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The forthcoming Fall Kick-Off, Better Choices at the Ballot Box, prompted Vice President Tina Birnbaum to recollect on our long battle for voter’s rights.
Because our Fall Kick-Off—(announcement below)–will tackle the issues of Ranked Choice and Final Five voting, I have been thinking a lot about voting lately. Ranked Choice Voting is a strategy to make elections better reflect the will of the voters. The concepts amaze me because I am old enough to remember when African-Americans living in the South couldn’t vote at all because of Jim Crow laws and other repressive voting practices.
Our journey to voting fairness has a long history. Following the Civil War, Reconstructionists hoped that the 4 million formerly enslaved Black men could pursue the promise of voting and democracy. However, the hopes of Reconstruction were not fulfilled: the dreams of equal rights shifted as state laws moved to preserving the prevailing white-controlled power structure.
Civil rights and voting rights would have a long and arduous path. Black people were repressed and lynched in the era of the Ku Klux Klan. Jim Crow laws effectively barred Black citizens from voting. Historically, in Selma, Alabama, for example, the voting rolls were 99% white even though Black residents outnumbered whites.
Fast forward to the 1960’s, people supporting civil rights engaged in marches and protests throughout the country. Some rode buses down south to register voters at great personal peril, risking getting jailed, beaten, or even murdered.
Ultimately, President Lyndon Johnson, in a nationally televised joint session of Congress in March of 1965, asked that a national Voting Rights Act be passed. This was successful and voting became more accessible.
In 2013, however, the Supreme Court, in Shelby County v. Holden, weakened the Voting Rights Act. Some states used that wedge as a way to keep minorities from the polls and to put up a variety of barriers to voting and keeping votes from being counted. Then on July 10, 2023, members of the House introduced the “election integrity” bill that would loosen rules on campaign contributions and make it harder to vote. Some members of the House and Senate fought back by reintroducing the Freedom to Vote Act.
The right to vote is an ongoing issue. This battle is still being fought. It is one of the chief reasons the League of Women Voters exists!
As we work to expand and extend our civil liberties, ideas such as Ranked Choice Voting can potentially allow greater participation in the electoral process. It can eliminate the “spoiler effect” that can occur when third party candidates participate in elections.
For example, people who vote for a third party candidate, rather than a traditional Democrat or Republican, might be dismayed to learn that their candidate took away enough votes from their second place choice so that their least favored candidate ended up winning. The guilt! The shame! The regret! Ranked Choice Voting may offer a solution to these issues.
Come to the September 19 Fall Kick-off to learn more!
Thanks to Heather Cox Richardson's Letters From An American newsletter for some of the historical background and for reminding us about the immediacy of this issue.
Tina Birnbaum
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