The Right to Vote, The Right to Health: Voter Suppression as a Determinant of Racial Health Disparities

Civic participation is beneficial to one’s health. Conversely, being unable to participate, such as being unable to vote, may be detrimental for health. Barriers that prevent voting and civic participation, which constitute voter suppression, disproportionately impact people of color. Therefore, voter suppression may explain intractable racial health disparities. However, few studies have examined the connection between voter suppression and health. In consideration of the frequent, and increasing, reports of voter suppression in recent elections, including the rise in voter identification laws, the reduction in early voting opportunities, and the closing of polling places, the field of public health should address voter suppression as a significant determinant of health inequities. This paper suggests a framework for how voter suppression may operate to negatively impact health and well-being, especially for people of color. Lastly, directions for future research are recommended to begin to disentangle the complex relationship between civic participation and health

The New Face of Jim Crow: Voter Suppression in America

The radical right wing in America has developed an array of subtle and overt methods to suppress voter registration and turnout. The methods are targeted to constituencies most likely to oppose right-wing causes and candidates: low-income families, minorities, senior citizens and citizens for whom English is a second language.Some voter suppression is unintentional, the result of applying or misapplying changes in voting laws. However, voter suppression today is overwhelmingly achieved through regulatory, legislative and administrative means, resulting in modern-day equivalents of poll taxes and literacy tests that kept Black voters from the ballot box in the Jim Crow era.Couched in feel-good phrases such as "voter security" and "anti-voter fraud," these measures limit voter registration, turn voters away from polling places, and cast doubt on the validity of ballots. For example, stringent voter ID rules that require photo ID at the polls sound reasonable, until the estimated up to 12 percent of eligible voters who do not have a driver's license are figured in. And while "anti-fraud" measures sound good, in truth there is little evidence of organized voter fraud anywhere in the nation, while voter suppression tactics are varied and widespread.The Radical Right strategy of turning out base supporters while suppressing the votes of its opponents has often been successful. Legislatures controlled by far-right conservatives now determine the voting laws and how redistricting is conducted in many states. Governors, secretaries of state, and other election officials, supported by the Radical Right, now administer many states' elections. This report, by no means comprehensive, provides a brief overview of various suppression techniques so that citizens, community activists and the news media can recognize similar attempts as patterns of voter suppression emerge across the country

The Impact Of Voter Suppression Laws On African American Participation In Florida And North Carolina From 1988 To 2012

A rich body of research presents conflicting accounts describing how contemporary voter suppression laws impact political participation. This study process traces the political development of North Carolina and Florida from 1988 to 2012 to assess four competing explanations of this process. This study compares three measures of participation that strongly support the discouraging voter hypothesis, which finds that voter suppression laws depress black participation. This study finds that state officials in Florida adopted a much stricter voter suppression regime than those in North Carolina for the period under study. As a result, the two states developed differing levels of democratization. In North Carolina, longstanding racial disparities in participation were mitigated by 2012. However, during this same period, black participation in Florida was suppressed. Despite high levels of African American mobilization for recent elections, this study finds that voter suppression negatively impacted participation

Black Women and Voter Suppression

Black women who are eligible to vote do so at consistently high rates during elections in the United States. For thousands of Black women, however, racism, sexism, and criminal convictions intersect to require them to navigate a maze of laws and policies that keep them from voting. With the alarming rate of convictions and incarceration of Black women, criminal law intersects with civil rights to bar their involvement in the electoral process. This voting ban is known as felony disenfranchisement, but it amounts to voter suppression. By reconceptualizing voter suppression based on criminal convictions through the experiences of Black women’s access to their voting rights, this Article adds a new perspective to the rich scholarship analyzing voting rights. This Article examines the history of Black women’s exclusion from the ballot box in the United States, including how the racist legacy of Jim Crow and Jane Crow continue through mass incarceration and voter suppression schemes. Using Florida’s disenfranchisement maze as a case study, this Article shows that while Black women and other advocates have led attempts to abolish voter suppression schemes, permanently, they have yet to succeed through the judicial, executive, or legislative branches. The ostensible reasons for these voter suppression schemes vary, but the outcome has been the devaluation of the interests of Black women and their communities while preserving the voting priorities of white communities. This Article concludes by demanding that individuals, including voters and members of all branches of the government, recognize Black women’s voting rights and work to dismantle these voter suppression schemes. Until then, society will continue to bar Black women from the ballot box disproportionately and disregard the justice and democratic values the United States claims to hold dear

Carceral Socialization as Voter Suppression

In an era of mass incarceration, many people are socialized through interactions with the carceral state. These interactions are powerful learning experiences, and by design, they are contrary to democratic citizenship. Citizenship is about belonging to a community of equals, being entitled to mutual respect and concern. Criminal punishment deliberately harms, subordinates, and stigmatizes. Encounters with the carceral system are powerful experiences of anti-democratic socialization, and they impact peoples’ sense of citizenship and trust in government. Accordingly, a large body of social science research shows that eligible voters who have carceral contact are significantly less likely to vote or to participate in politics. Hence, the carceral system’s impact on political participation goes well beyond those who are formally disenfranchised due to convictions. It also suppresses participation among the millions of legally eligible voters who have not been formally disenfranchised—people who have had more fleeting encounters with law enforcement or vicarious interactions with the carceral system. This Article considers the implications of these findings from the perspective of voting rights law and the constitutional values underlying it. In a moment when voting rights are under siege, voting rights advocates are in a heated discussion about how our federal and state constitutions protect ideals of democratic citizenship and political equality. This discussion has largely (and for good reason) focused on how the law should address what I call “de jure” suppression: tangible election laws and policies that impose legal barriers to voting, or dilute voting power. Eliminating these formal barriers to voting is vital. But, I argue, fully realizing the constitutional values underlying voting rights will also require also addressing what I call “de facto” suppression, or suppression through socialization. This occurs not through formal legal restrictions on voting, but when state institutions like the carceral system systematically socialize citizens in a manner that is incompatible with democratic citizenship. I show how de facto suppression threatens the constitutional interests protected by the right to vote just like de jure suppression does. In short, by systematically socializing people in a manner that is fundamentally incompatible with democratic citizenship, the state can effectively strip a citizen of much of the instrumental and intrinsic value conferred by the right to vote. Those who are concerned about advancing and protecting voting rights should understand the carceral system’s anti-democratic socialization as a form of political suppression—one that should warrant constitutional scrutiny for the same reasons that de jure suppression should warrant scrutiny

University Libraries News

Book Discussion: One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democrac

I Exist, Therefore I Should Vote: Political Human Rights, Voter Suppression and Undermining Democracy in the U.S.

The right to vote is clearly delineated among the rights identified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the US has long held itself as the beacon of that democracy and enfranchisement. Yet, a long history persists of practices and policies of voter suppression and gerrymandering that targets the rights of Black, brown, and indigenous populations in the US, a history that has in recent years escalated. We use the framework of the Human Rights Enterprise to unpack this history and to explore why efforts of voter suppression are intensifying at this particular moment in history

Yes We Did!

Forget about the Bradley effect, Republican voter suppression tactics and October surprises. Obama won a clear and resounding victory last night

How Do We Ensure that Elections are Free and Fair?: An Inquiry-Based Mini-Unit

Teaching students about the U.S. processes and security safeguards that ensure fair elections can foster youth civic engagement and help counter voter suppression