For many Americans, the right to vote is becoming increasingly difficult to exercise. Over the past years, some Republican states have adopted measures affecting the vote of minorities and low-income populations.
March 31, 2016
The most important achievement of the Civil Rights movement, the right to vote, is now being threatened. These past years, several states implemented measures that are unfavorable to minorities and the working class. "In a country that so prides itself on being a beacon of democracy to the world, that is a national disgrace," deplores Civil Rights activist Wade Henderson in the Wisconsin Gazette.
The case of Arizona and North Carolina
Last case in point: voters from Arizona and North Carolina, on March 22nd and March 15th respectively, had to wait in line for hours in order to vote for the primaries. Since the last presidential election, Republican-governed Arizona reduced its Maricopa county voting booths by 70%: they went from 200 down to 60, explains the daily Arizona Republic. It is to be noted that 40% of this county's residents are minorities, the biggest percentage of the state. Booths from other counties have not been altered.
As Phoenix mayor Greg Stanton explains to the Washington Post's columnist, long lines at voting booths "particularly hurt the least advantaged, who usually have less flexibility in their schedules than more affluent people do."
In Republican-led North Carolina, a new law states that in order to be able to vote, one must own a state-issued ID card with picture. According to the Christian Science Monitor, 218,000 registered voters do not own such a document.
A widespread weakening of the right to vote
According to the same weekly newspaper, 36 states have adopted similar state-issued ID laws. However, nationally, 3 million people do not own such documents. Critics say that these measures hurt minorities, students (who often move between states for their studies, and therefore do not have an ID issued by the state they live in), and low-income citizens.
"A major culprit would be the U.S. Supreme Court," continues the Washington Post. In 2013, the then-mostly conservative court overturned a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It allowed several states, especially in the South, to modify their legislation on the right to vote without requiring approval from the Federal government, as was the case beforehand, in order to avoid any abuse.
For the Post's journalist, that kind of practice could result in an "electoral cataclysm": "Are we not divided enough already? Can we risk holding an election whose outcome would be rendered illegitimate in the eyes of a very large number of Americans who might be robbed of their franchise?"
Read this article (in French) at Courrier International.