IN BACKLASH TO historic voter turnout, as of late May state legislators had introduced 389 bills to restrict voting in 48 states in the 2021 legislative sessions. The barrage of suppressive bills has been different from previous years in various ways. The sheer number of bills, the sweeping nature of the proposals, the procedural shenanigans, and the brazenness of lawmakers’ intent makes this like few legislative attempts in memory.
“Restrict” means the legislation would make it harder for Americans to register, stay on the rolls, and/or vote, as compared to existing state law. Most of these bills take aim at absentee voting and expanding voter ID requirements. Some would make voter registration harder, expand voter roll purges, and reduce early voting. Others seek to undermine the power of local officials and, in some cases, establish new criminal penalties to target those who run our elections.
Several of the concerning bills are bundled—a big number of anti-voter bills rolled into one. Take Georgia for example. Lots of people have heard about Georgia outlawing the provision of a bottle of water or a snack to people waiting in line to vote. But there’s more. Polling sites on wheels (mobile voting) are now effectively illegal in the state. Many voters who plan to vote by mail will be required to provide a driver’s license, social security number, state identification number, or a copy of identifying documentation. Ballot drop boxes will have to be located inside elections offices or early voting sites, likely resulting in the loss of convenient voting locations. Some provisions may exacerbate existing cyber-vulnerabilities or introduce new ones. These laws will clearly have a detrimental effect on the political voice of voters of color, especially those in the Black community. Mobile voting in Georgia, for example, was only used in Fulton County. That’s the home of Atlanta, which has the largest Black population of any city in the state.
We also cannot ignore the anti-democratic procedural moves used. In Georgia, for example, legislators added new sections to a bill under review one hour before the committee had to consider it, even though the additions were big ones. In Texas, the House Elections Committee chairperson sought to force his committee into an immediate vote on a bill after he deleted its contents entirely and substituted in language from a completely different bill.
Ultimately, these changes come back to demographics and the increasing political power wielded by communities of color. It is hard to reach any other conclusion than that some lawmakers are more interested in constraining the power of new voices in our electorate and insulating themselves from accountability in future elections than in being stewards of democracy. To mitigate the damage from this wave of anti-voter laws from legislatures and block these suppressive attempts in the future, we need Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the For the People Act.
Voters, thanks in large part to people of color and young people, broke election participation records last November, reaching 66.8 percent turnout. This constitutes the highest turnout in a century and arguably the most diverse electorate in U.S. history. Americans sent a clear message: Voters care about voting.
While 13 states have passed voter expansion bills, and such bills are moving forward in at least 25 states, legislators from Florida to Georgia to Arizona to Texas and beyond are wasting legislative resources and trying to make our elections less free, fair, and accessible.
Our legislative process should be used to expand enfranchisement—and these legislators know better. Voters are supposed to choose their politicians, not the other way around.
Myrna Pérez is director of the Voting Rights and Elections program at the Brennan Center for Justice and a Sojourners contributing editor.
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