Disenfranchisement and Suppression of Black Voters in the United States
By Derek Hill, Madison Coleman, and Erica Bassett
Published Summer 2021
Special thanks to Kaytee Johnson for editing and research contributions
Summary+
The disenfranchisement of Black Americans has long outlasted the end of the Civil War, with modern instances of voter suppression in the form of limitations on absentee and early voting, stricter voter ID requirements, restrictions on voter registration, and other systemic barriers that decrease the voting engagement of minority populations. Today, Black voter disenfranchisement primarily takes the form of voting restrictions for incarcerated individuals. Systemic barriers such as gerrymandering, voting regulations for imprisoned persons, voter ID laws, lack of access to polling locations, and other examples contribute to the disenfranchisement of racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. This disenfranchisement has serious implications on election outcomes, representative government policy, and racial tensions. Two potential avenues may alleviate this issue: organizations to target legislative policies that uphold disenfranchisement, and supportive policy (including ranked-choice voting and expanded voting rights for racial minorities).
Key Takeaways+
Key Terms+
Gerrymandering—“The practice of dividing or arranging a territorial unit into election districts in a way that gives one political party an unfair advantage in elections.”1
Case law—“Reported decisions of appeals courts and other courts which make new interpretations of the law and, therefore, can be cited as precedents. These interpretations are distinguished from ‘statutory law’ which is the statutes and codes (laws) enacted by legislative bodies.”2
Electorate—A “body of persons entitled to vote in an election.”3
Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA)—“The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented Black Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution. The Voting Rights Act is considered one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in US history.”4
Poll tax—“A tax of a uniform amount levied on each individual. . . In the United States, most discussion of the poll tax has centered on its use as a mechanism of voter suppression directed originally at Black Americans, especially in Southern states.”5
Literacy tests—“An examination to determine whether a person meets the literacy requirements for voting, serving in the armed forces, etc.; a test of one's ability to read and write.”6 “Proponents . . . claimed that the exams ensured an educated and informed electorate. In practice they were used to disqualify immigrants and the poor, who had less education. In the South they were used to prevent Black Americans from registering to vote.”7
Voter apathy— A “lack of interest in participating in elections by certain groups of voters. One side-effect of voter apathy can be low voter turnout on election day.”8
Shelby County v. Holder— A 2013 legal case in which the US Supreme Court decided that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional. Section 4 required certain political jurisdictions that had shown a history of voter suppression to “seek federal approval of any proposed change to their electoral laws or procedures (‘preclearance’).”9 Following the Shelby case, “formerly covered jurisdictions were free to implement whatever electoral laws and procedures they chose, and whatever discriminatory effects those measures might produce could be halted or reversed only after the fact, through lawsuits alleging violations of constitutional rights or of antidiscrimination and voting-rights laws.”10
Early voting—Voting prior to Election Day during a state’s designated early voting period. Most states allow early voting in order to accommodate those who may face difficulties voting on Election Day, and some states allow early absentee voting in addition to early in-person voting.11 Early voting periods vary from state to state, ranging from one week to 55 days prior to Election day.12
Absentee voting—Voting by mail rather than in-person at the designated polling location. Every state allows absentee voting, but rules on who is permitted to submit absentee ballots vary by state.13
Safe seat—“A safe seat is one in which the incumbent has a considerable majority over the closest rival and which is largely immune from swings in voting choice. The same political party retains the seat from election to election.”14
Vote center model—“Under this model, voters are not assigned to specific polling places; instead, they can cast ballots at the polling place of their choosing. While generally intended to enhance access to voting locations, this model often leads to massive reductions in polling places.” The transition to this model has led to the suppression of minority voters in states such as Texas and Arizona.15
Context
Q: What is voter disenfranchisement and suppression?
A: Disenfranchisement is the removal of the right to vote from a person or a group of people,16 such as when some individuals with felony convictions are not legally able to vote, or when women and most minority groups were denied the right to vote throughout much of US history.17, 18 Voter suppression is when certain policies are put into place or measures are taken that result in lower poll turnout from or lower voter registration for a specific demographic.19 Historically, this often included intimidation tactics (including beatings and murders) to prevent certain groups from going to the polls, as well as the imposition of poll taxes or literacy tests that disproportionately barred impoverished, minority populations from voting. Currently, voter suppression often takes the form of limitations on absentee and early voting, stricter voter ID requirements, restrictions on voter registration, and other systemic barriers that serve to decrease the voting engagement of minority populations. Voter suppression can be either legal or illegal but is an issue in either case because of its role in reducing the political power of an entire group.20
Q: What voting rights are guaranteed in the US by law?
A: The original US Constitution did not directly protect the right of any individual to vote, but amendments to the Constitution have guaranteed the right to vote to a variety of groups.21 The 15th Amendment (passed in 1870) opened the right to vote to Black men, and the 19th Amendment (passed in 1920) gave women the right to vote.22 Currently, the only people residing in the United States who are not legally permitted to vote in any region or election are non-citizens and those under 18. In some states, those with felony convictions or mental disabilities are barred from voting, and citizens residing in US territories—such as Puerto Rico—are not permitted to vote for president in general elections. Other than these exceptions, US law guarantees every other individual the right to vote.23
Q: What demographics are most likely to face voter suppression and disenfranchisement in the United States?
A: Racial and ethnic minorities face the most voter suppression and disenfranchisement. As of 2016, there were 9.5 million American adults who lacked full voting rights, and most of these were people of color.24 Research shows that Black voters are systemically the most likely to be suppressed and disenfranchised. For example, results from a 2017 poll demonstrated that 19% of voters who identified as African American reported instances of racial discrimination when they attempted to vote or participate in politics, as compared to 15% of Latinos, 10% of Native Americans, and 7% of Asians.25 Additionally, a Senate Intelligence Committee found that Black Americans were the demographic most likely to be targeted by Russia’s efforts in the 2016 election to discourage and prevent Democratic voting in order to help get President Trump elected.26 The greater suppression of Black voters is partially due to the country’s history of slavery, segregation, and discrimination against this demographic, which will be discussed in the question below. Greater disenfranchisement of Black voters is mostly due to the high incarceration rates among Black adults; over one third of adults who are not able to vote due to felony disenfranchisement laws are Black.27, 28 This issue will be discussed further in the “Voting Regulations for Imprisoned Persons” section in the Contributing Factors of this brief.
Q: What is the history of Black voter disenfranchisement and suppression in the United States?
A: Prior to the complete abolition of slavery in 1865,29 no Black individuals were guaranteed the right to vote in elections. During the Reconstruction era (1865–1877), formerly enslaved people gained the right to vote under the 15th Amendment, which stated: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”30, 31 A series of laws passed during this era also made it illegal for White supremacist organizations, such as the Ku Klux Klan, to suppress Black voter activity, and even authorized the use of federal troops to protect polling places and prevent White supremacist violence. This resulted in the election of many Black representatives to state and federal positions. However, the federal, Northern support for the protection of Black rights in the South began to decrease in the 1870s, allowing for increased violence directed toward Black voters and the passing of many state laws during the following decades that disenfranchised most of these voters.32
During the Jim Crow segregation era, lasting from post-Civil War until 1968,33 Black voters continued to face voter suppression in a myriad of ways: these included intimidation tactics—such as beatings, lynchings, murders, rapes, and bombings—by White supremacist groups and police; poll taxes, which disproportionately affected Black voters since segregationist policies failed to help individuals descended from slaves to economically mobilize; literacy or comprehension tests, which were often biased and rarely given to illiterate Whites; “good character” tests; grandfather clauses; economic repercussions such as evictions and firings for those who tried to vote; Whites-only primary elections; and fraud committed by White election officials.34, 35 These tactics were effective in suppressing Black voters, resulting in only 1,324 Black men in Louisiana being registered to vote in 1904 as compared to over 130,000 in 1896.36 All of these types of voter suppression were made illegal through Constitutional amendments, case law, or legislation before the end of the Jim Crow era.37
Two of the laws passed during the Civil Rights Movement (1950s to 1960s) that greatly increased Black voter registration and voting in the Southern states were the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965. The Civil Rights Act banned the exclusive application of literacy tests to Black voters. The VRA required that certain states and political subdivisions within states obtain prior approval from a federal court before changing any electoral laws or procedures in order to ensure that the change “does not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color.”38 Although the right to vote was guaranteed to Black men in 1870 and Black women in 1920, most Black citizens were not able to exercise their right to vote until the passing of the VRA in 1965.39, 40, 41 This law allowed the number of Black citizens registered to vote in states such as Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana to more than double from 1965 to 1988.42 Even with this progress during the Civil Rights Movement, however, Black voters continue to face significant barriers to exercising their right to vote.
Q: What do Black voter suppression and disenfranchisement look like today?
A: Despite significant legal reform to avoid the recurrence of voter suppression, there have been many notable instances of voter suppression and disenfranchisement against the Black electorate in recent years. These instances are less obviously identifiable as racially biased as compared to instances of voter suppression during the Jim Crow era; for example, the laws formerly used overtly racial language, whereas now the language appears more neutral. However, neutral language has not completely solved the problem of voter disenfranchisement and suppression because many of the laws still have disproportionate effects on the Black electorate.43
Modern Black voter disenfranchisement primarily takes the form of voting restrictions for incarcerated individuals.44 Voter suppression, on the other hand, takes on a variety of forms. One notable instance of voter suppression in recent years was in 2006, when the Georgia Election Board received reports from voters—mostly Democratic and Black—who had received phone calls claiming to be from the Virginia elections commission. These callers told voters that they would be arrested if they voted or falsely informed voters that their voting location had been changed.45, 46
Many of the most significant modern instances of voter suppression have occurred since the 2013 Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder, in which Section 4 of the VRA was declared unconstitutional. This section of the VRA required certain state and local governments that showed a history of voter suppression to obtain federal approval before changing their voting laws. When the Supreme Court declared this section unconstitutional during the Shelby case, it allowed for these political jurisdictions to pass whatever electoral laws and procedures they chose.47 Discriminatory laws can now only be overturned if someone decides to sue, but suing is a “longer and more expensive process that places the burden of proof on those challenging the changes,” not to mention that overturning the law does not reverse the damage already done by the law.48 (For more information about the details of the Shelby case and the parts of the VRA that it overturned, click on the Shelby County v. Holder button below.)
The Shelby decision resulted in a myriad of new voting laws that have restricted the ability for Black and other minority citizens to vote. Twenty-three states passed new voting laws in the 5 years following the Shelby v. Holder case, including voter ID laws, restrictions on registration, closure or relocation of polling stations that served predominantly Black and other minority voters, and the elimination or reduction of early voting periods.49 Additionally, several states and cities have conducted large-scale purges of their voter rolls, meaning they remove voters from the registration lists whose addresses cannot be verified. Although these purges were conducted prior to the Shelby case, the scale of the purges saw a massive increase after Shelby; nearly 16 million voters, the majority of whom were from a racial or ethnic minority group, were purged between 2014 and 2016, which is about 4 million more than between 2006 and 2008 (before the Shelby case). The median purge rate was 40% higher in jurisdictions that had been freed from the VRA preclearance requirement during the Shelby case.50 One salient example of the effects of these practices is the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election; prior to the election, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp (who was running in the election) had cancelled over 1.4 million voter registrations and put over 53,000 voter registrations on hold—70% of which were from Black residents—allowing him to win the election over Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams.51, 52
Another modern instance of Black voter suppression is the higher rate of rejection of absentee ballots for Black voters. Election boards can choose to reject absentee ballots if they are not correctly completed or if they deem the signatures to be mismatched. In the 2018 midterm elections, absentee ballots from non-White voters were more than two times more likely to be rejected than ballots from White voters. This gap presented an especially significant issue in the 2020 presidential elections because a higher percentage of voters used absentee voting instead of in-person voting due to health and safety concerns amid the COVID-19 pandemic.53 About 40% of the contested ballots in North Carolina from the 2020 election were from Black voters, even though the state is only about 20% Black.54 Additionally, the requirement in some states, such as Georgia, for voters to pay for postage to cast mail-in ballots has been critiqued as a form of poll tax, which is unconstitutional and a form of voter suppression that disproportionately affects Black voters.55 Even changes to the US Postal Service in 2020 that led to slower mail delivery have been criticized as voter suppression of those who cast absentee votes.56
Critics may claim that modern instances of low voter registration and engagement among the Black community are due to voter apathy, and thus modern Black voter suppression is a self-inflicted issue.57 However, as demonstrated here and as will be further detailed in the Contributing Factors of this brief, the most significant factors that prevent the Black electorate from voting are systemic barriers that are difficult to overcome even if a voter is extremely engaged in the political process and desires to vote. Therefore, these modern instances of voter suppression occur principally because of these systemic factors and not due to voter apathy.58
Q: Where in the United States are Black voters most disenfranchised and suppressed, and why?
A: Research demonstrates that Black voters are most likely to face suppression and disenfranchisement in Republican-controlled states, which most often includes southern states.59, 60 This may be due to multiple factors. First, Republican voters and lawmakers tend to be more concerned about the possibility of instances of voter fraud, leading them to be more likely to enforce restrictive voter laws that end up disproportionately affecting Black and other minority voters.61, 62 Additionally, critics argue that Republican states are more likely to suppress their Black constituents because the Black electorate tends to overwhelmingly support the Democratic party.63 According to a 2018/2019 Pew Research poll, 83% of registered Black voters identified as Democratic or leaning Democratic, compared to only 10% who identified as Republican or leaning Republican.64 Therefore, there may be more of a political advantage for Republican lawmakers to suppress the Black electorate than for Democratic lawmakers; if less Black citizens are participating in the voting process, a greater percentage of the vote will go towards Republican candidates. It is important to note, however, that the Democratic party has also engaged in racial voter suppression, and that this issue is so deeply rooted in structural racism across the country that it is not constrained by party lines or location.65, 66
It is also important to note that the Black electorate is not homogenous. For example, even though the majority identify as Democrats, only 29% called themselves liberal in a 2019 poll (compared to 25% calling themselves conservative and 43% moderate).67 This phenomenon of non-liberal Black voters still supporting the Democratic party has often been attributed to racial political solidarity and the pressure that Black voters feel to vote in a risk-averse fashion (voting for a candidate who will do the least harm to their rights as racial minorities) rather than strictly according to their ideologies.68, 69, 70 Nonetheless, the reality is that most Black voters tend to support Democratic candidates in elections, which likely has a significant influence on the prevalence of Black voter suppression in Republican-led states.
Contributing Factors
The innate racism within many of the United States’ institutions is arguably the true root cause of suppression and disenfranchisement of Black voters. This brief does not attempt to exonerate the United States from this issue or suggest that it cannot be solved. However, breaking racism down into some of its more fundamental methods and direct manifestations, as the Contributing Factors of this brief do, allows for a better understanding of how the country can overcome this issue as compared to solely discussing the general prejudice of the American public.
Racial Gerrymandering
Gerrymandering, the practice of altering district boundaries in a way that gives one political party an advantage over another in elections, can essentially “waste” minority votes and prevent groups like Black Americans from having equal representation.71, 72 Racial gerrymandering is when the boundaries are altered in an attempt to split racial minority voters into several different districts in order to dilute their vote or pack all the minorities into a few districts so that the rest of the districts contain mostly White voters.73 This method works to diminish Black voter power because of the winner-take-all set-up, as opposed to proportional representation, of the American political system. The winner-take-all set-up means that candidates for congressional or local elections that received the most votes end up representing the entire district; in a two-candidate election, this leaves up to 49.9% of the voters in the district who did not vote for that candidate without a representative who reflects their policy interests.74, 75 The VRA deems racial gerrymandering illegal, but racial gerrymandering remains widespread because it is allowed to continue without repercussions as long as the districts contain fairly equal populations and are not obviously based on race or ethnicity.76 It is important to note that, unlike the other Contributing Factors discussed in this brief, racial gerrymandering does not bar Black Americans from voting. It does, however, diminish the effect of their votes and thus suppresses their voting power.
Studies show that both Republicans and Democrats hold congressional “safe seats,” or seats that are rarely overturned, as a result of gerrymandering, but as a whole, racial gerrymandering has a greater negative effect on the representation for Democrats, likely because racial minorities are more likely to vote for the Democratic party.77, 78 This implies that racial gerrymandering results in a net loss of representation for Black Americans.79 Racial gerrymandering is most pervasive in the southern and Republican-dominated states; potent examples of racial gerrymandering have been reported over the past decade in North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, Wisconsin, and other states, resulting in Democratic districts being overturned and becoming Republican districts, largely due to the reduction of the power of Black votes.80
Gerrymandering occurs at the city level in addition to federal and state levels. Studies of municipal annexation cases—the process by which cities expand their boundaries—revealed the methodical exclusion of predominantly Black neighborhoods at the city limits while including predominantly White neighborhoods in similar locations.81, 82 Instead, minority neighborhoods often become part of the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, meaning the city still has control over the neighborhoods’ zoning, land use regulations, and development, but the neighborhood residents are not considered political constituents of the city. This effect leads to the loss of political voices and disenfranchisement because these residents do not have political representation at the municipal level.83 A recent analysis of the institutional factors behind this city-level racial gerrymandering, also referred to as “municipal underbounding,” shows that exclusion happens most commonly when the residents of the city can vote on the new boundaries. This means that the decision to remove predominantly Black neighborhoods, which most directly affects said neighborhoods, remains in the hands of everyone but the Black individuals in the neighborhoods.84
Voting Regulations for Imprisoned Persons
The most common and straightforward mechanism of disenfranchisement against Black Americans today is voting regulations that some states place on imprisoned individuals and those with felony convictions. Only two states, Maine and Vermont, have no voting restrictions for those who are currently or have been involved with the prison system. The other 48 states bar any imprisoned person from voting, and about half of those states also disenfranchise people on parole. The state governments of Kentucky and Virginia disenfranchise all people with felony convictions even after they have completed their sentences and parole.85 About 2.3%—a total of 5.3 million people—of the American voting age population is disenfranchised because of these felony voter restriction laws, and over one third of these disenfranchised individuals are Black.86, 87 One in 13 Black adults in the US cannot vote due to a felony conviction, as compared to 1 in 56 non-Black adults. In Florida, Kentucky, and Virginia, over 1 in 5 Black adults is disenfranchised due to these laws.88
These voter restriction laws for incarcerated individuals or those with felony convictions disproportionately affect the Black electorate because there are a disproportionate amount of Black individuals involved in the prison system. As of 2019, Black inmates made up almost 40% of the US prison population, even though they made up only 13.4% of the general population.89 This over-incarceration of the Black population has been attributed to racial profiling, disparities in the amount and type of policing in majority-Black versus majority-White neighborhoods, disparities in access to adequate legal help, and inherent racial bias in the criminal justice system and among its actors.90, 91, 92 Due to these higher incarceration rates, Black individuals are more likely to be disenfranchised.
It is important to note that, in most states, those with felony convictions are those who are disenfranchised. These individuals spend their time in state or federal prisons, whereas those who have committed misdemeanors or are being held for a shorter period awaiting trial or sentencing tend to go to a local jail and are not legally restricted from voting.93, 94 Even without disenfranchisement policies for non-felons, however, research demonstrates that individuals who have served even brief periods of time in jail are less likely to vote than they were prior to their arrest. This decreased voting activity post-arrest is likely due to what researchers have termed the “political socialization” process, whereby those who have served time in jail or prison end up with a negative view of government and thus avoid voluntary contact with the state moving forward, such as in voting in elections. Decreased voting post-arrest may also be due to the fact that jail time can decrease one’s economic resources (such as employment and housing), imposing additional barriers for these individuals during the voting process.95 A decreased likelihood of participating in voting after spending time in jail or prison is more common among Black adults than White adults; evidence suggests this is because White people are less likely to be arrested overall, and those who are arrested are mostly low-income adults who did not vote frequently prior to their arrest, whereas Black people are more likely to be arrested and thus a larger portion of previously politically engaged Black adults are also arrested. Black defendants are 13% less willing to vote post-incarceration.96 Though over 2 million Americans are incarcerated at any given time, people go to jail 10.6 million times every year in America.97 Therefore, these post-arrest and post-incarceration voting habits have the potential to be much more damaging to Black voter representation than the initial disenfranchisement during their incarceration.
Lack of Access to Polling Locations and Voting Methods
Black voter suppression is frequently caused by diminished access to polling locations. In recent years, many states and counties have created policies that closed a large number of polling locations in the area. For example, in the 2018 midterm elections, North Carolina provided 17% fewer polling places across the state than they had for the previous election.98 Texas closed over 400 of their polling places, and Arizona closed over 200.99 Three counties in Georgia even closed over 80% of their polling locations in the years following the Shelby v. Holder decision.100 The motives for closing these polls differ case by case, and may include decreased funding for poll workers, arguments from officials that less polling locations are needed due to the rise of absentee and other types of voting, and some states’ transitions to “vote center” models of voting.101
Whatever the motive behind the poll closures, however, the closures disproportionately affect Black and other minority voters.102 This is partially because, due to lower socioeconomic status and the location of their residence relative to the polling location, these voters may have less access to transportation that would allow them to get to the polling locations farther away.103 (Although many minority voters live in cities with public transportation, that transportation is often more limited in lower-income neighborhoods.) Additionally, having fewer polling locations means longer lines and wait times at each of the remaining locations, and this can keep lower-income workers from voting since they are more likely to have stricter work and childcare schedules.104 One study of the 2020 presidential election found that voters in Black neighborhoods were more likely to have to wait in long lines; residents of entirely Black neighborhoods were found to be 74% more likely to wait for over 30 minutes at the ballot than residents from entirely White neighborhoods.105 Also in 2020, the average wait time after 7 p.m. was 51 minutes in Georgian polling places that were 90% or more non-White but only 6 minutes in polling places that were 90% White.106 This is likely due to the fact that minorities are more likely to live in areas where polling locations are serving a larger number of voters and multiple precincts, and because minority voters are less likely to utilize absentee voting, which puts greater pressure on the in-person voting locations in these areas.107 This evidence demonstrates that decreasing the number of polling places leads to Black voter suppression.
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In addition to offering less access to physical voting locations, governments can suppress Black voters by decreasing access to different methods of voting. Early voting, for example, is more widely used by Black voters than White voters; 70% of Black adults voted early in North Carolina in 2008 and 2012, and in 2012 in Ohio, Black voters were two times more likely to have voted early than White voters.108 Since Shelby v. Holder, many states have created policies that restrict the early voter period or reduce the number of early voting locations, thus disproportionately affecting Black voters.109 Attempts to make the early voting periods uniform across all state precincts have been cited as the motive for these restrictions, but evidence in court cases suggests that the true motive is simply an attempt to suppress Black voters and restrict votes for Democratic candidates.110, 111, 112
In addition to cuts to early voting, some states have put restrictions on absentee voting, either by limiting who can vote by mail or rejecting a greater number of absentee ballots.113 Even though Black voters are the demographic least likely to vote by mail,114 their ballots are still rejected at higher rates than other ballots; studies find that this is due to election boards claiming Black voters’ signatures are mismatched or the ballots are not properly completed.115 For example, in North Carolina in 2020, ballots from Black voters were three times more likely to be turned away than ballots from White voters.116 These rejections of ballots and restrictions on voter methods suppress the voting power of the Black electorate.
Voter ID Laws
Voter ID laws, which require voters to present a form of valid government identification at the polling station, have been cited by a variety of researchers and news outlets as a contributor to Black voter suppression.117 Critics of these laws argue that minority voters of lower socioeconomic status face more barriers to acquiring one of the acceptable forms of government ID, since the process requires “traveling to state agencies, acquiring birth certificates, and taking time off work,” thus making these voters less likely to have valid IDs and more likely to be turned away at the polls.118 One study also found that minority voters were less likely to be able to provide multiple forms of ID, as some voter ID laws require.119
Twenty states have passed stricter voter ID laws since the Shelby case in 2013, mostly enacted by Republican-controlled legislatures who claim to want to decrease instances of voter fraud, even though the evidence from academic studies, court decisions, and government investigations overwhelmingly prove that voter fraud is nearly nonexistent.120 Some of the Republican legislators creating these laws have acknowledged that the intent is actually to decrease votes for the Democratic party, given that minority voters are more likely to support Democratic candidates.121, 122 One particular voter ID law in Texas was struck down in 2016 by a federal court for having a clear discriminatory effect on minority voters; the law accepted driver’s licenses, passports, military identification, and gun permits as valid forms of ID but not employee or university photo IDs. The approved forms of ID are more likely to be held by White citizens, while the unapproved forms are more likely to be held by minorities and Democrats.123, 124 These pieces of evidence suggest the voter ID laws may be a contributor to Black voter disenfranchisement.
It is important to note that the research surrounding voter ID laws and their impact on Black voter engagement is less conclusive than the other contributing factors identified in this brief. Some researchers have found no evidence that stricter ID laws impact Black voter turnout,125, 126, 127 while others have found evidence suggesting that these laws do or could potentially decrease Black voter turnout.128, 129, 130 One study from political scientists at the University of Chicago claimed that issues with administrative records and unreliable survey data currently make it impossible to definitively prove the effect of voter ID laws on minority voters.131 Despite the inconclusiveness of the evidence, the discussion of voter ID laws is included in this brief because recent elections have launched these laws into the public consciousness and made them a center of the debate surrounding Black voter suppression. A cursory search shows that for every article in a major American news publication mentioning felon disenfranchisement—an issue almost universally acknowledged by researchers as having a far-reaching effect on Black voter representation—there are nearly 10 articles mentioning voter ID laws. Although this does not imply a conclusive connection, it gives a sense for how these laws have dominated the voting rights conversation and the importance of considering the effects of these laws on Black voters despite the inconclusivity of the data.
Lack of Civic Education
A more subtle contributor to the suppression of Black voters is the decreased access that Black Americans have to a quality civic education. Civic education is the programs and classes that schools use to teach students about how the government operates and their own role within the political process. These types of programs also often teach citizenship skills, such as how to register to vote, how to cast a ballot, and the importance of voting.132 Research demonstrates that adults who received a high-quality civic education experience in school are “more likely to vote, to form political opinions, to know campaign issues, and to know general facts about the US political system.”133 This does not necessarily mean that better civic education causes higher voter turnout, given that a better civic education is also correlated with other advantages in schools and communities that can also influence voter engagement; however, it does indicate that having access to a quality civic education can give students the knowledge and skills that they need to have the desire to vote and to understand the voter registration and ballot-casting process, thus increasing their chances of voting.134
All 50 US states have requirements for high schools to provide some sort of instruction on topics of government, but only 40 states require government and civics courses for graduation. Even for schools that do require these courses, the quality and efficacy of the courses will often vary between schools based on the funding and resources available to the school, to the teachers, and to the students.135 Since minority students are more likely to attend schools with poor funding, Black students are often at risk of receiving no civic education or a lower quality civic education as compared to White students.136 One study in California found that high school students who attended a school in a higher income area and who were White had more opportunities for civic education and engagement than low-income students and students of color.137 Additionally, White youth have been found to be twice as likely to contact a public official as compared to Black youth, which is partially attributable to their more advanced civic education.138 This lack of access to a quality civic education for Black youth can cause them to be less likely to vote once they reach voting age, thus contributing to Black voter suppression.
Consequences
Swayed Election Outcomes
The inability of Black Americans to vote to their fullest capacity impacts the results of elections. This limited capacity can spawn from low voter turnout, ballot rejection, and other instances of voter suppression and disenfranchisement. According to a 2006 study on the 2000 presidential election, “felon disenfranchisement played a decisive role in the 2000 US presidential election and in several US Senate elections since 1978.”139 In Florida alone, approximately 14.4% of votes cast by Black voters were rejected compared to 1.6% of non-Black Florida voters.140 Despite Black voters representing about 11% of Florida voters in the 2000 presidential election, Black voters cast about 54% of the 180,000 spoiled ballots in the state, based on precinct and county-level data estimates. Florida, whose electoral college votes played a key role in Republican-candidate George Bush’s victory, had one of the highest concentrations of disenfranchised Black Americans, who historically tend to vote for Democratic candidates.141 Without disenfranchisement against Black voters, Florida may have received more Democratic votes and impacted the presidential election significantly. According to some estimates, had this been the case, Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore “almost certainly” would have been the 43rd US president.142
Low voter turnout in federal and local elections impacts the representative nature of elections. In a study conducted by Portland State University, researchers found low voter participation in local elections around the US, from a high 47% turnout in Bradenton, Florida to a low 6% turnout of voters in Fort Worth, Texas.143 Low voter turnout is problematic for a representative election, especially considering that certain demographics cast ballots more than other demographics. One Stanford University study calculates that while the gap between White and Black voting rates has narrowed since the 2008 presidential elections, White voter turnout rates remain approximately 20% above non-White voter turnout rates.144 (Other demographics are compared, including age and income.) As a result, local and national elections are commonly and disproportionately influenced by White voters, swaying election results in regions already experiencing low overall voter turnout. (While a variety of factors, including voter apathy, exist to influence voter turnout rates, structural obstacles also exist and have been discussed, including inconvenient voting hours and inability to register at polls.)
Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/XWW746i6WoM
Disenfranchisement due to gerrymandering also impacts the political makeup of the US. As mentioned above, Republicans and Democrats both engage in gerrymandering, but computational analyses of the effects of gerrymandering on House elections show that gerrymandering can shift the seats allocated to districts. This effect is particularly true in districts considered under the control of one party, creating safe seats for either Republicans or Democrats. One study analyzed safe seats in several districts and found that 36 marginally Democratic seats were, under the influence of gerrymandering, allocated equally between 18 safe Republican seats and 18 safe Democratic seats.145 As recently as 2012, if these 18 extra Republican seats had been replaced with the more moderate Democratic seats, the House would have held a Democratic majority instead of a Republican majority.146 Similar impact can be traced for several states. In 2013, the New York Times published a study which showed that simulations of non-gerrymandered district elections in North Carolina yielded 7 Democratic seats and 6 Republican seats in the 2012 election. These simulations contrasted with actual seats; in reality, North Carolina ended 2012 with 4 Democrats and 9 Republicans in the House. The state was one of 5 other states that year where a political minority gained a majority of the state’s delegation.147 Thus, the effects of gerrymandering impact who is elected and which parties are represented in political offices.
Non-Representative Policy
Black disenfranchisement and voter suppression leads to policy and government that are less representative of the overall interests of US citizens.148 Election outcomes take on further significance as elected officials move on to implement and influence policy. If the voice of the electorate is impaired by disenfranchisement and voter suppression, then the country’s elected officials and resulting policies lack full representation on the full interests of their constituents.149 This separation of voters from the policies which emerge from their theoretically representative government is called “vote dissociation.”
The disenfranchisement tactics which have been discussed in this brief result in “vote dissociation” for Black Americans as a whole. While Black Americans are not a completely homogeneous voting body, Black voters often support anti-discriminatory policies, which contribute directly to reduced imprisonment of Black Americans, and pro-welfare and housing subsidies,150 which are often indirectly linked to reduced imprisonment.151 One study found that the presence of large minority populations in prisons correlates with the passing of restrictive voting laws for inmates—a problematic trend considering that Black imprisonment rates have consistently exceeded White rates since the Civil War.152, 153 Similarly, another study found that a 10% increase in a state’s minority prison population raised the odds of passing an ex-felon disenfranchisement law by almost 50%.154 When the Black vote is not counted to its fullest extent, policies such as felon disenfranchisement laws are less likely to support Black Americans’ interests.155 Several studies support the conventional claim that lower levels of voter turnout among non-White Americans correlated with other social and political issues, including less generous welfare benefits and stricter eligibility requirements.156
Reduced representation can have repercussions beyond the political sphere in subtle and significant ways, like with curtailed protections against violent acts towards Black Americans. The death of Trayvon Martin in 2012 and the ensuing acquittal of George Zimmerman sparked debate across the nation about rogue and discriminatory law enforcement and judicial systems, but sociology researchers suggest that the discrimination lay instead in nonrepresentative policies written into Florida state law. Under the jurisdiction of Governor Rick Scott, legislation that would reduce Black safety from aggression was passed and subsequently repealed between 2011 and 2014, although it is unclear how directly such legislation was involved in the case of Trayvon Martin. However, considering that the margin of the governor’s victory was little over 60,000 votes, and considering that a lack of felon disenfranchisement laws in Florida would have resulted in over 200,000 votes for the opposing candidate, researchers at Georgia State and Emory University argue that an increase in Black voters in Florida could have enacted representative policy that would have protected the life of Trayvon Martin and others during this time.157 Other policies, including a law that required school boards to police stereotypically Black fashion choices, also may have been prevented had there been less disenfranchisement against Black voters.
Racial Tensions in the US Political Divide
Race-based politics has been a long-standing feature of American democracy, from clear voter suppression of the 1890s to the Civil Rights Movement to modern disenfranchisement laws.158 Disenfranchisement provides an additional layer to political and racial tensions in the United States. This history of racial politics has created an ongoing public narrative that the Democratic party is for multiracial groups (including Blacks) and that the Republican party is for Whites.159 In both public perceptions on race-based voting and actual voting patterns, a majority of Black American voters affiliate with the Democratic Party and a majority of White Americans affiliate with the Republican Party—evidence that race is an ideological cue in the United States.160, 161, 162
Disenfranchisement perpetuates racial tension in the United States, particularly as Republican policies ostracize Black citizens. In the past 30 years, increased political polarization has demonstrated a clear pattern: States with higher minority populations pass laws that make it harder to vote, especially states with Republican governors and/or Republican legislatures.163, 164 Stricter voting laws enacted by Republican legislatures often aim to protect political power as minority populations begin to mobilize and vote at higher rates.165, 166, 167 This reality is acknowledged among Republican officials themselves; in the context of a Florida law in 2012 that contributed to longer voting lines, former GOP governor Charlie Crist admitted that this and other voter laws were enacted by Republicans as an attempt to cut back on early voting and consequently help Republican candidates. “‘We’ve got to cut down on early voting because early voting is not good for us,’” he claimed staffers and consultants told him in reference to Republican campaign efforts. Following a bill in 2011 which restricted early voting from 14 to 8 days and disproportionately affected Black Americans more than Whites, one Republican consultant acknowledged that Black voters were a concern among GOP strategists.168 “I know that the cutting out of the Sunday before Election Day was one of their targets only because that’s a big day when the Black churches organize themselves,” he stated.169 These and other disenfranchisement laws are evidence of clear racial targeting and a perpetuation of race-based politics in the United States.
The partisan nature of disenfranchisement laws is difficult to dispute, especially considering race-based political objectives. As one study examines, most disenfranchisement laws are sponsored by Republican legislatures and tied to states with close elections; competitive states controlled by Republican legislatures are more likely to pass voter restrictions to protect slim electoral margins.170 The likelihood of proposing and passing such laws also increases in a Republican state with a growing minority electorate.171 One study also found statistically significant polarization between Black and White representatives on issues of primary importance to Black Americans; rather than citing economic, legal, or public health-related ramifications, participants in the study opposed certain policies on the grounds that they give preferential treatment to and advance the interests of Blacks.172 White legislators have historically offered less support for policies that positively impact Black Americans; meanwhile, efforts to reverse disenfranchisement policies are often carried out by non-White legislators. The increasing political tension between both groups highlights how disenfranchisement and voter suppression strap race relations to a deepening political divide in the United States.173, 174
Practices
Organizational Support for Black Voters
One method to solving the issue of Black voter suppression and disenfranchisement is to provide support for suppressed voters at the grassroots level. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), one of the nation’s longest-standing advocacy groups for Black citizens, is one organization that has employed this practice by offering legal assistance for lawsuits relevant to the civil rights of Black citizens, including voting rights. The association also conducts targeted campaigns to register voters, raises awareness on civil rights issues, and encourages civic engagement.175 For example, the NAACP’s Demonstration Project, a 2018 civic engagement campaign aimed at registering more Black voters, led to 39,992 new voter registrations.176
Another organization that works to provide support for Black voters is Fair Fight, which was founded in 2018 by American politician Stacey Abrams after she lost the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election to Republican candidate Brian Kemp. Numerous sources show evidence that Kemp won the election because he used his status as Georgia Secretary of State to suppress tens of thousands of Black voters, an act that motivated Abrams to prevent future instances of Black voter suppression by founding Fair Fight.177, 178, 179 The organization “brings awareness to the public on election reform, advocates for election reform at all levels, and engages in other voter education programs and communications” in order to mobilize Black voters and elect pro-voting rights leaders.180 For example, they invested more than $1 million toward ramping up Democratic voting rights infrastructure (such as setting up voter hotlines and creating voter protection teams) in 18 different states, and are constantly gathering data on voters and election administrators struggle with to ensure that they have the support they need on election day.181
The success of Fair Fight and Stacey Abrams’s efforts are demonstrated by the results of the 2020 election. The organization is credited with being largely responsible for the 800,000-person increase in registered voters in Georgia since 2016,182 and on account of this increase in registration and the other help that Fair Fight provided in increasing support for Black voters, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden won the majority of votes in Georgia, becoming the first Democrat to do so since Bill Clinton in 1992. Moreover, both Democratic candidates for the Senate seats won in Georgia’s runoff elections, giving Democrats the Senate majority.183, 184, 185 These results indicate that the Black electorate in Georgia gained greater voting power during the 2020 election because many of the barriers that had suppressed their voting power had been removed, suggesting that providing this same support to Black voters in other states would turn out similar results and have a radical effect on the outcome of elections.
Although these results are significant and providing grassroots support to Black voters is clearly effective in decreasing voter suppression, this practice alone is likely not sufficient for permanently solving the issue of voter suppression and disenfranchisement. As discussed earlier in this brief, a variety of policies are in place that make it easier for states to suppress their Black electorate, blocking organizations like the NAACP and Fair Fight from freeing all voters from suppression. In order to solve the problem completely, there would need to be significant changes in federal and state policy.
Policy Change
A critical practice needed to dismantle voter suppression and disenfranchisement is changes to voting policies across the United States. One way this is being implemented is through policy advocacy groups, such as FairVote, which is attempting to change the winner-take-all set-up of the election system and instill instead a ranked-choice voting (RCV) system.186, 187 FairVote does this by advocating for RCV legislation at the state and federal level. Under an RCV system, voters rank their choices on the ballot instead of selecting one candidate out of a list, which FairVote asserts will mitigate the effects of gerrymandering by better reflecting the favorability of a candidate.188 This claim is backed by legal researchers who go further to claim that RCV specifically benefits racial minorities whose voices have been suppressed by gerrymandering.189 Because RCV is not widely implemented, it has not yet been proven that this system would completely solve the issue of Black voter suppression caused by gerrymandering, but evidence suggests that it would make a positive impact.
One federal policy in the works that would further protect Black voters from suppression is the For the People Act of 2021. This bill was passed in the House of Representative in March of 2021, but as of the publication of this brief, has not yet been voted on in the Senate.190 This act would expand voter registration by requiring automatic and same-day registration, as well as expand voting access through lengthening the early voting periods in many states and loosening the restrictions on who can vote by mail. It would also greatly limit the ability for officials to purge voter rolls.191, 192 Although the effects of this policy can only be estimated, this legislation will likely make a positive impact on protecting Black Americans from voter suppression because it targets many of the factors that contribute to Black voter suppression.
Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/Pq6_1gNwjjY
Finally, a policy change that would be extremely vital to solving the issue of Black voter disenfranchisement is expanding the voting rights for imprisoned persons and those with felony convictions. As previously discussed, most states place extreme limitations on the voting rights for adults who pass through the prison system, and since Black Americans are arrested and incarcerated at much higher rates than White Americans, these policies are the foremost cause of Black disenfranchisement in the modern United States. Several states in recent years have passed policies that expanded voting rights for ex-offenders. For example, Florida passed Amendement 4 in 2018, which was supposed to re-enfranchise most people who had completed their sentences; however, nearly 900,000 of those who should be disenfranchised were not due to “outstanding legal financial obligations,” such as fines and fees.193 In 2017, Wyoming restored voting rights for all non-violent, first-time felony convictions, and the governors of Iowa and Kentucky issued executive orders in 2020 and 2019, respectively, that restored voting rights to all adults who had completed their sentences. Along with policy changes in many other states, these examples show significant progress that, if spread across all states, could eventually put an end to the disenfranchisement of Black voters.
It is important to note that, while a crucial and effective practice, policy change is often slow-moving, and effective policies can be reversed with changes in leadership and voter interests. Therefore, even with the most effective advocacy groups and passing of powerful legislation, it will likely take a long time before policy changes can lead to the permanent prohibition of voter suppression and disenfranchisement.
Preferred Citation: Hill, Derek, Madison Coleman, and Erica Bassett. “Disenfranchisement and Suppression of Black Voters in the United States.” Ballard Brief. August 2021. www.ballardbrief.org.
Viewpoints published by Ballard Brief are not necessarily endorsed by BYU or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
