New voting restrictions have been enacted in many states across the country since the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The changes, fueled by impeached former President Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” and primarily passed in Republican-led states, are supported by those who believe they are required to stop election fraud. However, it has been proven that voter fraud is very rare. Democrats say that restrictions make voting more difficult and further disenfranchise marginalized communities.
Lawmakers have proposed hundreds of voting restriction bills and dozens have passed into law since 2020. Since the beginning of 2021, lawmakers have passed at least 42 restrictive voting laws in 21 states, according to the Brennan Center, which tracks the legislation. Among those laws, 33 contain at least one restrictive provision that is in effect for the midterms in 20 states.
A study by the Brennan Center’s voting rights program found that race and racial resentment, not only partisanship, play a part in the increase of these laws. According to the data, districts with a higher level of racial resentment were more likely to have legislators who introduced restrictions in their districts.
With the 2022 midterms underway, these four restrictions are creating barriers for many Americans who want to cast their ballots.
01
Voter Intimidation
Across the country, election workers and voters are growing increasingly concerned about the threats of voter intimidation at the polls. A recent Reuters-Ipsos poll found that 43 percent of registered voters surveyed said they were concerned about threats of violence or voter intimidation while voting in person. For instance, the Justice Department has already received multiple complaints regarding alleged voter intimidation at drop-box locations in Arizona. According to complaints, people loitered close to the drop boxes, recorded and took pictures of voters as they returned their ballots, and in some cases, also snapped pictures of their license plates. The Brennan Center for Justice released a guide, highlighting federal and state laws that protect against intimidation, focusing on 10 states where the risk that intimidation could disrupt the voting process is high.
CHRIS DELMAS
02
Rigid Voter ID Requirements
Voter ID laws require citizens to provide official government identification in order to exercise their constitutional right to vote. 34 states have some form of ID requirement, seven with strict photo ID laws. Over 10 percent of the US population – and nearly 25 percent of
Black Americans – lack qualified ID for a variety of reasons. For example, IDs can be hard to
get if you don’t have a birth certificate, and often require travel to some government office and knowing how to work the system. However, forms of IDs many people do have, such as public assistance IDs, student IDs, or state employee cards, have recently been banned for use.
Bloomberg
03
Purging Voter Rolls
Registering to vote is one hurdle, and in some states, staying registered can prove challenging when registered voters are purged from state voting rolls. Election administrators keep voter rolls up to date by removing voters who have moved, passed away, or otherwise lost their right to vote. However, according to the ACLU some states frequently carry out such purges using false information, flawed procedures, and targeting particular voters, such as those with felony convictions, without enforcing federally mandated safeguards to prevent purging voters who don’t even belong to the specified group.
In 2017, for example Georgia purged over half a million people from its rolls, and then 87,000 of them re-registered, meaning they were eligible voters after all. Reports found that the cancellations disproportionately affected people of color.
Mario Tama
04
Felony Disenfranchisement
Laws in 48 states ban people with felony convictions from voting, according to The Sentencing Project. In 2022, an estimated 4.6 million Americans, representing two percent of the voting-age population, will be ineligible to vote due to these laws or policies, many of which date back to the post-Reconstruction era. Black voters, who already have higher rates of arrest, conviction, and incarceration than their white counterparts, are also disproportionately affected by these laws. According to estimates, 1 in 13 Black Americans no longer have the ability to vote as a result of felony disenfranchisement laws.
