To Everyone Who Will Be Old Enough: Vote in 2022.
Around nineteen Republican states around the country are passing voting restriction laws that seek “to protect election integrity and ensure fairness.” These laws are being promoted in many Republican circles after the election of President Biden which enlarged the opportunity to mail in ballots. However, there is a deceptive nature in these laws. These laws are not what Republicans say they are: restrictions in voting practices undermine the rights of minorities and the LGBTQ community.
Take the example of Texas: Governor Greg Abbott signed the Texas voting bill which forbids balloting methods which make voting easier such as drive-through polling places, 24-hour voting, and temporary voting locations. The bill bars election officials from sending voters absentee ballot applications to voters and from promoting mail-in voting. Partisan poll watchers are empowered and criminal penalties are created for poll workers who defy these new rules. Poll workers are additionally barred from helping voters who need translation assistance. Voters are also required to have voter ID cards.
This law is only one of many. The problematic nature of these laws lies within two aspects. First, in the case of voter ID requirements, they make the voting process immensely difficult for transgender and nonbinary people. In the 2020 general election, 260,000 transgender people across 35 states did not have ID information that matches with their identity. Therefore, they are harassed by poll watchers who see different names on these IDs. The process of changing this information consumes time and money, for in each state, processes vary: some states require gender-change surgeries and a change in birth certificates to fulfill the requirements.
These voter ID laws are not just affecting trans and nonbinary people. In Georgia, the government’s “exact match” system suspends any voter whose name does not match with the one on the voter registration form. This system disproportionately affected African American voters who made up 80% of the 51,000 voters the law affected. The voting restrictions that forbid certain voting locations are making it harder for minorities to vote: compared to 5% of white voters, 15% of African Americans and 14% of Hispanic Americans have trouble finding a polling location. On top of this, state officials in Republican states who have control over these locations can simply move polling locations from areas that vote Democrat: these areas are often occupied by African Americans and other minorities.
And, the translation restrictions add an additional burden for those who cannot speak English well. Since there is so much reading when voting, minorities are at a disadvantage when forming an opinion on who they should vote for. In addition, minority communities who make up a majority of the poor have high illiteracy rates.
What these burdens entail is the fact that Republican politicians are seeking to undermine the people’s right to vote. What these burdens entail is the continuation of generational struggle for the suffrage of all American peoples. In the guise of fairness and security, the rights of thousands, if not millions of people, are being suppressed. Our democracy is already imperfect, and these restrictions only make the cracks larger and more daunting.
However, these laws are not new. Predecessors appeared many years ago and they have been met with the forceful energies of people who wanted wrongs righted. This energy has brought legislative action that has brought so much change to our nation. In the light of recent events, we must emulate the marches of Selma and Birmingham to achieve the same mission: to change the nation once more and hopefully for all time. That means passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. But, these laws are met with Republican opposition in the Congress.
And that means only one thing: in one year, we the people who can vote must use that power to vote out any member of Congress who seeks to prevent universal suffrage. Only then, when we succeed, can everyone in this country proudly sing to God: “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we are free at last!”
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