The Growing Gap Between Whites and Voters of Color

By Norman Franklin

Norman Franklin

“Like a snowball rolling down the side of a snow-covered hill, it’s growing.” That lyric from the classic 1962 love song by the Temptations, “It’s Growing,” captures the impact of restrictive voter legislation. Since the Supreme Court gutted the Voter’s Into the Fray Remembering Joseph Black Jesus and Putin Hodge, the First Black Settler In the Buffalo Area The Growing Gap Between Whites and Voters of Color Rights Act, Shelby v Holder, in 2013, a torrent of state legislatures has introduced and passed restrictions on access to the polls.

The preclearance requirement was lifted. States with a history of voter suppression were free to change voting laws without federal oversight. Texas wasted no time. A voter ID law was implemented the day of the Shelby decision. Legislatures in 47 states introduced 350 restrictive voter bills. Seventeen bills in 14 states were passed into law.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, “Many of these new laws are racially discriminatory. There is ample evidence that these kinds of laws fall hardest on communities of color, and a number have been struck down by courts as racially discriminatory.”

After the record turnout of voters of color in 2008, many states reacted quickly with new voting restrictions. A Black man was elected President; there must be something amiss in the system. Laws were enacted to restrict Sunday voting, mail in voting and to downsize the number of polling places.

These laws, the need for these laws, are not passed in a vacuum. Trends and data are analyzed. The laws are proposed to thwart progress and tighten the grip on power.

“Like the size of the fish that the man claims broke his reel, it’s growing.”

The excuse that the 2020 election was fraudulent metastasized into a cause, a movement that swept across the nation. State legislatures again moved quickly to fix what must be wrong with the voting system. Twenty-one states passed laws restricting mail-in ballot voting.

The Brennan Center for Justice reviewed the Texas law and concluded that it clearly had a racially discriminatory impact. The law requires voters to include their driver’s license number or the last four of their social security number on ballot applications and on the mailed ballots. The numbers must match the voter’s data file. The thousands of rejected mail ballot applications and mail ballots were disproportionally Asian, Latino and Black.

The National Urban League has launched “Reclaim Your Vote.” It is a national effort to promote voter registration, voter education, and voter activation. The National Urban League has more than a hundred affiliates across the nation.

The power of the affiliates, volunteers and strategic partners will engage millions of voters, increase voter turnout, and make their voices heard in their localities. The Voting Rights Act must be restored. Since the courts sledgehammered the protection of Section 5, state legislatures have freewheeled restrictive measures to curtail full participation in the election process.

“If the United States wants to make good on its foundational claims of a democratic system of governance open to all citizens, it must find ways to close the racial gap. Wider now that at any point in at least the past 16 years, the gap costs millions of voters from Americans of color all around the country. Perhaps most worrisome of all, the gap is growing most quickly in parts of the country that were previously covered under preclearance regime of the 1965 Voting Rights Act until the disastrous Shelby County ruling,” states the Brennan Center for Justice.

Mistrust in the voting system fostered by the 2020 election lie; “like the tale by the time it’s been told by more than one, woo, it’s growing.”