When the votes were tallied for trump, I wondered how he won. Hilary Clinton won the popular vote, but lost the electoral college votes. The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. Your state’s entitled allotment of electors equals the number of members in its Congressional delegation: one for each member in the House of Representatives plus two for your Senators, (https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/about.html).
Voter suppression has led to millions of minorities being removed from voter rolls. In 2013, the Supreme Court stripped power from the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Supreme Court’s decision allowed districts to change voting requirements without approval from the Department of Justice (Anderson, 2018). Carole Anderson provides the history of voter suppression and discusses how voter suppression and gerrymandering has affected the voting rights of minorities.
Time and time again Republicans have cried voting fraud to further restrict minorities right to vote. Republicans have used voter suppression as a means to maintain political power. Carol Anderson placed her research in chronological order to help us see the extent Republicans and racists will go to restrict and eliminate the voices of the marginalized.
This book is a must read to understand the history of voter suppression and a call to action to reverse the damage that has already been done by voter id requirements and gerrymandering. Republicans have removed polling places, restricted early voting and instituted voter id requirements all in the name of eliminating voter fraud; even though voter fraud has been minimal. The truth is these actions were taken to maintain political power and racism.
We are already experiencing the results of voter suppression in our courts, in the murdering of minorities without accountability by the police, and in the laws that are being placed on the books. We have to educate ourselves and then fight the power! Fight so that everybody’s voices are heard through voting.
An interesting part of the book was the outlining of Russia’s involvement in our 2016 presidential election. It is scary to read the lengths some will go to suppress minorities and elect someone that represents only their interests. This book further proves that racism is built into the foundation of the United States and may never be eliminated.
References
The Electoral College. https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/about.html
Anderson, C (2018). One Person, No Vote – How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Democracy. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Publishing
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