Andrea Flores

Professor Apiafi

HED 051

October 23, 2022

Voter Suppression

According to Britannica voter suppression is defined as “any legal or extralegal measure

or strategy whose purpose or practical effects is to reduce voting, or registering to vote, by

members of a targeted racial group, political party, or religious community”. In other words,

voter suppression is when one group of people tries to keep another group of people from

exercising their right to vote. This unfortunately is not a new idea. This has been going on since

the Civil War and it, unfortunately, hasn't slowed down, just changed shape. After the Civil War,

the 14th amendment was put into place and this granted people of color the right to vote if they

were citizens of the United States. However, it was the 15th amendment that stated it was

prohibited to ban people from voting based “on account of race, color, or previous condition of

servitude”. According to ABC news, the last state to ratify this amendment was Tennessee in

1997.

Some examples of how this has worked are the Jim Crow laws, literacy tests, and

denying ex-convicts the right to vote. Only three states currently give everyone the right to vote,

including ex-convicts. Unfortunately, as we have seen in previous TED talks and readings we

know people of color or low economic status tend to be the ones in jail. This also ties back to

how one’s sentence doesn’t end when they leave jail. These people have served their time and yet
they are not allowed to exercise their rights as Americans. These are all different ways different

some groups have tried to single out others and make their ability to vote more difficult if not

impossible.

I believe that voter suppression is real and it does target certain groups. There are

unfortunately bad people in the world and sometimes some of those people find their way into

positions of power. It is sad to know there are still people who view others as less deserving of

basic rights due to their skin color but I know those people are real. We have history to prove that

it is possible to prevent citizens from voting and we live in times where people are proud of their

racist mentality. I grew up in a Hispanic city and we never heard of voting polls or mail-in

ballots, when there were polls they were few and on different ends of the city. When I moved to

Temple City, a more white city, I noticed there were voting polls all over the place and

information was arriving in the mail from the city on how to vote. Now that I’m in school in

Pasadena I see people on campus helping us register to vote, reminding us of important dates,

and even helping me change my address when I moved. I do unfortunately believe that voter

suppression is still a thing today but I do hope it’s getting better.

Voter suppression is a terrible thing and it has unfortunately helped shape and maintain

our nation’s unequal balance of power. More often than not voter suppression is done by the

majority to the minority. By doing this, people have been able to suppress the voices of

minorities and keep them out of positions of power. This can be seen by simply looking at our

congress, our house of representatives, and even our presidents. One out of the 45 people who

have served as president only one was a person of color, none have been women, and none have

been anything but straight in the public eye. The people who are mostly represented in the most

powerful seat of America have been wealthy, straight, white men. Suppressing the voices of
members of this country means we are not properly represented in laws and our voices are not

included when making life-changing decisions.

I think voter suppression can be minimized or even stopped but it is going to take a lot of

work and there will be times it feels like there are more steps backward than forward. For

starters, I think we can copy the three states that allow ex-convicts to vote. As we have seen

people of color are much more likely to be given longer sentences and arrested for smaller

deminers that other people may be given a warning for. There are currently thousands of people

in jail for marijuana-related charges even though it has been decriminalized in many states.

These people were not hurting anyone and yet they are treated as if they were. If we give them

the right to vote we can begin to apologize for putting them in prison for something we have now

criminalized. Not only that but by giving ex-convicts the right to vote we can finally have

someone who has seen the inside of a prison vote on prison reform. As outsiders, we want to

make a difference but we will never know what it’s truly like and what needs to be fixed most

urgently. Another thing we can do is make voting more accessible. So many people who can vote

don’t because of one reason or another. Voting is a right and a civic responsibility that many have

begun to ignore because they feel their voice doesn’t matter or because it has become too

difficult for them to do. We have seen that mail-in ballots are safe and work so this should be a

more common method of voting. As voting seasons come I think it would be good for there to be

classes or sites published where they answer questions about voting and the options citizens

have. Once we take the mystery and hoops out of the equation many more people will be happy

to participate.

I believe that knowing voter suppression is so normalized truly discouraged young

people. Ever since the Watergate scandal, Americans have been losing faith in the government
and I think this is very evident in our generation. We are ready for a change especially when we

feel that our vote doesn’t matter. Not in the sense that we are one in a million people casting a

vote but because we know there are people actively trying to erase our voice. This perhaps fuels

our need to protest but it also fuels our desire to ensure more people register to vote. When the

time for elections come I see so many of my friends post on social media links to register to vote,

screenshots of the nearest voting polls, and even instructions on how to vote by mail. I think

young Americans are aware of voter suppression and that is why we are so vocal in our opinions

because we know we need to be twice as loud in hopes of getting our voices heard.