Yesterday the Georgia House passed a bill that could disenfranchise millions of its voters. If this bill becomes law the state would require voters to have ID, restrict ballot drop box locations, and change the deadlines for absentee ballots. This bill is one of many being considered in Republican controlled legislatures throughout the country and it is a direct reaction to the record voter turnout in November 2020. Instead of being joyful that record numbers of people chose to vote during a pandemic, Republican legislatures are in fear that greater turnout could mean a loss of power. Voter suppression is not new, but COVID-19 has shown a light on how bad it has become in the US.
By the time of the November 3rd election, over nine million people in the US had contracted COVID-19, and 231,320 people had died. As coronavirus spread, states took measures to control it, including, but not limited to, shutting down businesses, requiring facemasks, and restricting gatherings. States are responsible for running elections and many passed laws to protect their voting populace.
By September 2020, 18 states plus the District of Columbia had passed laws allowing their Secretaries of State to send ballots or ballot applications to registered voters in the general election. Five states (Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas), which prior to 2020 had strict rules regarding who could request an absentee ballot, chose not to allow voters to use COVID-19 as a reason to request an absentee ballot unless that person were sick or exposed.As COVID-19 ravaged the US, many states decided to make voting from home easier for their residents. Additionally, several states decided to not change their already restrictive voting rules, and some added barriers stating they were “protecting the integrity of the elections”. This culminated in an unprecedented attempt to invalidate an election in which no organized voter fraud was found despite repeated hand recounts in several states. The 2020 election showed record voter turnout and record mail-in/early voting despite the barriers.
2020 Election Turnout
How did these decisions impact voting? Data collected by the United States Elections Project shows that 34% of the US’ eligible population did not vote in 2020. In the 20 states with the highest voter turnout, 25.8% of the eligible population did not vote. In 20 states with the lowest voter turnout, 38.6% of the eligible population did not vote.
Table shows the percentage of the voting-eligible population (VEP) that voted between 2000-2020 and the percent change in voter turnout between 2016 and 2020 among the states with the lowest voter turnout as a percentage of the eligible voting population. The colored lines represent policy changes regarding vote by mail in reaction to COVID-19. Data is from the United States Election Project and the COVID-19 US State Policy Database.
Table shows the percentage of the voting-eligible population that voted between 2000-2020 and the percent change in voter turnout between 2016 and 2020 among the states with the highest voter turnout as a percentage of the eligible voting population. The colored lines represent policy changes regarding vote by mail in reaction to COVID-19. Data is from the United States Election Project and the COVID-19 US State Policy Database.
A record 65.5 million people voted by mail as compared with 2016’s 24.2 million. There was a 13.47% average increase in voter turnout in the 20 states with the lowest proportion of voter turnout. There was a 13.92% increase in the 20 states with the highest proportion of voter turnout. These numbers are close if you look at them in a vacuum; however, they do not represent the same parity.
Many of states with the highest electoral participation have enjoyed a history of voter access and a tradition of relatively high voter turnout, while many of the 20 with the lowest turnout have a history of disenfranchisement and historically lower percentages of the population voting. A 14% increase in voting when one has a history of 70% voter turnout and easy access to the polls is not as significant as a 30% increase in a state with a history of less than 50% voter turnout and a history of voter suppression. Hawaii stands out among the worst-performing states. It has historically had the worst voter turnout of the fifty states. 2020 was the first year that Hawaii implemented universal VBM, and voter turnout in the state has risen 32.33% since the 2016 Presidential election.
Data is from the United States Election Project
Data is from the United States Election Project
A full analysis of these numbers is needed. There are many factors to consider, including the percent change in voter turnout as a proportion of the actual voting population. Additionally, future analysis should look at the number of registrations canceled by states close to the election – such as the 100,000 voters purged in Georgia in 2018, the number of uncounted ballots, the voter turnout rates in the worst-performing states in 2008 and 2012 before the Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act in 2013, and a district by district look at racial demographic information vs. voting rates.
It will be imperative to parse COVID-19 data for cases and deaths that could have resulted from lax protections for the voting populations and poll workers. The above data can help to develop an understanding of how public health policies like allowing VBM or requiring masks at the polls may have impacted the health of a nation already reeling from an uncontained pandemic.
COVID-19, Racial Inequalities…and the Economy
The specter of becoming infected with COVID-19 created a question of health and safety for both voters and poll workers. People were afraid to go in person to the polls but also afraid that their ballots would not count if they were mailed in. This was exacerbated by delays at the US Post Office and reports of unofficial partisan drop boxes or drop boxes being lit on fire.
COVID-19 was certainly on people’s minds when they went to the polls. Whether the expressed concern was fear of continued spread or fear of economic destruction due to containment policies, exit polls show that the top three reasons driving many to the polls were COVID-19, the economy, and/or racial inequalities. While many try to frame these as three separate issues, they are closely tied.
For a variety of long-standing reasons, racial minorities are more heavily impacted by COVID-19 in the US and have faced long histories of voter suppression. Native and African American voters turned out in record numbers. Native Americans, who did not fully realize the right to vote until after WWII, and who have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, may have turned the tide in both the Wisconsin and Arizona elections. Both States had record turnouts. Georgia, which has a long and sordid history with Jim Crow, had a 20.64% increase in voter turnout due in large part to Stacy Abrams and the democratic party’s tremendous efforts to register and educate young black voters in the state.
It was not just people of color that turned out en masse to vote this year; there was record turnout in mail-in-ballots, early voting, and election day turn-out as well. Texas and Tennessee, which both have low turnout as a percentage of the population, saw a greater than 20% increase in voter turnout in the 2020 general election. Both states saw overwhelmingly high counts of Republican ballots.
Claiming Fraud to Restrict Access to the Polls
There is a tremendous amount of political polarization around the issue of expanded VBM in the general election. Before the election, Republicans, most notably President Trump US, were voicing unfounded concerns that some of the measures that ease voter access would also lead to greater levels of fraud. In the aftermath of the election, they have continued these claims in states that Trump lost. Claims of voter fraud are wildly unfounded; the Brennan Center has compiled a series of reports on the subject and has determined that the incidence rate of voter fraud in the US is between 0.003 to .0025 percent.
The states that did not ease access to absentee voting did have safety guides in place for their poll workers; however, these rules did not extend to people coming to the polls to vote meaning poll workers could be masked but voters could refuse. There were numerous reports of poll workers getting the virus in Missouri, New York, Iowa, Indiana, and Virginia; however, there are no definitive ties to polling places as the point of infection. The US was experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases at the time of the election, which has obscured the number of infections that may have resulted from in person voting.
Texas, a state with strict voter access rules, reduced the number of ballot drop off locations in each county to one. Texas also issued rules that if poll workers could not match a mask-wearing voter to their ID and that voter refused to remove their mask, that voter would have to drive to their counties registrar’s office to cast a provisional ballot. These measures are in addition to the myriad of pre-COVID-19 rules that Texas already had in play.
Additionally, Texas extended the early voting period in the lead up to the election, and despite restrictions on early ballot drop off locations; this decision by Texas may have led to a 30% increase in voter turnout over 2016. This is an impressive gain; however, only 61% of the 11 million eligible voters in the state voted. Five million people did not vote for reasons unknown, nor do we know how many tried to vote and were turned away.
Voter Disenfranchisement
Voting rights are becoming increasingly threatened as legislatures are already moving to make voting harder- law makers have proposed three times the number of bills to restrict voting access then at this time last year. The US history of voting rights is abysmal, with only 66% of the eligible voting population votes in general elections. In 1965 Congress passed the Voting Rights Act to protect access to voting, however in 2013, the Supreme Court struck down important aspects of the act, effectively dismantling it. The majority opinion suggested that racial minorities no longer faced the barriers to voting they once did and that any legislation passed by Congress to ensure access to voting must speak to “current conditions.”
Since 2013 The Brennan Center has found that 25 states have implemented new restrictions on voting including voter ID laws, laws making it harder for citizens to register, laws that make voting early or absentee harder, and laws that make it harder to restore voting rights for people with past criminal convictions. Among the states passing these restrictions were Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas.
Conclusion
The COVID-19 crisis has exposed the gaps that exist in our system. including how (and if) a person can vote and the risk they may face when doing so. A vote for president or for legislator, impact who is elected and what laws get implemented. Politicians in some states passed limited measures to protect their residents. Instead of facing the pandemic, some of these politicians have chosen to sow doubt over the validity of the elections, distracting attention and resources away from the public health crisis the US is facing. State and federal lawmakers are already trying to use this doubt to impose stricter restrictions targeting a push for less VBM, more voter ID laws, pushing for fewer drop boxes, and other measures that would limit voting.
States accomplished disenfranchisement by relying on already restrictive rules for voting and fear of the virus to continue a long tradition of low voter turnout. Voter suppression is a perpetual issue in the US, and the 2020 election results provide data that can show just how much small changes to voter laws can impact the proportion of people who will vote in a state or municipality. Congressional access to reduce barriers to voting is imperative and the house and senate should act now to pass legislation to restore the Voting Rights Act and reduce voter intimidation and other deceptive practices.
It is already difficult to vote in the US; many OECD countries regularly report voter turnout between 80 and 90%. Voter protections, education, and other measures will restore some of the lost trust, but these changes would only be the start of and not the final solution. By not extending access to voters to vote in a way that limits contact with others, states have endangered the lives of their residents and forced them to choose between voting and their well-being. Voter access is not a new issue in the US, and this inaction highlights the importance of Congress acting to protect voters.
Data is from the United States Election Project and the COVID-19 US State Policy Database
