Nineteen Fifty-Six Vol. 1 No. 2 Voice

in Mississippi from 90 percent to
6 percent. Mississippi established
a precedent that many southern
states would quickly follow by
adopting their own versions of
restrictive laws, known as Jim
Crow laws. This code combined
with racial violence continued for
another 70 years.
By the 1960s, citizens all over the
country would have participated in
persistent protests for more than
a decade. Non-violent protests
were confronted frequently with
murderous violence that was
televised globally. The general
public was appalled and the federal
government would be forced
to ratify the 24th amendment,
forbidding poll tax. A year later,
the Voting Rights Act prohibited
the residual tactics that reinforced
voter suppression and the act
established federal oversight over
areas that had a history of voter
discrimination. More policies
would be produced to ensure the
protection of voting rights- but to
no avail. Federal oversight had less
agency to hold states accountable,
and after party realignment
occurred, many states instituted
new restrictions— except this time
they offered less transparency like
in the past, and instead have coded
the language so much so that it
seems to mitigate election fraud.
This is where dog whistle politics
began to rear its ugly head.
CODED LANGUAGE
TODAY
The power of the federal oversight
clause of the Voting Rights Act
was reduced in 2013 by the U.S.
Supreme Court which would
have intervened with the voter
registration regulations. These
states with majority republican
legislatures, created a variety of
qualifications including having
tangible identification or proof of
citizenship, frequently purging
lists of inactive names from
registration polls, shortening
voting periods of time, and
limiting access to absentee
ballots and mail in voting. Sound
familiar yet?
Although Trump believes
mail-in voting will increase
voter fraud and advantage
Democrats, Stanford University
researchers have released The
Neutral Partisan Effects of Voteby-Mail
assessment that asserts
there is no partisan advantage
for either party. Furthermore,
even after being told by many
experts that election fraud in the
U.S. is rare, Trump established
the Presidential Advisory
Commission on Election Integrity
to investigate voter fraud which
was disbanded in 2018 after they
found no evidence to support any
claim to election fraud. Trump’s
opposition to additional funding
for the USPS proved problematic
when the COVID-19 pandemic
hit the U.S. The postal service
company was not given any
funding in the original stimulus
bill text and their bailout request
was rejected by the White House.
Shutting down operations was
beginning to look like reality.
Because of the pandemic, many
states have changed their
procedure for absentee ballots,
so more citizens can mail in their
vote. Without the USPS, this could
severely limit access to voting on
a national level.
Even with all of this information,
it begs the question if any
form of restrictive laws are
interconnected with voter
suppression. The Assessment
of Minority Voting Rights
Access comprehensive report
would answer yes and that these
laws “have a disparate impact
on voters of color and poor
citizens.” The study goes on to
critique voter identification laws
as placing an undue burden on
citizens by requiring them to
pay fees in order to obtain these
credentials. This is supported
by the correlation of states with
voter identification laws also
having an increased gap between
white and minority voters. The
report also investigates the
reduction of early voting and how
it creates long waiting periods
that directly limit minority
citizen’s access to the polls.
This coupled with the closing
of polling stations in areas that
have higher minority populations
is suspect. Think about how
Georgia’s 2018 gubernatorial race
between Stacey Abrams and Brian
Kemp made headlines everyday.
It was a disastrous display of
voter suppression with a bus full
of Black senior citizens being
blocked from voting, as one of
the most incredulous instances.
Brian Kemp was able to use his
position of Secretary of State to
enact last minute regulations that
suppressed Georgian votes, thus
securing his victory. The Minority
Voting Rights Access report
urges the U.S. Congress to restore
the federal oversight clause to
the Voting Rights Act. Seeing as
“racial discrimination in voting
has been a particularly pernicious
and enduring American problem.”
It is safe to say that voting rights
will continue to be an ongoing
issue. Although legislation may
aid in the protection of these
rights, the persistent nature
of systemic racism and white
supremacy will continue to
morph into legislation and legal
doctrine that are conceptually
unrecognizable, but produce the
same outcome where minorities
are exploited.
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