Moving the Voting Rights Conversation Back to Enforcement

Some people would like us to believe that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is antiquated and no longer necessary. They would like us to think that our country's centuries-old institutional racism — which continues to disenfranchise a large segment of our population, long after black people got the legal right to vote — is actually no longer an issue and that suppressing the minority vote is a thing of the past.

Yeah right.

Voter suppression is alive and well in the U.S. The NAACP's Legal Defense Fund (LDF) recently published an online quiz to promote awareness of the voter suppression tactics still employed by regular people, institutions, and even state leaders 50 years after the passing of the Voting Rights Act. And the NAACP LDF isn't alone in calling out this on-going attack on our fundamental right to vote.

This year a well-documented case in Texas has not only threatened voter turnout but has also put a strain on voter registration efforts there as well. Texas is among the states targeted for special voting protections per Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which ought to help in cases like these. Yet Texas is also one of several states arguing that federal oversight of voting is too costly, unfair, and unnecessary.

One benefit of tools like the NAACP LDF's quiz is to build awareness about voter suppression. Reclaiming facts in this manner can disrupt the kind of status quo thinking that allows cases like the one in Texas to go unconsidered by politicians on the right who seek to weaken the Voting Rights Act. The response we should be advocating from the left, however, cannot end with simply acknowledging that voter suppression exists. Rather, we need to be asking ourselves the same question every day: What are we doing to ensure that everyone gets the opportunity to exercise their right to vote on November 2?

Thousands of Change.org members have already signed a petition asking Congress to uphold the Voting Rights Act in full, and to secure the Act from any state-based challenges. This is a good start. But even while the Voting Rights Act must remain the law of the land, that's not enough. In order for this legal protection to work, the Department of Justice as well as state and local authorities must work to enforce equal access to voting for all citizens. More public conversations around the enforcement of voting rights are needed, in fact, in order to put pressure on law enforcement officials to do their jobs.

We can also help by not letting our communities be intimidated at the polls and by exercising the right to vote ourselves. We can encourage our friends to vote and volunteer for voter registration drives and at polling sites where we can contribute to an atmosphere that does not use intimidation or misinformation tactics to deter voters. We can also become more informed voters and vote for candidates that back voting rights enforcement.

At the end of the day — Election Day — voting is both our right and our responsibility.

Photo credit: Denise Cross