As time progresses towards the U.S elections, a controversial topic almost as old as the United States itself is heating up again. Voter suppression has been a hot topic in America for hundreds of years, and as the United States moves towards one of its most crucial and controversial election years in modern history, the voter suppression debate is back with more fire than ever.

The United States has always had a much more tangible problem of voter suppression than any other western country, to the point that it has become one of the main arguments of those who claim that the U.S is not a real democracy. The issue is complex and multi-faceted, but this article will only be considering the registration element, which is the ability of various people to gain eligibility for the vote. Of course, this paragraph implies that there must be some reason that the situation in the U.S is worse than comparable countries. There is both a historical and constitutional side to this. The historical background of this particular issue is very stacked and significant, but that is beyond the scope of this article. Investigating the constitutional context, however, is very important in order to form a complete understanding of the issue.

The United States, unlike many of its fellow western countries, does not intrinsically tie voting rights to citizenship. This means, at a very basic level, that every citizen has to be explicitly registered to be able to vote. Furthermore, this allows federal and local law to regulate and design the registration process and even which parts of the population are allowed register, so long as it is not prohibited by a higher judicial organization such as the Supreme Court. A direct corollary is that if one political party holds the necessary power, they could potentially try to skew election results by targeting the voter eligibility of certain demographics that they are not popular with. This is not a simple hypothetical obviously, there have been attempts to accomplish this both historically and contemporarily.

The most prominent contemporary example is the voting right for convicts. In many states, after the court rules that an individual has committed a felony, the individual loses their voting rights, i.e., they cannot get registered to vote, until they complete their sentences. Some states have even stricter laws that prohibit the individual from voting until all their fines have been cleared in addition to their sentence. The truly extreme states prohibit voting for a lifetime upon an individual being ruled guilty of some specific crimes.

The idea of not allowing felons to “interfere” with your democracy might not sound all too bad at first, but you have to consider the various flaws of the justice system. Most obviously, in the U.S, African Americans are charged and ruled guilty at a much higher rate than White Americans. (1) The situation extends to other PoC, as well, although black Americans are the most frequently used example. A similar statistic exists for less wealthy people against more wealthy people. (2) If you, for some reason, needed proof that law enforcement and judicial system of the United States was biased against people of color, the recent George Floyd controversy should have given ample proof on top of already existing research and statistical data. On top of that, in any system where people can only buy quality lawyering service by paying exorbitant money, like in the United States, poor people are naturally going to be more frequently charged incorrectly, even if you discount all the other reasons rich people are allowed to bypass the law.

All these factors combined make felony disenfranchisement a very damaging factor to a country’s democratic capacity. In essence, it disables the most disadvantaged groups of people from steering the path of the country, which further disadvantages them. In addition, the disadvantage only grows in the long run because these people could not vote for the option that would improve their overall status in society. On a related note, fine-related disenfranchisement affects those in poverty, and, indirectly, various minorities, disproportionately for obvious reasons. But felony disenfranchisement is not the only way of hurting people of color and poor people.

Even if a person does not suffer from an active fine, their status of poverty could still lead to their disenfranchisement indirectly by the way of registration costs. First of all, different states have different required documents, most of which cost money. Second, the registration process itself may cost a certain amount. If you were in particularly bad financial shape, these factors could very well influence your decision to vote. A 2012 study in Massachusetts illustrated this point by showing that voter turnout was indeed higher when registration costs were lowered. (3)

There are more direct tactics political parties and related organizations use to influence the eligibility of potential voters as well. Specifically, voter caging and voter purging. Voter caging refers to when a political organization sends registered mail to addresses of voter groups unlikely to vote for them. If the mail returns as undeliverable, then the recipient’s eligibility to vote can be challenged under the suspicion of fraudulent address information. Voter purging occurs in order to purge wrongful entries on the voter rolls, which determine and list all eligible voters for a specific election. It is seen as beneficial when done correctly, however, it is often criticized for being corruptible and prone to error, in addition to being a secretive process. (4)

The Florida election of 2018 gave examples for almost all the topics we have discussed in this article. To list them shortly, the over-strict enforcement of the signature likeness policy resulted in a voter purged which was estimated to have driven away thousands of voters; opposition constructed robocalls stating they are from Democratic candidate Gillum, which contained racial fearmongering and racial slurs; systematic replacement of polling locations post-registration, causing some voters to not be able to vote since the polls were located in private locations; various problems with the voting machinery; and of course, felony disenfranchisement. These issues were largely significant due to the marginal difference between the Republican and Democratic candidates. Democrat Andrew Gillum only lost by 0.4%, which corresponded to a difference of less than thirty-five thousand voters.

Finally, this year’s peculiar situation as COVID-19 continues to be relevant. Following Oregon’s example from 2016 more and more states are switching to an automatic registration system, which has voters opting out if desired, as opposed to having to explicitly register. There is no doubt that this process will be effective in increasing turnout, especially with a pandemic at hand. So far, 19 states, excluding DC, have enacted such a system. (5) COVID-19 has also forced states to take voting-by-mail more seriously. The circumstances regarding eligibility to vote-by-mail have generally been widened across the U.S, some states send mail ballots to all voters no questions asked, some have opted to send it on request, and in some states, you can only get one if you provide state officials with a reasonable excuse. The last option has been criticized as being voter suppression and has actually been blocked in some states by court rulings. (6) The controversial status of mail voting is still ongoing with America following the remarks of President Trump, but the general populace seems to be more accepting of the thought lately.

The 2020 elections are very crucial in determining the future of the United States and the world, but whether they are truly fair is questionable. Voter suppression in registrational matters is only one part of the story, however, it is significant enough to perhaps change the future of America singlehandedly.

New articles every day until election day! Stay tuned to get more insight into the ongoing US Presidential Elections!

​