Voter Suppression

Anyone who pays even marginal attention to politics knows that media outlets think it’s never too early to start talking about the upcoming presidential election. I try to avoid that wave of premature coverage myself until the year of, but now that 2012 has finally arrived, I’ll allow myself to dig in.  Rather than discussing the Republican primaries (in which it looks like Mitt Romney is all but certain to win the nomination), I’d like to mention a less glamorous but arguably more important issue: voter suppression.

The Sociological Images blog post by Caroline Heldman that I link to above tells the story very well, and you should read the whole thing, but here’s the executive summary: over half the states in the US have attempted or are attempting to pass legislation that makes it more difficult to register to vote.  All states currently require voters to prove their identification at the polls, but these laws would require some form of government-issued ID to register as well.  About one-tenth of Americans don’t have such ID, and many find it costly or difficulty to obtain it.  And voter impersonation, the ostensible reason for these measures, is, as the blog post notes, a negligible problem.

So what’s going on here?  Heldman notes that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a think tank-like organization with strong ties to big business and conservative Republican legislators, has helped draft much of the new voter ID legislation, and “every single new voter ID law was passed with ALEC member involvement.”  These laws make it much more difficult for the poor, racial minorities, and the elderly to vote—in other words, they restrict the voting abilities of important constituents of the Democratic party.  The Brennan Center for Justice estimates that 5 million voters could be disenfranchised by these laws.  This could have huge consequences for the upcoming election.

The states that have restricted voting rights also have 185 Electoral College votes (about two-thirds of the 270 needed to win the presidency). Five of the twelve battleground states in the upcoming election have already restricted voting rights and two others are considering new limitations.

I’m not out to advocate for either party, but there’s no denying that these laws are undemocratic in the ways they silence and exclude millions of Americans.  We should always work to make our political institutions more inclusive and democratic, not to disenfranchise American citizens and tilt the playing field to favor certain parties or classes. Heldman’s comments about the Electoral College also highlight how antiquated and distorting that particular institution is.  The winner-take-all rules according to which the Electoral College typically operates arbitrarily and unnecessarily distort voting outcomes, and in this case offer opportunities to skew the election in favor of Republicans.  Getting rid of the Electoral College would make presidential elections more democratic by decreasing the importance of “battleground states” and by bringing these elections more in line with the philosophy of “one person, one vote.”

By: Aaron Bekemeyer

(Photo by Theresa Thompson under a Creative Commons license)