Republicans Make It Harder for Minorities to Vote

Republican strategy: Obama’s victory in 2008 was mostly due to an increased turnout of African-Americans, Hispanics, young people and first-time voters. The Republicans have been obsessing over this ever since. Their counter strategy is to mobilize the white core voters while at the same time making it harder for minority groups and poor people to use their right to vote. About a dozen Republican-governed states have instituted new voting rules to minimize the participation of these groups. This means that issues of skin color and ethnic background will certainly come to the forefront again in this year’s presidential election, Erik Åsard writes.

Today, the long line of primary elections begins in America. The first state out of the gate is Iowa, where all the attention is centered on the Republicans (we already know who’s going to get the Democratic nomination). It is now an increasingly homogenous and right-leaning party that is approaching voters. That tendency has been clear not only in the televised debates during the autumn, but in the overall strategy established by Republicans after their loss in 2008.

The presidential election of 2008 was remarkable not only because of the outcome, but also because of the large turnout of voters. More than 131 million people, close to 62 percent of those allowed to vote, went to the voting stations – the highest turnout since 1968. Never before have so many voters from minority groups participated in a presidential election.

Barack Obama’s victory was mostly due to a larger turnout of black people and an increased popularity among Spanish-speaking people, youngsters and first-time voters. It was to be expected that he would easily win the black community (with 95 percent) and the young people (65 percent), but it is worth noting that he also outclassed Republican candidate John McCain among the two fastest growing minorities in America – 67 percent of the Spanish-speaking population and 62 percent of those of Asian origin voted for Obama.

Obama’s triumph gives the Republicans no peace. Their counter strategy was to go for a mobilization of the white core voters with the goal of winning back Congress in 2010, and the presidency in 2012. The strategy was successful in the election for Congress in 2010, when 62 percent of white voters (Hispanics excluded) voted for the Republicans, thereby helping them retake the House of Representatives. They were also helped by the fact that the turnout among minority groups declined significantly, which it usually does in mid-term elections.

It was not self-evident that the Republicans would be going for a strategy totally focused on maximizing the white vote. There were warnings from influential people within the party, for example William Kristol, Grover Norquist and Karl Rove, that a strategy that aims to alienate immigrants and minorities may lead to more painful election losses in the future. Demographist Joel Kotkin estimates that the population of the United States in the year 2050 will reach at least 400 million, an increase of 100 million from what it is today. The greater part of that is expected to consist of minority groups, mostly Asians and Hispanics. The critics admonished that making enemies among these important groups would be a certain way for the party to shoot itself in the foot.

It was all to no avail. The anti-immigration camp, with the enthusiastic support of the Tea Party movement and conservative evangelists, currently has a strong position in the party and sees the 2010 election as a model for the future.

The Republican strategy for this year’s presidential election will be to continue trying to mobilize the white population, while at the same time making it difficult for minorities and low-income groups to use their votes. This strategy is evident in the opposition to immigration that is widespread among Republican politicians and grassroots, as well as in a number of new rules instituted by some states to limit the possibilities to vote.

When Rick Perry entered the fray last autumn, he quickly became the front runner in the struggle for the nomination. But Perry’s destiny was probably sealed when he, in a televised debate, defended the use of tax money to fund the education of children to illegal immigrants. The statement was met by booing from the audience and his polling numbers plummeted. The resistance to reforming immigration policy is strong in Congress, and even Republicans who formerly supported reform (like John McCain) have been forced to change their stance to stay electable.

Furthermore, since the congressional election of 2010, more than a dozen Republican states have instituted new rules to minimize the participation of minority groups. The new rules shorten the periods for early voting, make it harder for voters to register and demand that they get a national identity card. Previously, showing a driver’s license or bank or pension documents have been sufficient to prove one’s identity at the polling station (the United States doesn’t have a central government agency that sends out voting cards before the election). In Florida, the state government has issued a law that prohibits voting on the Sunday before an election, a day traditionally used by black people to vote after church. In Texas, as if by accident, an arms license is accepted as a valid proof of identity, but a student’s identity card is not. Another one of these happy accidents is that in most of the states that are now issuing rules limiting the right to vote, the running in 2008 was very close. In addition to Florida, this includes Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In a study by the New York University Law School, it is estimated that the new rules will make it hard or impossible for about 5 million voters to vote, many of them from minority groups.

The Republicans say that these measures are necessary to minimize the possibility for ballot rigging. But that is a specious argument, since ballot rigging rarely occurs nowadays. The real reason was articulated by Paul Weyrich, a prominent figure with the Republican right, who before the election of 1980 said that “I don’t want everyone to vote. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” In other words: since minorities and young or poor people tend to vote for the Democrats, you have to put up road blocks to their participation in the election.

It is a historic irony that the Republican Party was founded to fight slavery, while the Democrats for a long time defended the discrimination of blacks, including measures to stop them from voting. It was the Republican Abraham Lincoln who abolished slavery, and the party had considerable support among African-Americans up until the 1950s. However, after the Democrats had taken point in introducing new laws for civil and electoral rights in the middle of the 1960s, the wheel turned and now the roles of the parties are reversed.

Attorney General Eric Holder recently promised that his department will look very carefully at the new laws to see whether they are compatible with the electoral law of 1965. It’s not a wild guess that much of the continuing struggle will be decided in court, thus guaranteeing that the issues of skin color and ethnic background that made up a rumbling background noise in 2008 will come to the foreground again in the election campaign that is now getting properly started.