Essay On Voter Disenfranchisement

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Voting in the United States is one of the greatest tools to elect representatives who closely support their own ideology. However, the United States faces an ever-evolving situation in our election system; voter disenfranchisement. Because of voter disenfranchisement it is “estimated that 6.1 million voters [are currently] banned from the polls today” (Chung, 2016). Ideally, all Americans of voting age should have the right to vote. However, “African Americans and other ethnic minorities” face disenfranchisement when it comes to voting rights (Bailey, 2004; Cohen, 2012). One way that Americans lose their right to vote is a felony conviction. Thus, statistics show “1 in 13 African Americans [versus] 1 in 56 non-black voters have lost their right to …show more content…

Such as, “republicans who utilize voter disenfranchisement laws to suppress the votes of minorities who largely support democratic candidates” (Cohen, 2012). Republicans state they are trying to end voter fraud by requiring such things as a photo id to vote. However, some are not able to provide a photo ID for their voting district due to exigent circumstances beyond their control. This was the case for “Christine Krucki, age 90, could not vote in Wisconsin’s presidential primary because of recently passed strict voter-ID laws” (Berman, 2016). This is a problem for women whose names may change due to marriage, divorce, etc. Consequently, democrats believe whites do not want nonwhites having a vote in elections (Cohen, 2012). Therefore, it is important to investigate the policies and their implications to see where one stands on voter disenfranchisement and the best way to combat the problem. Certainly, there is proof that many elections would likely be reversed if it was not for voter disenfranchisement (Chung, 2016). Such may even be the case for the latest presidential election where once again a candidate won the popular vote but lost the

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