This website briefly presents recent data pertaining to state legislation on voting. Several important laws that impact voting abilities are presented in the map below and explained in detail afterwards. Some states pass laws making it easier to vote while others pass stricter laws. This data is especially relevant now as many states have gotten stricter with their voting laws, with one important moment being the conclusion of the Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court case in 2013. A key dimension in the issue of voting laws is that of voter suppression, the systematic disabling and discouragement of minority votes.
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People need to meet certain requirements before they are able to vote in the United States. One requirement is that one must be a U.S. citizen. Citizenship eligibility has changed throughout the nation's history, which, among other privileges, has affected voting eligibilties of certain people. The Fourteenth Amendment largely contributed toward widespread African American eligibility. As another example, the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 was the first step toward a U.S.-born Native Americans vote.
In both of these cases, however, other laws had to pass and be implemented for mass enablement, especially at the state level. For example, individual states still prohibited Native Americans from voting despite their status as citizens. This illustrates the importance of legislation and policy aligning at all levels for true voter empowerment.
Many of the recent laws passed at the state level relate to the other basic requirements of voting. The following statements illustrate the connection between state laws and nationwide voting requirements. One must be 18 years old in order to vote, but some states make it easier for 18 year old people to vote than others. One has to to vote in their assigned district, which states differentailly enforce. Registration is another prerequisite for voting, which also differs from state to state.
Judges of the state of Wisconsin made headlines in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic for ruling in favor of a conventional election day. At the state level, people were confronted with the decision to vote in a potentially deadly environment or miss out altogether. Many people opted out of voting, and some of those who voted possibly fell ill while doing so. This was not the result of laws in same way as the other examples are, but this was a state-level decision that contributed to voter discouragement by holding an in-person election during a viral outbreak.
Indeed, it is at the state level where many of the federal decisions come to fruition or become practically useless. Today, state governments enjoy greater influence over voting laws than they did before, largely because of the 5-4 Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder.
The Fifteenth Amendment protects citizens from discriminatory voting prohibitions, most notably racist prohibitions. Following the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, the States took advatange of their rights, courtesy of the Tenth Amendment and Article Four of the Consitution, to undo its enfranchisement. Voter suppression infamously manifested as literacy tests and poll taxes, along with other tactics that usually hindered black Americans from voting. Nearly a century after the Fifteenth Amendment, one of the country's most important voting rights acts (1965) prohibited certain districts from changing their election laws. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 targeted very suppressive districts. Whenever these districts changed their election processes, they were obligated to report their intention to not negatively impact minorities. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 targeted the places which had voting tests and less than a 50 % voter turnout in 1964.
However, the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was brought into question in Shelby County v. Holder. The court case had two sections from the Act that were of interest. The sections made places prove to the either the Attorney General or a D.C. district court judge panel that they were not discriminating against minorites. The 5-4 decision was that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was unconstitutional. To justify the decision, the judges said that the discrimination targeted by the Section was no longer an issue. Once that decision passed, states no longer had to answer to an authority concerning the potentially negative effects of their election laws. The result has been stricter laws, which, like before, act to suppress minority votes.
Early voting, as in voting before election day, in the United States initially served to accommodate rural voters who had to travel far to cast a ballot. This practice dwindled into late 20th century, with many states only offering an option for absentee voting. Even then, an excuse had to provided, as is still the case in some states. There are drawbacks to early in-person voting such as greater costs for campaigning and the possibility of prematurely casting a vote. The recent resurgence of early voting in most states has been largely an accessibility issue. Many Americans do in fact vote before election day, with probably a third of them doing so during the 2010s. While there are a number of reasons why people might vote early, one obvious motivation is to avoid the struggle of voting on a work day. The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases information relevant to this topic. Certain lines of work yield less days off than others, with minority populations typically occupying these less accommodating positions. There are other obstacles to voting on a single predefined day, such as obligations to caretaking. Lastly, just as rural voters were given a larger window of time by the first implementations of early voting, rural voters today need to set aside more time if they wish to reach a polling place.
Provisional ballots give people a chance to vote when they otherwise couldn't. Usually, a person acquires a provisional ballot when their voting eligibility cannot be validated. These special ballots are typically set aside and then determined to be either legitimate or not. States have different procedures for provisional votes. The end results of provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct are depicted in the map above. However, the states also differ in what can warrant a provisonal ballot. Some states, for example, give out provisional ballots when a person's name or address changes. Some states will not give provisional ballots under such circumstances. There are also various methods for addressing provisional ballots at a later date, which either requires some action from the voter, such as definitively proving eligibility, or a careful inspection by local elections officials. Finally, there are different reasons for nullifying provisional ballots. One of the most common reasons is that the voter is not registered. Some places are stricter, requiring voters to show a valid photo ID in a certain time frame lest the provisional ballot is rejected.
All states have paper registration, but not all states have online registration. Online registration generally costs less per applicant than paper registration. This probably explains the currently high adoption rate of onilne registration at the state level. For voters, online regstration methods offer convenience and expedience. However, this assumes that a given voter can access and navigate the internet. Also, some voters are uncomfortable submitting their sensitive information online. Therefore, states that offer both paper and online registration are the most enabling.
Out of the laws explored here, voter ID laws are probably most associated with current attempts at voter suppression. The more identification requirements there are, the less racial minorities, low-income populations, and elderly populations are able to vote. Stricter laws result in lower participation across the board, but the demographics mentioned are disproportionately affected. A key obstacle for these groups are the costs of getting photo IDs. Also, less abled people are not as likely to gather all necessary documents for their state and report to a polling place on time. Critics of these new laws point out that the country was improving its voting policies before the recent wave of restrictive state legislation. Promoters of these new laws often point to voter fraud as a reason for having them.
