De Anza College Voter Suppression and Democratic Rights Reading Response

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De Anza College

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PL o Rigging the Game 91 clearly shown that there was most important, it was perhaps and is no tected by American law. so Rigging the Game tests having to prove that one could read before being al Lawes imposed poll taxes (fees charged for voting) and literas lowed to vote) 34 After decades of protest that culminated in tions were swept away. It would seem, then, that the right to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, these obstrue vote-which is surely a crucial right in any society that claims to be democratic-is guaranteed by and firmly pro- Yet in recent years new laws have created new obstacles to participation for some members of society. These laws are sometimes referred to as "voter suppression" laws, because they can lower the turnout of certain groups of voters. Per- haps the best example is voter identification (or voter ID) laws, which require people to show a government-issued pic ture ID before being allowed to vote. At first glance, such laws might seem reasonable. After all, we have to show iden- tification for many things. In fact, proponents of voter ID laws used this familiarity to make their case: "It's just like having to show ID to cash a check in a grocery store," they no problem of voting fraud that can be solved by requir- to show a picture ID when voting.35 So if there was and is no problem of voting fraud-that is, problem of people impersonating other people, which is solve-what is the point of these laws? The answer is in the the only conceivable problem that showing a picture ID would realm of partisan politics. Republican strategists and elected officials knew that voter ID laws would be most likely to sup- thus giving Republican candidates an edge. Claims about widespread voting fraud were used to mask the partisan intent clumsily admitted in a nationally televised interview, the new voting laws will "kick Democrats in the butt."36 North Carolina, the state where I live, provides a good example of how changes in voting laws reflect partisan intent. A package of voting-related laws passed in 2013 in- cluded not just the picture ID requirement (except that a picture ID from a college or university does not count) but also a shorter early voting period, elimination of same-day Republican party leader in North Carolina of the laws. As one said. They also said that voter ID was needed to stop wide- spread voting fraud. Opponents of voter ID laws argued that in the United States voting is akin to a sacred right, and to equate it with check cashing or buying beer fails to respect the far greater importance of everyone being able to have a say in the politi- cal process. Critics also pointed out that millions of eligible voters across the country-especially among the minorities, the elderly, and college students--did not have the right kind of ID and might have trouble getting it, and thus would be more likely to be deterred from voting. But poor, ethnic "There were, of course, many white people who could not read, yet they were exempted from literacy tests by "grandfather clauses”-special rules that allowed them to vote if their grandfathers had voted. 35Justin Levitt, "The Truth About Voter Fraud," Brennan Center for Jus- tice at New York University School of Law, 2007, accessed July 24, 2014 http://www.brennancenter.org/publication/truth-about-voter-fraud. See also Natasha Khan and Corbin Carson, "Comprehensive Database of U.S. Voter Fraud Uncovers No Evidence That Photo ID Is Needed," News21, August 12, 2012, accessed July 24, 2014, http://votingrights.news21.com/ article/election-fraud/; and John Wasik, "Voter Fraud: A Massive, Anti- Democratic Deception," Forbes, November 6, 2012, accessed August 12, 2014, http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwasik/2012/11/06/voter-fraud-a- massive-anti-democratic-deception/. 36The Republican Party official, Don Yelton, made this statement in an inter- view that appeared on The Daily Show in October 2013. He also said that if the new voter ID law "hurts a bunch of lazy blacks, so be it." After the interview was broadcast, the North Carolina Republican Party asked him to resign. e, one that gives ready have the advantage e rules has resources or un can be found in me nce upon a time, to get cade (e.g., machining, you had to get a sponsor trade. That was the rule e of your race, ethnicin ortant for getting jobs. of the game changed to Before then, job open- Hissing the Game 89 Exclusionary entry rules reproduce inequality not only by allowing some groups to hoard resources but also by making it hard to change other rules that rig the game. For example, when the United States was founded, only white men who owned land could vote. Women, blacks, and indentured work- ers couldn't simply organize a voting bloc and get rid of politi- cians they didn't like. In the South, after Reconstruction collapsed in the late 1800s, whites created laws to keep black people from voting, thereby severely limiting their political power. Some of these obstacles remained in place until the mid-1960s.33 And it was only in 1920, after more than 70 years of bitter struggle, that women in the United States gained the right to vote. Keeping people away from the rule-making apparatus means that those who are marginalized must beg, plead, or raise a fuss to make changes. Working politely within the system isn't an option if the rules keep a group from even getting a seat at the table. Of course, those who make the rules will argue that things are as they should be and no major changes are needed. After all, they will say, the best and brightest have achieved legitimate authority and are now running things in the best interests of everyone. But once the game is shown to be rigged, these claims to legitimacy can evapo- rate like mist. which meant that only d about those jobs. If ypical, chances were networks were white, kept out of good jobs ings and thus never hicago: University of Status Attainment," nd Deirdre Royster, Exclude Black Men ia Press, 2003) s. For more on af- firmative Action in Voter Suppression and Districting In the previous section I said that white people in southern states used to create laws that made it nearly impossible for black people to participate in the political process. These ssociation, 1998), Facial segregation herine Zimmer, Tricia McTague, Workplaces by ical Review 71 33 The Voting Rights Act of 1965 formally removed the last of these obsta- cles. See Gary May, Bending Toward Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy (New York: Basic Books, 2013). T NOU N B C 92 Rigging the Game Rigging the Game 93 preregistration for 16 and 17 year olds, and elimination of registration during the early voting period, elimination of solve problems with our electoral process. The aim was to laws, much like those passed in other states, did not aim to impede the ability of some voters-in this case, those more likely to vote for Democratic candidates to exercise their right to vote. Use of any such laws by any political party to give its candidates an unfair advantage in elections consti- when it comes to tutes rigging the game. There are, of course, truly illegal ways to rig an What districting election ma- " ties. If such problems are discovered, they are readily Ballot boxes can be stuffed with phony ballots. Voting chines can be tampered with. Ballots can be intentionally lost or miscounted. Voters can be threatened with violence well-run, closely monitored elections in democratic socie- knowledged as problems and denounced as intolerable. But what I have been pointing to here, in discussing voter sup- boundaries of these laws is thus to impose a kind of race and class bias determining who is eligible to vote.37 Felony disenfranchisement laws limit the ability of some individuals to participate in the political process. Other kinds of laws related to elections can limit the ability of whole groups of people to get representation in government. The classic example of this is “gerrymandering" or, in generic terms, political districting. or redistricting because it is done peri- odically) amounts to is drawing the boundaries of political Republicans; conservatives or liberals; white people or people of color-are more or less likely to get elected to state legisla- tures or to Congress. One common strategy is to draw district so that people of color are never a majority in any district. A variation on this strategy is to put all people of color in one district, so that they can elect one, but never more than one, representative. Boundaries can also be drawn so that voters who usually vote Democratic or Republican are either never a majority or always a majority. As a result, some people in these districts will find it hard or impossible to elect a candidate who speaks for their interests. This being the case, some eligible voters get frustrated and withdraw from the electoral process entirely. In US society, we're often told that the proper way to change laws is to join in the electoral who will make the changes we seek. This sounds nice, and sometimes it works. It's also possible, however, for a group to ac- pression, are rules that are written into law and seem legiti- mate to many people, even though they unfairly limit the ability of other people to participate in the political process or to get representation through that process. Another example is "felony disenfranchisement," a term that refers to losing the right to vote if you are convicted of a serious crime. In eleven states felony disenfranchisement is permanent. This means that if you are convicted of a felony, you can never vote again, even after you have paid your debt to society, in whatever form that might take. Today, nearly 6 million otherwise eligible voters in the United States cannot vote because of felony disenfranchisement laws. A high pro- portion of these people are members of ethnic minority groups, or from low-income backgrounds, or both. The effect 37 For a broad analysis of this problem, see Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness New York: New Press, 2010). BAL NOITOTOO 13PT500 1 N 94 Rigging the Game it's about understanding L comes institutionalized, L ways that people do thir said, these routines are people play by the rule granted about how thir can be done without ce voter suppression laws are reemerging today. take control of the rule-making apparatus and then control to keep other groups from being able to participate in an equal footing. In other words, a dominant group can ervan laws that give it not only economic advantages but also make system to make change. This was the case in the Jim Crow it hard or impossible for other groups to work within the South, and it appears that similar tendencies in the form of conditions, the political system itself might need to be called into question, and disruptive protest of some kind might be needed to change it. As former US president John F. Kennedy warned, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible It's not that indiv Under these The rules of a game will make violent revolution inevitable." THINKING ABOUT HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS under every circum stance be anticipate for people to impro sonalities. Even so and processes can sonalities of the in violent game no but because the interact to make same principle game be examined. a and its po There are many more laws and policies that reproduce ine- quality than the few I've discussed here. The point of the ex- amples has been to show why it's important to examine the rules of the game if we want to understand how inequality is reproduced. I've also tried to show how to look at the rules of the game. The same strategy-looking at how the rules are used to create an unequal distribution of resources, to hoard resources and opportunities, and/or to preserve control-can be used to analyze any specific case. Let me suggest what else to keep in mind when looking at things this way. Keep in mind that this is not about personalities. It's about understanding how a system works.38 Or, in terms I used earlier, This perspe how inequality absence of co Instead, we sh the rules. Th tentions dor This means people who again, web game they It's also 38The distinction between the individual and the system is crucial to so- ciological thinking about inequality. Allan Johnson's discussion of this distinction in chapter 2 of The Gender Knot, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005), 27-50, is exemplary. with cons them at of
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Voter suppression is one of the major challenge faced in the United States. Even though
the federal laws require every individual to have equal voting rights, some laws have been
implemented that prevents some people especially the minority in the society from exercising
their democratic rights of voting. Implementation of laws such requirement of one to ...


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