If, as polls suggest, the presidential election comes down to a few thousands votes in key states, the cries from Trump and his MAGA supporters about a “stolen election” will become loud and persistent, and be amplified by far-right media like Fox News.
In truth, in a tight election, it is the dogged work of Republican politicians and MAGA myth-peddlers that might tip the victory to Trump.
Voter suppression has a long, rich history in the United States. From the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, it was almost entirely a Democrat phenomenon, with southern Democrats using methods all the way up to murder and terrorism to keep African-American voters off the electoral rolls and deter them from voting. This ensured a “Solid South” that reliably delivered power to southern senators, who in turn prevented any federal action to reform voting rights until one of their own, LBJ, broke through on civil rights in the 1960s.
The American south has since turned primarily Republican, and the methods of voter suppression have changed from the days of lynchings under the Democrats. But the targets of voter suppression haven’t changed: they’re still African Americans.
Here’s what they face:
Preventing registration
Stopping African-American and Latino voters from getting on the electoral rolls in the first place is a tried-and-true method of voter suppression, as the Democrats knew well. It’s now a standard part of the Republican playbook, despite efforts by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to defeat state legislation — such as requiring proof of citizenship in order to register to vote — over and over.
After the Republicans fared poorly in the 2018 midterms, Tennessee started trying to place onerous restrictions on voter registration groups. In 2021, the Biden administration issued an executive order to remove impediments to voter registration. A Trump aligned think tank in Texas — one of several MAGA groups spearheading voter suppression efforts — is currently trying to overthrow the order.
Preventing registration by felons
With one in 15 African-American men in prison, laws to prevent current or former felons from voting are a popular tool for suppressing voting. States that prevent former prisoners from voting are dominated by southern states. A Nebraska court recently upheld the right of convicted felons to vote in the face of state laws banning them. Ironically, as a convicted felon, Donald Trump would not have been able to vote under the restrictive laws of his home state of Florida except for changes to a New York law in 2021 that enabled felons to vote if they’re not in jail.
Purging rolls
Once you’re on the electoral rolls in the US, there’s no guarantee you’ll stay on. As part of over 50 voting restriction laws passed in 20 Republican-controlled states, Georgia, a haven for voter suppression, purged electoral rolls of anyone whose name didn’t perfectly match state records, even if the discrepancy was an obvious typo. Of the voters disenfranchised, 70% were African American. Last week, the Supreme Court upheld a Republican attempt to purge 1,600 people alleged to be non-citizens from Virginia electoral rolls. Meanwhile in North Carolina, the Republican National Committee is attempting to purge more than 220,000 voters from that state’s rolls.
Gerrymandering
While not affecting presidential elections or state-wide elections, egregious redistricting by partisan state legislatures to reduce seats held by opponents is a practice both sides have engaged in. At the moment, Republican states in the south and mid-west have the worst gerrymanders. By one estimate, the Republicans start with a 16-seat advantage in the race to control the House of Representatives due to gerrymandering. The current Republican majority is just eight.
Voter ID
According to the ACLU, 36 states require voters to present ID when voting, including states that strictly mandate voting with a limited group of government-issued documents. Which group is least likely to have these documents? African-American and Latino voters. Georgia, like some other states, has also sought to introduce laws requiring anyone delivering an absentee ballot on behalf of another person to themselves produce ID.
Closing polling places
After the Supreme Court in 2013 removed a requirement that states with a history of suppressing African Americans obtain federal approval for changes to voting laws, Texas and Georgia cut numerous polling places, mainly in areas with large African-American and Latino populations. The gap in voter turnout between white and African-American voters has widened significantly since 2013.
Making it harder to vote
When there are fewer polling places, the lines at remaining polling places grow longer — though mainly in non-white areas. In order to make voting even more difficult, Georgia — as Curb Your Enthusiasm fans will know — outlawed giving food or water to people queued up to vote, although that ban has since been narrowed.
Preventing early and mail voting
With Tuesday a work day for most Americans, voting early or voting by mail is an important voting access mechanism. Despite many states, including some southern states, expanding early voting, Georgia — again — banned early voting on Sunday, a big day for African-American turnout. Evidence from a Florida ban on Sunday voting showed it disproportionately affected minorities. And while both African-American and white voters use mail voting (a particular bugbear of Trump), African-American mail votes are rejected more often than those of white voters. Georgia is trying to curb mail voting, except for older (white) voters. Some states have also tightened restrictions on third-party ballot collection used in remote areas or nursing homes.
Making it easier for officials to deny election results
Several recent efforts in Georgia to suppress African-American voting have been struck down as “illegal, unconstitutional and void”. One of the changes would have allowed state election officials to refuse to certify election results if they suspected fraud. There’s also been a concerted effort by MAGA activists to take over election positions, placing them in positions where they can disrupt or deny election results.
Few of these voter suppression techniques result in widespread disenfranchisement on their own. But in battleground states like Georgia, preventing several thousand African-American voters from casting their ballots might by more than enough to tip the state in Trump’s favour — and all that hard work by state Republicans will have paid off.
In each case, laws to suppress voting are justified by claims about widespread voter fraud — and have long been justified that way. The evidence shows that voting fraud in the United States is so vanishingly rare as to be near-mythical: report after report after report after report after report after report after report after report after report after report shows that voter fraud isn’t a problem. The only fraud is that perpetrated on people of colour in the United States, who have historically, and are now, targeted with systemic voter suppression efforts by those in power.
