Elusive: (adj) hard to find or capture. This is how Representative Terri Sewell (D-AL) described the long, ongoing fight to secure voting rights for all Americans. Project Vote and our many partner organizations are committed to advancing the fundamental, if elusive, right to vote.
Yesterday, the Center for American Progress and American Constitution society hosted an event on the history of voting rights and current issues in election reform. The event featured Ari Berman, author of the new book, Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. Representative Sewell, veteran litigator Laughlin McDonald, and the Open Society Foundations’ Julie Fernandes joined the informative discussion.
Mr. Berman explained that, all too often, the struggle for civil rights is told as a movement that ended—and was largely won—in the 1960s. However the right to vote is inherently tied to the power of communities as well as the power of elected officials and political parties. As such, voting has always been the most fundamental right contested throughout our history.
That struggle continues today. In recent years, policies and practices that threaten the right to vote have cropped up at alarming rates. Just last week, new concerns were raised in Alabama, where many DMV offices are scheduled to close due to budgetary constraints. As of 2014, Alabama voters must show photo identification. This law already presented a greater burden for African Americans, who are less likely to have such identification. Representative Sewell noted that the closures will leave eight out of the ten counties with the highest percentage of non-white registered voters without a DMV office.
Given the Shelby County Supreme Court decision gutting an important provision of the Voting Rights Act, many new restrictions will be in place for the first time in 2016. With the election looming and political power hanging in the balance, panelists anticipate the introduction of new threats to the right to vote. We, advocates and concerned citizens alike, must be vigilant. Attention must be brought to these issues, which is why yesterday’s event and Mr. Berman’s new book, are important.