The Melanin Pearls Podcast

Unscheduled Special Episode: Voter Suppression

Episode Summary

This is a special unscheduled episode on voter suppression. Record turnout will always be swiftly followed by a tidal wave of voter suppression efforts. This is a factual trend. Lawmakers in 47 states have introduced bills that would make it harder to vote. Do you that there are about 61 forms of voter suppression. Can you name a few? Ericka and Yvette discuss voter suppression and how WE THE PEOPLE need to make sure democracy remains in tact which means WE THE PEOPLE need to do the work as Americans.

Episode Notes

Do you know of the 61 ways votes are suppressed?

You can peep the entire list on the Voting Rights Alliance website: https://www.votingrightsalliance.org/forms-of-voter-suppression

Here’s the data:

• 2008 election was the first presidential election in American history in which voters of color constituted one quarter of the nation’s eligible electorate. That election also saw a massive shift in the racial composition of early in-person voting, with Black voters casting their votes early in person more frequently than white voters (an estimated 24 percent to 17 percent nationally).
• This record turnout was followed by an unprecedented effort to cut back early in-person voting in states including North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida — which notoriously tried to ban voting on Sundays, a move that would have effectively eliminated Souls to the Polls efforts by Black churches.

We are witnessing a rerun. The 2020 presidential election saw more than 159 million votes cast — shattering the record for the most voters to ever participate in an election in American history by more than 20 million voters. It had the highest turnout rate since the 1900 presidential election.

• Seven of the 10 states where turnout rose the most conducted their elections entirely or mostly by mail.
• The percentage of Black voters casting their ballots by mail more than doubled from about 18 percent of Black voters in 2016, to an estimated 38 percent in 2020.

Now, like clockwork, we are witnessing an onslaught of legislation to cut back voting by mail, including in states like Arizona, Iowa, Florida, Wisconsin — and most notoriously, Georgia.

• In Georgia, pending legislation would require voters to submit photocopies of their identification twice when seeking to vote by mail; bar elections officials from affirmatively mailing absentee ballot applications to voters; reduce the window for requesting absentee ballots; place restrictions on drop boxes for returning ballots; and eliminate no-excuse absentee voting altogether.

One reform that would do the most to combat it is Election Day Registration (EDR), which allows eligible voters to register to vote and cast a ballot at the same time on Election Day, effectively eliminating earlier registration deadlines. 

• 10 states with the highest turnout in 2020 all had same-day registration, with nine of the top 10 offering same-day registration on Election Day (one of the top 10, North Carolina, only offers same-day registration during its early voting period). The consensus among political scientists is that EDR boosts turnout by two to 10 percentage points, with particularly strong gains among historically lower-turnout or disenfranchised groups like young, lower-income, and Black voters.

How EDR helps:

1. Allowing registration and voting on the same day reduces the logistical hurdles associated with voting by simplifying a two-step process into a single trip to a polling location.
2. EDR also allows voters to update or correct their registrations on Election Day, which prevents the disenfranchisement of those who have recently moved or who have been erroneously purged from the rolls.
3. And perhaps most significantly, voter interest is at its highest once voting has commenced; EDR capitalizes on that interest to bring new voters into the process.