As election season moves closer and closer to the pivotal day in November, individuals at the local, state and national level are revamping the fight to completely restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In Ohio the pressure is on Sen. Rob Portman to vote “Yes” on one of two bills: the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2015 (HR 2867), introduced last month; and the Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2015 (HR 885), introduced last year. Both would restore “preclearance,” which is what some have called the heart of the original VRA. It once protected minority voters from changes to voting rights and procedure by requiring federal approval for any changes attempted by a historically discriminatory county or state.
Preclearance was omitted in 2013 along with other protections guaranteed under the VRA in the landmark Shelby v Holder court decision. Since its disappearance, 17 states, including Ohio, have passed restrictions on voting, from what ID is required, to cutting back on early voting, to changing and combining polling stations without notice.
Voting rights seem to be even more critical now than in the 2008 election, when minority populations were mobilized at rates never before seen. The youth and minority vote are the reason President Barack Obama was elected in 2008. According to a blog post by UCLA Voting Rights Project Director Dale Ho, a quarter of the eligible electorate that year was made up of people of color, with Hispanic participation increasing by a quarter and Asian American participation up 20 percent.
In Ohio, between the 2004 and 2008 elections, Black voter turnout increased by 41 percent. Obama’s margin of win increased by 41 percent, 68 percent, 113 percent and 1,106 percent in the election’s battleground states: Indiana, Ohio, Florida and North Carolina, respectively.
“As if by coincidence, many of the new restrictions seem surgically targeted at these newly-emergent segments of the electorate,” Ho said. “In state after state, courts have found that minorities are less likely to have government-issued IDs. For years, early voters as a group were disproportionately white but that changed dramatically in 2008 … Suddenly, states began cutting back on early voting.”
Both of the bills propose restoring preclearance, as well as protections for minorities against discriminatory voting changes, like only offering voting materials in English, reducing or consolidating polling stations or adding/subtracting seats that could diminish the affect of the minority vote. The bills also broaden access to voting and registration for Indian reservations and mandates that voting materials be offered in all Native languages.
“Ohio Democrats are working to ensure that every eligible voter is registered, every registered voter is able to vote, and that every vote is accurately counted,” said David Pepper, Ohio Democratic Party Chairman, in a press release. “Our democracy is better when more people participate in the process, and I applaud Senator Sherrod Brown and other lawmakers who are working to strengthen the Voting Rights Act and bring our voting laws into the 21st century.”
Both bills are at a standstill. The Amendment Act hasn’t seen any action since March of last year, when it was referred to the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice. The Advancement Act was only just introduced to the House June 24.
For more information, visit www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2867.