"Everything old is new again." It’s a saying that I never dreamed might one day apply to the issue of voting rights in this country.
When I turned 18, I wasted no time getting downtown to the Forrest County Courthouse to register to vote. My mother had drummed into me the importance of voting. Having grown up poor in rural Greene County, she was an educated woman whose success was self-made. Like other Black citizens of her generation in South Mississippi, she lived the struggle for her right to vote.
I remember the stories she'd tell me about former Forrest County Circuit Clerk Theron Lynd, who, almost literally, stood in the door to keep African Americans from becoming voters. Lynd eventually lost that battle when voting rights were granted to every American citizen.
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. It expanded the 14th and 15th amendments by barring the overt racial discrimination practiced by the white power structure, particularly in the Deep South. Those barriers, supported by state and local laws, had been in place for nearly a century.
One provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Section 5, has been under attack by those seeking to limit minority voter access. That section required federal approval and preclearance before changing voting laws in specific states, counties and townships. Recently, two petitions filed to eliminate Section 5 refer to the rules as burdensome and "needlessly aggressive." Notably, Section 5 has been used in attempts to block voter-ID laws and prohibit or reduce early-voting periods in states like Florida.
Sadly, 2022 is beginning to look a lot like the America of 60 years ago. Republican state legislators, stung by Donald Trump's defeat in the 2020 election, are working feverishly to place new laws on the books that will make it harder for Americans, particularly minorities, to vote.
Ironically, the U.S. Supreme Court looks to have paved the way for the latest drive to limit voting rights with 2013's Shelby County (Alabama) v. Holder decision. That case, which had failed in lower district courts, eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, where Shelby County got its "win." The court ruled that jurisdictions still under the preclearance order no longer needed to seek federal approval. The court said the formula was outdated.
Chief Justice John Roberts stated in his opinion that conditions had "unquestionably improved," and "things have changed in the South. Voter turnout and registration now approach parity. Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare."
Not so fast, Mr. Chief Justice.
The court's ruling allowed Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to sign a law last March encompassing a potpourri of voter suppression tactics. They include reducing the number of ballot boxes. One Georgia county, rural Lincoln County, proposes cutting its number of polling places from seven to just one. More egregious, Kemp's law allows state officials to negate the work of county election officials if they don't like the outcome. The bill even bans outside groups from giving water or food to voters stuck in long lines.
Over in Texas, the number of rejected mail-in ballot applications is skyrocketing in some counties under new Republican-authorized voting restrictions signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott. The state's crackdown is hitting hardest in the state's most densely populated counties, which tend to have larger concentrations of voters of color who, more often than not, vote for Democrats. In Travis County, home to Austin, Texas' state capital, a blue island in a sea of Texas red, nearly 50% of all mail-ballot applications have been rejected. That's up from only about 11% in the 2020 election cycle.
What can we do about all of this? Well, apparently, not much.
Two landmark bills, the Senate's Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act were merged into the Freedom to Vote: John Lewis Act, which the House of Representatives passed. But its fate was doomed before it even reached the Senate floor.
In an effort to circumvent the 60 votes needed to pass the act, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer brought up a vote on a rules change to move the legislation forward with a one-time exemption. Unsurprisingly, the move was fiercely opposed by Republicans and two members of his own party, Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. The two senators stood in the way of eliminating the Senate's filibuster rule allowing both bills to pass with a simple 50 plus one majority, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting a tie-breaking vote.
The Freedom to Vote Act would have standardized election laws and voter access in all 50 states. That part of the bill, named for the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, would have been an upgrade to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
All this leaves one to wonder, why would fair and reasonable people, let alone two United States senators, take issue with a law that makes voting, our country's most precious right, easier?
Why, suddenly, has "voter fraud" become such a big concern? I've been voting since 1975 and it was rarely an issue, until today.
Enter one Republican president who, soundly defeated in his bid for a second term, introduces into public discourse a lie for the ages — the election had been "stolen" from him. Repeating that lie at every opportunity, then propagated by the usual media suspects and on the Internet, the lie has taken root. And now, I fear, that lie jeopardizes the future of this country.
Everything old is new again.
Elijah Jones is a proud Hattiesburg native who enjoys writing. Email him at edjhubtown@aol.com.
