Voter Suppression
Decreasing voter suppression one voter at a time
When people vote they decide who they want to see it office. We have been granted the freedom to vote for our politicians because of our past generations have struggled repeatedly to obtain this right. Yet somehow the fight to vote continues to perpetuate. Why is that? Well this is because voters often have to face very restrictive policies set in place by the government. The reason this happens is because the wrong people are chosen to be in government which leads to unfavorable policies. It is our duty as citizens to increase voter turnout and choose the correct people to represent us.
Voter suppression can be seen through various techniques: gerrymandering/voter purges, felony disenfranchisement, and voter registration restrictions. Along with internal and communal suppression, which can be seen through peers, family members and within communities.
36 states have identification requirements at the polls, including & states that have strict photo ID laws. These laws have been created to suppress our right to vote in order to manipulate popular vote for a particular candidate. Over 21 million U.S citizens do not have government-issued photo identification. This is because of a lot of reasons. ID’s can be inaccessible and costly, because they are often difficult to travel to and require underlying documentation.
It is important to know what laws your state has towards felony convictions and voting, some states ban voting only during incarceration while others ban it for life. Some ban voting while someone is under parole or probation, either way the right to vote shouldn’t be confusing and rescrictive. People of color tend to be disproportionately affected by long sentences and unjust criminal justice systems. Which shows how these types of law, continue to affect minority groups of color which shows how the Jim Crow era continues to affect black people.
Some states restrict registration by allowing people to register long in advance of the election, this however can be really inconvenient. This imposes an unnecessary burden on voting and can be very discouraging. Often times politicians use voter fraud as an excuse for this. In the 2016 presidential election, over 90,000 New Yorkers were unable to vote because of this law. New York continues to have a low turnout rate of about 56% of U.S citizens vote.