From USA Today:
The midterm elections demonstrated the broken machinery and policies of our democracy. Fixing voting should be the top priority of the next Congress.
In many ways, Election Day 2018 was a good one for American democracy. Millions of people turned out to vote. An unprecedented number of women are headed to Congress, including the first Native American women and the first Muslim-American women to serve on Capitol Hill. In Florida, voters restored voting rights to more than a million people who had been disenfranchised for past felony convictions. In Michigan and Maryland, they approved same-day registration. In Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, and Utah, they said yes to fair legislative districts.
But at the same time, the election provided evidence of what many activists and experts have been saying for years: the machinery of our democracy needs serious maintenance. Together, aging infrastructure and resurgent voter suppression have jeopardized equal voting rights in the United States, turning what should be a source of national pride into cause for alarm.
The costs of poor preparation and outdated election equipment were plain to see. In downtown Atlanta, voters stood in line for more than three hours because only three voting machines had been sent to serve more than 3,000 people. In Richland County, South Carolina, voters reported that machines were changing their selections. Officials worked to address the issue, but the county elections director told the NAACP Legal Defense Fund that he only had one technician for every five polling sites. In Maryland, two precincts ran out of paper ballots; in Detroit and New York City, malfunctioning machines caused many voters to simply give up.
We can prevent voting problems if we want to
These snares were avoidable. According to a report from the Brennan Center for Justice, the majority of America’s voting machines are obsolete. Election officials are aware of the problem, but many lack the funds they need to update their equipment. This raises the troubling possibility that wealthier districts will buy new voting machines, while poorer ones remain stuck with unreliable equipment. If we are serious about the health of our democracy, then we must not let voting become a “separate but unequal” proposition before the next election.
Not all the election problems were caused by technical glitches or staff shortages, however. Far too many Americans of color found themselves denied a voice by discriminatory laws and policies. In Georgia, gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp used his position as secretary of State to hold up more than 50,000 voter registrations; although a federal judge ordered the state to relax its restrictions, hundreds of voterswere still turned away. In Alabama, many voters listed as “inactive” were told they must cast provisional ballots, even though state law allows inactive voters to cast regular ballots if they fill out a new registration form.
And this does not begin to touch the rampant racial voter suppression activities that took place before the election, including the removal of the sole polling place from the City limits of Dodge City, Kansas — a town with a large Latino population; the imposition of a discriminatory voter ID law designed to suppress Native American votes in North Dakota, and in Georgia the use of a racially discriminatory “exact match” signature requirement for voters.
Suppression didn’t end when the polls closed Tuesday. Florida Gov. Rick Scott, heading for a recount in his Senate race, has made false allegations of widespread voter fraud in his state and called for law enforcement to monitor ballot counting in two counties. In Arizona, the Republican Party sued to limit the counting of mail-in ballots in the state's tight Senate race (and lost); it may take until Thursday to finish the tally. In both cases, the myth of voter fraud — which has deep roots in racially discriminatory voting practices — is being used to prevent eligible ballots from being counted.
Restore Voting Rights Act, rein in discrimination
Like the long lines and faulty machines, these attempts to block minority votes should not surprise us. They are the consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, which severely weakened a core provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Despite pushback from civil rights groups, the tide of voter suppression has only swollen in recent years, metastasizing beyond the South and into northern jurisdictions as well.
We don’t have to accept the shameful state of our elections. We’re about to have a new Congress, and among its most urgent priorities should be repairing our ailing voting apparatus. It should give states funds to purchase newer and more reliable voting machinery, just as it provides funding for highway repairs, natural disaster recovery and law enforcement. And it should retore the Voting Rights Act to its full power, so that states will no longer have free rein to discriminate against voters of color.
Restoring the Voting Rights Act isn’t unthinkable, even in these divisive times. In 2015, a bipartisan group including Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., introduced a bill to revive the federal government’s election oversight power under the Voting Rights Act. It died in the House Judiciary Committee, which will soon be led by Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York. Already, Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., has proposed a new voting rights bill; Nadler should schedule hearings on it in early spring.
Our democracy is facing numerous threats, many of which are the subject of fraught political conflict. Fixing the Voting Rights Act should not be one of them. It’s time to move on a voting rights bill.
Sherrilyn Ifill is the president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
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