“My vote doesn’t count, My vote doesn’t matter.” Yes it does, if Black people’s vote didn’t matter states wouldn’t be still trying to find ways to suppress our votes in 2020. Although we don’t pay poll taxes or have literacy test, there are other ways that states suppress the Black vote.
In America, the right to vote should be convenient and easy for all. On the other hand, that has never been the case for many people of color since 1787. Voter Suppression in 2020 is just as relevant as it was in the 1800’s because some government officials continue to find ways to silence Black voters.
This conversation is prevalent now because Virginia and seven other States began their early voting last week. Most believe that this 2020 election is one of the most important elections our their lifetime due to Covid-19, the recent protest, climate change, and other current issues. On the other hand, many are worried that their vote won’t count or there would be ways to prevent them from voting.
In 1890, over a hundred men gathered for the constitutional convention in the Mississippi state capital with the president of the convention, Judge Solomon Saladin Calhoon. In his speech he gave the delegates one task: “devise a way to keep Black men from voting in Mississippi.” This speech was the beginning of 75 years of systemic voter suppression in the US with poll taxes, literacy tests, and violence directed toward Black people who attempted to vote.
In this blog post, I’m going to define voter suppression, discuss voter suppression such as Jim Crow laws and current voter suppression.
What is Voter Suppression?
Voter suppression is “any effort, either legal or illegal, by way of laws, administrative rules, and/or tactics that prevents eligible voters from registering to vote or voting. Republican legislators have introduced and passed as many voter suppression laws that they could in 2013.”
Who’s Affected By Voter Suppression?
All of us are affected by voter suppression but some groups are disproportionately affected by different tactics. But people of color are mostly affected by these tactics which for Black people is nothing new. Some statistics from ACLU on how people of color are affected by voter suppression are:
- Seventy percent of Georgia voters purged in 2018 were Black.
- Across the country, one in 13 Black Americans cannot vote due to disenfranchisement laws.
- Across the country, counties with larger minority populations have fewer polling sites and poll workers per voter.
When did Voter Suppression Begin?
According to the constitution, in 1787 only voting was restricted to wealthy white landowners. During reconstruction, various constitutional amendments were passed by Congress to guarantee the rights of the formally enslaved. One Amendment was the 15th, that prohibited denying the vote based on “race, color, or previous conditions of servitude.” On the other hand, states were left in charge of elections and some states set out to suppress these new rights.
How States Suppressed Voting Rights:
To begin, two Black men were sent to the U.S. Senate as representatives of the Republican Party. Because of this, Black men formed a majority in the South, which then caused the Democrats to find a way to restore white Democrats in power in Mississippi.
In 1890, they held a state convention to implement tactics such as literacy tests and poll taxes to suppress the Black voters. These tactics were used because Black people were denied an education and didn’t have economic opportunities it clear those hurdles.
Five years later, other Southern states followed Mississippi’s lead, and then the Jim Crow laws were enacted along with violence and intimidation against Black voters. Following this law, The eligible Black men who were registered to vote changed drastically from over 90% to less than 6 percent following these tactics.
In the 1960s, after a decade of protests, nonviolent resistance, and voter registration efforts during the civil rights movement changes were soon to come.
In 1964, states enacted the 24th Amendment, that prohibited poll taxes. A year later, the Voting’s Right Act did away with the remainder voter suppression tactics that were used by the states. This is famously known as the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Modern-Day Voter Suppression Tactics:
Although the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted 55 years ago, voter suppression did not end there. States are still finding ways around laws to suppress peoples votes in 2020 just like they were in the 1900’s. The different types of Modern-Day Voter Suppression are:
- Voter ID Laws: Over 70% of states require identification at the polls. Seven of those states require voters to present one of the limited sets of forms of government-issued photo ID to cast their ballot. Due to these different laws, a single state can lose tens of thousands of votes. Over 21 million in the U.S don’t have government-issued photo identification due to ID card expenses or expenses of documents needs for the ID cards.
- Voter Registration Restrictions: This can include limiting the window of time in which voters can register, or the requiring documents to prove citizenship. In the 2016 election, over 90,000 New Yorker’s applications did not meet the 25-day cut off and were unable to vote.
- Voter Purges: This is a way they clean up the voter rolls because people move, die, or for some reason become ineligible. On the other hand, some voters are purged due to illegitimate reasons or inaccurate data. One purge could stop up to hundreds of thousands of people from voting. Also, voters tend to only learn they’ve been purged when they show up to Election Day. A recent Brennan Center study found that almost 16 million voters were purged from the rolls between 2014 and 2016.
- Felony Disenfranchisement: Some states ban voting during incarceration and some ban voting for life. Due to racial bias in the criminal justice system, felony disenfranchisement laws disproportionately affect Black people.
- Long Voting Lines: This short video discusses how long voting lines are a form of voter suppression.
Election 2020: Longer voting lines may be a sign of voter suppression | Just The FAQs
To conclude, voter suppression is a major issue in America today. Voting should equally be easy for everyone to do but that’s not the case. We need to pay attention to modern-day voter suppression tactics and end all forms of voter suppression. Also, to the Voter’s of color who believe their vote doesn’t matter, the states wouldn’t go through great lengths to suppress people of colors votes if the votes didn’t matter.
VOTE!
I am my Ancestors 
One thought on “Modern-Day Jim Crow Laws”