Former President Barack Obama’s 2020 eulogy of Congressmember John Lewis was a clarion call to the electorate. Although the Voting Rights Act was passed 55 years earlier, Obama reminded attendees that “there are those in power who are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting.” As we approach the last leg of the 2024 presidential race, safeguarding voting rights requires the same dogged tenacity that was central to Lewis’s legacy.
Three years ago, civil rights and grassroots groups mobilized support for the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. The bills intended to restore long-standing voter protections that were invalidated by the federal courts, expand ballot access, curb partisan gerrymandering, and curtail voter suppression tactics.
Dr. Sekou Franklin
The legislative measures were defeated by a Republican Party filibuster in the Senate. This occurred despite protests, arrests of activists and Congressional Black Caucus chair Joyce Beatty, and pressures from more than forty groups such as Black Voters Matter Fund, NAACP, Poor People’s Campaign, and National Action Network. University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban even co-signed a letter supporting voting rights.
Despite the momentum for voting rights legislation several years ago, it seems to have faded to the background of this year’s election. Voting rights received no mention in the September Gallop Poll rankings. Prospective voters selected the economy, reproductive rights, immigration, health care, tax policy, and Supreme Court nominations as the most important election issues.
Missing in the polling data and media discussions of voters’ concerns is how ballot access is an intersectional issue. Communities impacted by natural disasters such as hurricanes need election assistance. People living in low-wealth communities are adversely impacted by voter purge laws. Students, especially those at HBCUs, are regularly targeted by voter suppression tactics such as photo id laws and the closure of polling sites near their campuses.
Voter rights also intersect with criminal justice reform. Earlier this year, I assisted with strategy meetings involving NAACP activists for a voter restoration case in Tennessee. At issue was the status of 45,000 people that state officials want to disenfranchise because of prior convictions. Tennessee ranks second in the country in ‘felony’ disenfranchisement, already disqualifying 470,000 people including one-fifth of voting-age Blacks. Yet, state officials are now targeting a new group of eligible voters, which despite their histories in the criminal justice system, never lost their right to vote. The decision is pending due to litigation later this year. If implemented, the state will disenfranchise people who have been eligible to vote for most of their adult lives.
