6 Startling Ways Voter Disenfranchisement Against Black People From the Reconstruction Era Still Exists Today

There have been ploys to suppress the Black vote since the Reconstruction Era of 1865-1877. And even since the Voting Rights Act of 1965, many of the same tactics from the 19th century are used today to prevent or make it difficult for African-Americans to vote. Fraud Electoral fraud by ballot box stuffing, throwing out non-Democratic votes or counting them for the Democrats even when cast for the opposition, was the norm in the Southern states before legal means of disenfranchisement were entrenched. Between 1880 and 1901, Congress seated 26 Republican or Populist congressional candidates who had been "defeated" through electoral fraud, according to the book "Shaping of Southern Politics." Who does not remember the uneasy feeling that came in 2000 when there were “hanging chads” on ballots in Florida, causing a recount. The Florida vote was ultimately settled in favor of then-presidential candidate George W. Bush by just 537 votes out of nearly 6 million cast. The Florida Supreme Court ordered a recount, but the U.S. Supreme Court stopped it, giving Bush the most votes in the Electoral College — and the presidency. Violence or Threats of Violence In 1873, a gang of white people in Colfax, Louisiana, murdered more than 100 Black people who were assembled to defend Republican officeholders. This was, of course, back when Republicans had some cache to Black people. Federal prosecutors indicted three of them, but the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the indictments in U.S. v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 in 1875, according to the book "The Geography of Race in the U.S." Last November, before the midterm elections, the Justice Department sent out a release announcing its Civil Rights Division would conduct in-person monitoring of polling activities in 28 jurisdictions in 18 states to prevent any number of voting-rights violations, including violence or the threat of violence. Literacy Tests Perhaps the first literacy test aimed at keeping Black people away from the ballot box was South Carolina’s notorious “eight-box” ballot, adopted in 1882. In the test, as explained in “The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South,” voters had to put ballots for separate offices in separate boxes. A ballot for the governor’s race put in the box for the Senate seat would be thrown out. The order of the boxes was continuously shuffled, so that literate people could not assist illiterate voters by arranging their ballots in the proper order. The adoption of the secret ballot constituted another implicit literacy test, since it prohibited anyone from assisting an illiterate voter in casting his vote. In 1890, Southern states began to adopt explicit literacy tests to disenfranchise voters. Today, some voting ballots and instructions are completely confusing, according to a study by the National Institute of Standards in Technology. Ballots have confusing information on how to place your vote, how to proceed while voting, how to cancel a bad vote and on and on. Convoluted Registration Practices Even if Black people could read or had money, racist registration practices were created to make their efforts to vote miserable. Southern states made registration difficult by requiring frequent re-registration, long terms of residence in a district, registration at inconvenient times (for example, planting season), provision of information unavailable to many Black people (for example, street addresses, when Black neighborhoods lacked street names and numbers), and so forth. When Black people managed to qualify for the vote even under these measures, registrars would use their discretion to deny them the vote anyway. Alabama’s constitution of 1901 was explicitly designed to disenfranchise Black people by such restrictive and fraudulent means. Today’s tactics are a drastically different, more sophisticated but no less obvious. A 2013 study by the Pew Charitable Trusts indicated the registration practices, which varied by state, and execution of voting were “deep and widespread, extending beyond isolated voting issues in a few locations and flaring up in states rich and poor.” Many issues impact voter registration like inadequate resources, clerical errors and failures to timely notify registrants of problems with their registration forms. In recent elections, jurisdictions have not scheduled sufficient staff to work on the days prior to the registration deadline when demand for services is heightened. Additionally, elections office employees often make errors while inputting registration data into the jurisdiction’s database. These errors create problems for voters on Election Day, especially with respect to voter identification. Furthermore, elections employees frequently fail to timely notify registrants of errors or omissions in their applications. This means the individual does not have an opportunity to correct his/her registration and is subsequently ineligible to vote. Voter ID Black people with IDs had trouble voting during Reconstruction, so you know what it was like without one. Today, some states, like Wisconsin for example, are trying to pass laws that are requiring people to present birth certificates to certify their eligibility to vote when they never had to before. The Center for American Progress Action Fund cited Ruthelle Frank as an example of voter disenfranchisement through voter ID. Frank voted in every election since 1948, despite being paralyzed on her left side since birth. But she was unable to vote in 2012 because new laws said she had to provide a birth certificate, something she never had and never prevented her from voting all her life. With the birth certificate she could not secure a state ID, which was required to vote. Redistricting or Gerrymandering Every 10 years, county commission, state House and Senate and U.S. House of Representatives districts are redrawn based on population changes reported in the U.S. Census, according to the Detroit Free Press. This is an old trick taken from the 19th century. GOP leaders see population growth in Black communities that vote heavily for Democrats and change the boundaries to spit these Democratic voting bases. These “new” boundaries not only are huge during state and city elections, but they impact politicians who have made their marks in particular areas they serve because many times the number of their supporters is reduced, which works in their opponents’ favor. Poll Taxes If you didn’t have money, you didn’t have a vote: Georgia initiated the poll tax in 1871, and made it cumulative in 1877 (requiring citizens to pay all back taxes before being permitted to vote). Every former Confederate state followed its lead by 1904. Although these taxes of $1 or 2 per year may seem small, it was beyond the reach of many poor Black sharecroppers, who rarely dealt in cash. The Georgia poll tax probably reduced overall turnout by 16 percent to 28 percent, and Black turnout in half, according to "The Shaping of Southern Politics." The purpose of the tax was plainly to disenfranchise, not to collect revenue, since no state prosecuted any individual for failure to pay the tax. Poll taxes are disguised today as moving voting locations long distances for Black voters who may not have transportation to get there.

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