Voting Rights Act: What's Happened To It?

When the Voting Rights Act was enacted in the 1960's, most Americans saw it as a good thing.  Previous disenfranchised citizens were now able to vote.  After all, with American citizenship comes the right to vote.  Right?  Not necessarily.  In recent years many states have been enacting sweeping voting restrictions aimed at NOT allowing certain citizens to vote.  Although they don't come out and say it, these restrictions are aimed at making it near impossible for some groups to vote:  African Americans, (especially poor ones), Hispanics, the elderly, and the very young  find it difficult to vote with new voting restrictions.  The reason for these restrictions is not fraud, as proponents of restrictive voting bills often say, but suppression of the vote by millions of Americans that may not vote the way they want.  Voter fraud is so minimal, at less that .01%, to say that's the reason for voter ID, is insulting.  The goal is to get as many white men and women, mostly middle age or older to vote, and keep people of color, the very young, the very old, and the poor from voting.  In other words, the Voting Rights Act does not exist as it was originally intended.

Bryan McGowan, a disabled Afghanistan and Iraq vet came home to vote in North Carolina.  He arrived for early voting as he had done many times in the past, only to be turned away.  North  Carolina eliminated same-day registration as part of the sweeping voting restrictions enacted by the Republican legislature in 2013.  Sadly, his story is not atypical.  Voters in fourteen states faced new voting restriction at the polls for the first time in 50 years.  Voters also arrived at the wrong polling location due to changes in venue of which they were not notified.  They cast provisional ballots, but most likely few were counted.

Nationally, 2014 turnout was the lowest since 1940.  In states where voting restrictions were enacted, the electorate was older, whiter and more conservative than in the past 20 years.  Texas was another state with very restrictive voter laws.  The voter ID law prevented 600,00 registered voters from voting.  They did not have the money or transportation to get the ID card and could not vote.  2014 was a grim election for voting rights.  The Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act with its decision, and it has become easier to buy an election and harder to vote in one.

So, what direction is our democracy going?  Are we trying to include as many citizens in the voting process as possible, or are we trying to exclude groups that do not favor our point of view?  You know the answer.  This is not the democratic way to hold elections.  Ok, I'll say it.  This is racist.  I don't care how they try to sell it to the public, we all know what it is.