Nicole Cardoza Nicole Cardoza Nicole Cardoza Nicole Cardoza

Rally against voter suppression.

Last Thursday, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a sweeping voter suppression bill into law that allows for more legislative oversight and control on election proceedings. The bill has a couple of positive provisions, like lengthening the time of early voting in general elections, but they fail to compensate for the negative.

Happy Monday and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily! We covered this topic briefly last June on the anniversary of Shelby County v. Holder, and it's all the more relevant with the law that passed in Georgia last week. I didn't realize how many other states have similar legislation pending – so stay alert for the latest in yours.

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Nicole

TAKE ACTION

  • Donate to the New Georgia Project, a nonpartisan effort to register and educate Georgia voters. The most effective way to reverse these laws is to create a Democratic-led state government in 2022.

  • Voter suppression laws are in progress in several other states right now. If you live in teh following states, click the link to take action (provided by Fair Fight): Arizona |  Georgia | Florida | New Hampshire | Texas.

  • Sign the petition to encourage your Congresspeople to pass H.R. 1 and H.R. 4.

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

Last Thursday, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a sweeping voter suppression bill into law that allows for more legislative oversight and control on election proceedings. The bill has a couple of positive provisions, like lengthening the time of early voting in general elections, but they fail to compensate for the negative, including:

  • Absentee voters have to submit a driver’s license, state ID or other proof of their identity.

  • Absentee ballot drop boxes can only be located in early voting locations (which are often placed predominately in wealthier, white neighborhoods)

  • Drop boxes won’t be available in the last days of an election (after it’s too late to mail ballots in)

  • The State Election Board is now managed more by the state legislature, who now have the power to suspend anyone for inappropriate conduct 

  • It shortens runoff elections from nine weeks to less than a month and cuts the early voting required from three weeks to one week. Consider how critical the runoff election in Georgia was for establishing a Democratic Senate in early 2021.

(NBC News)

The most blatant addition prohibits volunteers from distributing items like food, water, and folding chairs to voters waiting in long lines. Because of the lack of polling locations available, Georgia voters – particularly those of color – waited hours to be able to vote in the 2020 elections (NBC News). Not only is this an apparent attempt to deter individuals from voting, but it’s also troubling that the government finds it appropriate to ban a human from providing food and sustenance to another while participating in their civic duty. 

When asked during his first formal news conference, President Biden was adamantly against the law, stating that it “makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle” (Washington Post). Stacey Abrams called the law Jim Crow 2.0. On Twitter, Kemp proudly shared a photo of the occasion, depicting him seated at a table, surrounded by six white men, signing the bill (Twitter). Reporter Will Bunch from The Philadelphia Inquirer noted that the painting in the background featured the Callaway Plantation, a plantation in Wilkes County, GA, where hundreds of Black people were enslaved, which makes it all the more sinister. Read the full story on Will Bunch’s Twitter thread.

To fully understand the context, we have to analyze its similarities with voter suppression laws of the Jim Crow era. By definition, voter suppression, is when the state or federal government intentionally makes it difficult for people to exercise their right to vote. The Fair Fight PAC breaks down three fundamental voting stages: voter registration, access to polls, and ballot counting. Voter suppression can happen at any stage of this process. Although voter suppression affects everyone from having a fair and democratic election, it usually directly impacts communities of color, the elderly, people with disabilities, and others systemically marginalized in our country.

Voter suppression for Black people has been around since the beginning. The 15th Amendment, enacted in 1870, made it unconstitutional to deny any man the right to vote based "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (National Geographic). But, Black men were often barred from the polls, along with other people of color, through state-wide rules and regulations that limited their rights. This wasn’t just a racial decision but a political one; during that time, Black people overwhelmingly voted Republican (the party of Abraham Lincoln). 

States implemented polling taxes – which made it too expensive for any poor person to vote. Some also started to use literacy tests to thwart Black people, knowing that many weren’t granted the opportunity to learn – and were punished for attempting to.

Side note: The grandfather clause is often included as a form of voter suppression. This practice granted prospective voters eligibility if their father or grandfather had voted in the past. This obviously did bar non-white voters from voting, but it was actually implemented to enfranchise uneducated and/or poor white men, so the poll taxes and literacy tests didn’t block them. The law became obsolete after a Supreme Court ruling in 1939, but the “grandfathered in” terminology still remains (NPR). 

In Mississippi in 1890, the state went so far as to require voters to read and interpret a section of the state constitution chosen by a local official.  White people were given simple clauses to read and were often assisted by poll workers. In contrast, Black people were given the most incomprehensible clauses that even the most well-read political figure may not have understood. During his run for re-election, Democratic Senator, Mississipi Governor and noted white supremacist Theodore Bilbos said the following:

“

The poll tax won’t keep ’em from voting. What keeps ’em from voting is section 244 of the constitution of 1890 that Senator George wrote. It says that for a man to register, he must be able to read and explain the constitution...and then Senator George wrote a constitution that damn few white men and no niggers at all can explain.

(Race and Liberty in America: The Essential Reader)

These laws were effective. In Mississippi, less than 9,000 of the 147,000 voting-age Black people were registered to vote after 1890. In Louisiana in 1896, there were 130,000 registered Black voters. But this number plummeted to 1,342 by 1904 (Smithsonian).

It wasn't until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the federal government attempted to eradicate these voting laws. Within four years of its enactment, Black voter registration increased from 25% to 65% (Brennan Center). But seven years ago, the Supreme Court significantly weakened the Voting Rights Act. In its June 25, 2013 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, the Court rejected a provision of the Voting Rights Act that determined which jurisdictions with a history of discrimination had to “pre-clear” changes to their election rules with the federal government before implementing them. This gave states a free pass to make whichever rules they see fit without oversight (Brennan Center).

This enabled states like Georgia to implement new laws that disenfranchise voters. One rule, the “use it or use it” law, allows states to remove their citizens from the voter registration list if they didn’t vote in past elections. The "exact match" law requires that voters’ registration information exactly matches the information found at the state’s Department of Driver Services or the Social Security Administration. In 2017, the Georgia state government, led by then-Secretary of State Kemp, who had just announced his run for governor, used these two rules to remove over 600,000 voters from the registry (The New Republic). An additional 53,000 voter registrations were pending at the time of the election. Unsurprisingly, Kemp won the election against Stacey Abrams by roughly 55,000 votes (NBC News). You can read about other examples of modern-day disenfranchisement here.


Progressive leaders have been advocating for the passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would reinstate some of the changes made in 2013. They offer a more comprehensive view of discriminatory acts in the voting process that reflects modern-day (Brennan Center). The For the People Act, introduced in early 2021, is also designed to restore the VRA and end gerrymandering and reduce corporate spending in elections (Brennan Center). It’s possible, but not likely, that these will pass the Senate, but we can rally. More urgently, we must support the organizers in Georgia to ensure everyone has access to the resources they need, despite an equitable system. As you watch this conversation unfold, be sure to tune into the latest on voting rights in your state, too.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Last week, Georgia state legislatures passed voter suppression laws that will disproportionately impact marginalized communities.

  • These laws echo similar acts throughout history that tried to make it more difficult for people of color to access the polls.

  • Although the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 to end the Jim Crow voting laws, a provisional change in 2013 made it easier for states to create oppressive laws once again.

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