For all its talk about democracy, the US has a pretty bad history with universal suffrage. After emerging as an independent nation on July 4, 1776, the US began its democratic history by giving voting rights only to white male property owners over the age of 21. Moreover, reform was slow in coming. It was only in the early 1800s that a serious movement to give a great proportion of Americans greater voting rights began. In 1869, Congress passed laws giving African-American men the right to vote, followed by women’s voting rights in 1920 and Native American voting rights in 1947. More recent measures to expand voting rights in the 90s and early 2000s have included providing voting materials in various languages and easing the voter registration process. However, in recent years, the positive trend in voting rights has taken a dark turn. Some states now prohibit convicted felons from ever voting again, and 22 states including North Carolina and Texas have passed restrictive voter ID laws, making it harder for people with name changes (like married women and some transgender voters) to vote. Why have these laws suddenly appeared in recent years, and what effect will they have on future election seasons?Looking back, it is relatively straightforward to find the date that this whole mess began — June 25, 2013. That day, the Supreme Court changed a part of the Voting Rights Act, allowing states to change election laws without approval from the federal government. Almost immediately after the ruling, voter restriction laws began to spread. “It’s the idea of policy diffusion,” said NYUSH professor Andrea Jones-Rooy. “If one state implements a new policy, it spreads very quickly. Information flows quickly.” In this case, the idea of voter restriction laws has spread to 22 states, 18 of which are majority Republican. Even more interestingly, the targets of these voter restriction laws are mainly minorities, students, and the disabled, groups which tend to vote Democratic. However, to any follower of American politics, this is the least surprising part. “It’s a political competition,” said Jones-Rooy, “and any way you can get an advantage is better.”One state in which racial targeting is startlingly obvious is Alabama. After passing laws requiring a photo ID to vote, Alabama proceeded to shut down several driver’s license centers, where photo IDs are made. While the official reason for the shutdown was budget cuts, it doesn’t take much digging to realize that many of the counties affected are made up of majority black and poor residents. Although there are no laws that expressly prohibit black and poor voters, residents of counties without driver’s license centers will have to drive long distances to get an ID so they can vote. This alone will discourage many from voting. In other states, manipulative laws similar to Alabama’s have already had negative effects on election results and voter turnout. In 2008, the percentage of Democrats who registered for early voting was higher than Republicans—and now several Republican states have passed laws limiting early voting days by as much as a week. Florida also cut early voting days, and as a result over 200,000 votes were lost just because of long lines at the polls. Individually, these cases could be written off as government mistakes or genuine budget concerns. But taken together, a disturbing trend begins to appear—Republican states are slowly cutting minority and poor voters out of the election process. In the US, where students are taught that democracy is one of their nation’s triumphs, the fact that ordinary citizens are being excluded from the political process is a disgrace. This article was written by Savannah Billman. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Dylan Crow