Select an issue concerning voting rights or practices and briefly tell us your thoughts about it.
By Hannah LaRose, South Burlington High School
One prominent issue with voting practices in the U.S. is voter suppression. This scheme has been used by many public officials for most of this country’s history to prevent certain peoples from voting, and effectively skewing election results. One suppression effort takes the form of unprecedented voter ID laws. Thirty six states have photo identification requirements at the polls, and with over twenty one million American citizens not having a government issued ID, voter turnout is reduced by two to three percentage points. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, this translates to tens of thousands votes lost in a single state, because ID cards are not accessible to everyone. Another way that politicians use voter suppression is by enacting voter registration restrictions, such as defunding voter registration drives, reducing the window of time a voter can register, limiting early voting, and even repealing same day registration. These, in conjunction with strict photo ID laws are meant to target the votes of people that will vote against the politicians that are putting these laws in place. However, our country was built on the principle that every citizen is given the right to vote, and laws should not be put in place to disenfranchise certain people. Furthermore, our democratic society should value the ideas and opinions of everyone, and aim to bring as many people as possible into the political process of voting.