What Barriers Exist in Today's Voting System in America?

Hailey Hyowon Jang
Oct 2, 2020
4 min read

Civil rights leaders and activists such as Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X have risked their lives protesting for their right to vote because in a racist nation where African Americans were continued to be considered inferior even after the abolishment of slavery, they had no choice but to stand up to receive the same rights they should have been entitled to as citizens of the United States. As a result of their diligent efforts, not only African Americans but also Latinos, the disabled, women, and other minority groups in America were able to gain the right to vote without voter suppression due to the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by President Johnson.

One of the key portions of the Voting Rights Act had been Section 5, which was intended as “preclearance,” making sure that states with a history of voting discrimination would not make voting changes that would be considered discriminatory. Literacy tests and other barriers created in the past especially aimed at barring African Americans from voting were also banned by the Voting Rights Act. Unfortunately, in 2013, the Supreme Court ruled in the Shelby County v. Holder (2013) case that the Voting Rights Act was no longer valid, and claimed that application of Section 5 was unconstitutional, taking back the protection this Act gave for African Americans in the voting process. In addition to the taking back of the Act, several voter restrictions and barriers are now in place in many states. Such methods of suppression make it harder for certain populations to vote, therefore minimizing their vote and voice instead of giving them an equal opportunity as other people would receive.

One barrier remaining today in exercising the right to vote is states requiring voters to present ID, such as a photo ID: this can decrease the number of younger people and people of color voting, as well as people who do not have P.O Box addresses, such as those without homes or Native Americans who live on reservations. Moreover, reports claim that materials are not being translated and language assistance is not being given in local jurisdictions when these are required by law. This prevented an increased turnout for voting among minorities in the Asian American and Latino communities who were not given the same tools. Additionally, reduced early voting and voting hours played a role in having less people vote. By reducing voting hours, people with inflexible schedules find it more difficult to go to voting stations. Those who live on a tight schedule tend to be working-class or low-income people who do not have the leisure to decide to go to or leave work whenever, meaning that less voting hours targets those in lower classes. More barriers in voting include closure of polling places without notice, not enough funding for elections, and corrupted ballot requirements.

Other than such methods of barring voters, there are systems within America that undermine certain populations. One such system is gerrymandering, a method governing parties utilize. Two specific practices used often are packing and cracking: packing is used to gather most of the opposing party’s voters in a district while cracking is distributing the opposing party’s voters. Parties’ intents are to rearrange the boundaries so more seats will be won by a party’s candidates, and they rig and manipulate the drawing of district maps, thus reducing the significance of individual voters’ votes for the sake of winning. When this system was brought before the Supreme Court regarding if it violates the Constitution, the Court dismissed gerrymandering based on voters’ race as unconstitutional but was unable to dismiss party-based maps due to a standard that has not been agreed upon to decide which maps are acceptable and which are not. To create a solution and protect voter’s rights, state courts and constitutions can tighten their grounds for fixing gerrymanders since the national Constitution has less power to do so. For example, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court did not follow the state’s Republican-drawn district map, and as a result, the Democrats were able to win largely in the 2018 House elections.

Another system in use currently is the electoral college, one that has been used since our Founding Fathers as an attempt to keep democracy and balance citizens’ vote along with Congress’s. When citizens vote for president, they are in fact electing their state-based electors, which there are 538 of, meaning that for a candidate to win, he or she must win 270 of them. While this system may keep balance between citizens and Congress, it also means that a candidate who won the popular vote, or the citizens’, may not become president because he or she did not win the electoral vote. Because candidates who may not be favored by the majority of the citizens can win, it reduces the impact voters have on their own lives.

To protect the citizens’ voting rights and allow for a more fair election, past Democratic presidential candidates for the 2020 election such as Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Pete Buttigieg, suggest a new system to override the electoral college. They propose that whoever wins the direct national popular vote will become president. Of course, this is simpler said than done because to make such a drastic change requires a constitutional amendment with high approval rates. Though difficult to accomplish, a new system can make a change in how voters realize they can change their country for the better when they decide to vote.

While small changes such as enforcing better rules in polling places so that corruption and misguidance of voters does not occur can help make a difference in attracting a higher and more diverse amount of voters, one large change that can be made is bringing back the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which would once again protect the voting rights of everyone and not discriminate based on race, class, gender, or any unnecessarily-held and non-defining standards used to classify the citizens of America.

Works Cited

Carnegie Corporation. “11 Barriers to Voting: Voting Rights.” Carnegie Corporation of New

York, 1 Nov. 2019,

www.carnegie.org/topics/topic-articles/voting-rights/11-barriers-voting/.

“Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act.” Civil Rights Teaching,

www.civilrightsteaching.org/voting-rights/documents-based-lesson/civil-voting-rights-act.

“New Voting Restrictions in America.” Brennan Center for Justice, 1 Oct. 2019,

www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/new-voting-restrictions-america.

Pilkington, Ed. “Electoral College: How Trump Could Lose the Popular Vote and Win Again.”

The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 12 Jan. 2020,

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/12/trump-electoral-college-2020-election-popul

ar-vote.