Voter Suppression in Minority Communities: Learning From the Past to Protect Our Future

On Feb. 26, 2020, Marcia Johnson-Blanco, co-director of the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Reform committee. At the hearing, “Voter Suppression in Minority Communities: Learning From the Past to Protect Our Future,” Johnson-Blanco explained that since the landmark Shelby County v. Holder decision in 2013, which gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, there has been a steady series of actions taken by states to make it harder for people of color to vote. 

• In Texas, a voter identification law was implemented that discriminated against African Americans and Latinos, making these voters two to three times less likely to possess the correct ID needed to vote;
• In North Carolina, the state legislature passed a bill that cut the early voting period, created a photo ID requirement, eliminated same-day voter registration, and got rid of out-of-precinct voting, disenfranchising minority, poor, and elderly voters;
• In Louisiana, almost 61% of districts closed polling locations; and 
• In Georgia, counties slashed the number of polling locations,  and changed the location of polling sites to be near police departments in majority Black communities. 

Johnson-Blanco also noted that states and local jurisdictions have numerous election administration barriers that disproportionately affect marginalized communities. There have been aggressive voter roll purges; states are delaying or denying voter registration to naturalized U.S. Citizens; absentee ballots are rejected in large numbers for arbitrary reasons; and non-english speakers often have difficulty finding language support to understand their ballot. 

Read the full testimony here.