The US Election Fix

Now that the election process is getting into full gear in the United States, it is of interest to reflect on its peculiarities.

Americans are often told that voting is a sacred right and the foundation of American democracy. Politicians and the media boast that the United States is the world’s most democratic nation and they are quick to publicise inadequacies in the way that other countries conduct elections. Yet in a country that prides itself on universal suffrage, the United States denies a voice to a large percentage of its citizens. One aspect that distinguish US politics from other countries is the surprisingly low voter participation, especially among the poor. For instance, during the presidential elections of 2008, despite extraordinary efforts by the Obama campaign to mobilize poor and minority voters, a CNN exit poll found that only 18 percent of those who earned an income of less than $30,000 per annum turned out to vote. Turnout in presidential years has declined since 1960, and hovers below 60% of the eligible electorate.The right to vote is under attack all across the country. Conservative legislators are introducing and passing legislation that creates new barriers for those registering to vote, shortens the early voting period, imposes new requirements for already-registered voters. Most of the excluded are Hispanic, black, young, and poor citizens are deterred or excluded from voting. Rather than modernizing democracy to ensure that all citizens have access to the ballot box, these laws hinder voting rights in a manner not seen since the era of Jim Crow laws.

America’s overriding economic success has much to do with its “national consensus”, built around old-fashioned virtues like respect for property rights, free trade and free markets, lower taxes, flexible labour laws, and a culture that fosters individual responsibility and celebrates individual success. This consensus has been kept alive in large measure by keeping its poor away from voting. Restricting the right to vote is supplementary to buying a democracy. First you buy all the political leaders you can, and then you suppress as many votes as possible of the people who might object. The US electoral process effectively filters out significant sections of the poor. As the rich can then rule with less challenge, they put forward policies that enrich them and permits them to rein in welfare expenditure. One of the key ways in which those with great wealth and power in the US preserve the status quo is to deter less privileged citizens from voting. The Unites States has a long history of disenfranchising the poor, right from its first days where only white male land holders could vote. Slavery and segregation and gerrymandering have provided additional opportunities for rigging the relevance of votes. If you are not male, white, and a property owner, then chances are your right to vote only came as a result of a tough and long struggle against forces that have actively engaged in suppressing voting rights at one point or another throughout American history. Republicans have been the leaders in disenfranchising yet Democrats have not done much to prevent it. Rutgers University professor Lorraine Minnite has done some of the most extensive research into the history of voting in the US. She explained: “We should not forget that both parties have engaged in this kind of behavior. It was the Democratic Party in the South that committed the worst violence in terms of trying to suppress the African American vote.” - The Dixiecrats. The most notorious of this was the Jim Crow laws preventing Afro-Americans from voting after the abolition of slavery and the passage of the 15th Amendment following the Civil War. Among the means used were levying a poll tax (a fee) in order to vote. Another required those seeking to register to pass a literacy test. Racial discrimination in elections was officially outlawed by the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Voter Disenfranchisement

Since the US have the largest prison population in the world 5.4 million American offenders and ex-offenders, at least four million of those people have completed their sentences or are on probation or parole, according to NPR --1 in every 40 voting age adults-- about 2.5 percent of the electorate--- are denied the right to participate in democratic elections. 35 states still prohibit some combination of persons on probation, parole, and/or people who have completed their sentence from voting.Racial disparities in the criminal justice system also translate into higher rates of disenfranchisement in communities of color, resulting in one of every eight adult black males being ineligible to vote (In some American states that figure is as high as 1 in 4). While prisoners are ineligible to vote in most countries, a number of US states permanently disqualify felons who have fully served their prison sentences. Two states (Florida and Iowa) made it substantially more difficult or impossible for people with past felony convictions to get their voting rights restored. (Recall, too, that most of the prison population is poor and people of colour.)

Registration requirements. In order to be eligible to vote in the US, one must register to be placed on the voting rolls. In the US, unlike some other Western democracies, you are not automatically registered to vote if you are eligible, and you won’t get a notice in the mail telling you where to show up to cast your ballot. The onus is upon you to sign yourself up. In most states, the registration process is complex and cumbersome. Citizens must register before the election and at times and places that are not well known or publicised. By contrast, in many countries, citizens are automatically registered when they reach voting age, or can register throughout the year at their local town hall. New proof of citizenship laws will be in effect in three states (Alabama, Kansas, Ten­nessee). Civil society organisations in Florida now have 48 hours instead of 10 days to sign up a new voter, double check all the details on their registration form, and submit that form to the state. Making a mistake on a submitted form is now a felony under Florida’s new rules, punishable with jail time and fines.

Eligibility. Several measures further trim the electorate. For example, one must have lived in a community a sufficient length of time to register to vote. The residency requirement especially affects college students. An analysis of one roster showed that several of those facing challenge were African American soldiers whose address changed because they were shipped overseas. Maine has abolished Election Day registration. In 2008, 60,000 Maine citi­zens registered and voted on Election Day.

The act of voting. The difficulties of exercising the franchise do not end with registration. In most countries, voting occurs on Sunday, a day of leisure (although for the UK it is a Thursday). Elections in the United States are typically held on Tuesday - a weekday and therefore an inconvenient time for many citizens to reach the polls. Voting days are not holidays and the poor, who typically hold jobs with hourly pay, find it difficult or costly to vote. Nor is there much provision for early or absentee voting. The early voting period was cut by half or more in three states (Florida, Georgia and Ohio). In 2008, nearly 8 million Americans voted early in these states. An esti­mated 1 to 2 million voted on days eliminated by these new laws. Nationwide, in our presidential elections, about 2 million votes are cast and never counted, most spoiled because they cannot be read by the tallying machines. Not everyone's vote spoils equally. Harvard Law School Civil Rights Project indicate that, of the 2 million ballots spoiled in a typical presidential election, about half are cast by minority voters. Cleveland State University Professor Mark Salling analyzed ballots thrown into Ohio's electoral garbage can. Salling found that, "overwhelmingly," the voided votes come from African American precincts. A U.S. Civil Rights Commission investigation concluded that, of nearly 180,000 votes discarded in Florida in the 2000 election as unreadable, a shocking 54 percent were cast by black voters, though they make up only a tenth of the electorate. In Florida, an African American is 900 percent more likely to have his or her vote invalidated than a white voter. In New Mexico, a Hispanic voter is 500 percent more likely than a white voter to have her or his ballot lost to spoilage. Many officials are quite happy with the outcome of elections in which minority votes just don't count. They count on the "no-count." It is now time to making counting that vote a right, not just casting it.

According to a recent report from NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice, “More than 5 million Americans could be affected by the new rules already put in place this year — a number larger than the margin of victory in two of the last three presidential elections.” These new restrictions include tougher laws requiring photo IDs, proof of citizenship, removal of early and absentee voting, and making it harder to restore voting rights after criminal convictions.

The goal of voter suppression efforts is to reduce the number of eligible voters. Since 2009, sixteen Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed laws ending same-day voter registration or limiting voter registration drives. The voter suppression movement has also sought to limit early and absentee voting. It has sought to overturn reforms authorising former felons to regain voting rights after completing their sentence. In Florida, for example, the state legislature restored the exclusion of the formerly incarcerated. One half million were affected by the measure, half of whom are black. Another way that citizens can be prevented from voting is to require them to produce documentation that is difficult to obtain, such as a birth certificate, as proof of citizenship. Obtaining a birth certificate from local officials is time-consuming, cumbersome, and costly. Prior to 2011, only two states required citizens to provide birth certificates before registering. Since then, 13 additional states have added this requirement or are considering doing so. But the most important measure in the arsenal of the voter suppression movement involves requiring citizens to produce a government-issued identification card, particularly a driver’s license, in order to vote. Nine states have recently passed legislation requiring government-issued photo IDs to vote; more than 20 other states are considering doing so. Take Texas, you’ll be allowed to vote if you present a military ID or a concealed-gun license—but not if you present your college ID. What’s the big deal with wanting people to present a photo ID when they vote? 22 per cent (almost a quarter) of African Americans don’t have any kind of photo ID.

A key player in voter suppression, whose draft legislation has been used as a model in many states, is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), funded by the ultra-conservative billionaire Koch brothers, Exxon Mobil, UPS, AT&T, (Coca-Cola have recently disassociated itself). The supposed purpose of such legislation that is is to reduce corruption and illegal voting is questionable when it is noted that during George W Bush’s presidency, the Department of Justice conducted an intensive five-year investigation of voter fraud. The result? A grand total of 86 people out of 300 million votes cast in national elections during these years were convicted for voter fraud. As New York Times commentator Paul Krugman describes it, “ALEC has played a key role in promoting bills that make it hard for the poor and ethnic minorities to vote.” At the same time, ALEC urges legislators to fight the “federal takeover” of state election procedures, objecting in particular to universal standards for voting procedures. They wish to cherry-pick the individual states that they can manipulate.

The real motivation for the attempt to restrict the electorate is partisan and ideological. The fewer the number of youth, blacks, Hispanics, and low income citizens who vote, the greater the Republican Party’s electoral prospects. The states that have restricted voting rights also have 185 Electoral College votes, two-thirds of the 270 needed to win the presidency. Out of the twelve battleground states in the upcoming election, five have already restricted voting rights and two others are considering new limitations. Backed by large corporate donors, the conservatives are looking for any proposal or law that will help manipulate voting demographics. While this is their motivation, the right to vote is a right that should be protected from partisan interference by those of all political persuasions.

We must view with suspicion attempts to restrict or limit our legal rights by carefully considering the motives that lie behind such moves. For we need to use these rights to organise and spread socialist understanding so a socialist majority can capture political power, end capitalism and establish socialism.