Voter suppression is the modern-day version of poll taxes. The idea that there is an “acceptable” level of voter suppression is antithetical to what it means to live in a pluralistic democracy with equal voting rights for all.
The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority returns to one of its favorite victims.
Between 2012 and 2020, the white-Black turnout gap grew between 9.2 and 20.9 percentage points across five of the six states originally covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
The 2016 election will be the first in 50 years where voters will not have the full protections of the VRA, Since the Shelby decision, onerous new laws have been passed or implemented in states like North Carolina and Texas, which have disenfranchised thousands of voters, disproportionately those of color. In the past five years, 395 new voting restrictions have been introduced in 49 states. Half the states in the country adopted measures making it harder to vote.
The worst states are all in the Old South.
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