chance of the landmark legislation to be brought up for a vote. Which leds us to the issue: if voters are suppressed, they can’t vote the suppressors out of office. What type of democracy is that?
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2012/12-96
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/how-shelby-county-broke-america/564707/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/16/politics/what-matters-october-15/index.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/can-i-leave-work-early-to-vote-2016-11
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/07/upshot/mail-voting-ballots-signature-matching.html
https://twitter.com/benjaminokeefe/status/1320042905655009281?s=20
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/nyregion/early-voting-reform-laws-ny.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/nyregion/nyc-early-voting.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/21/us/john-lewis-voting-rights-act.html