With midterm elections on the horizon, voters across America soon will weigh their choices. They should also be thinking hard about another critical aspect to this election season — the broad, systematic campaign underway to suppress access to the vote, a movement particularly directed at Americans of color.
The scale of that campaign, led principally by Republican-controlled state legislatures, is both disquieting and dangerous. Last year, 19 states passed laws restricting access to voting through an array of measures, from barriers to voting by mail to cumbersome voter ID requirements and restrictions on what steps election officials can take to help foster voter access. This year, even more states have bills on the table that in essence enable voter suppression.
The driving force behind these laws, of course, is the groundless belief perpetuated by former President Donald Trump and his followers that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. A raft of court decisions found GOP claims of election fraud to be baseless, but that hasn’t stopped Republican-controlled statehouses from skewing election laws in the GOP’s favor under the guise of election security.
