Voter Participation in the Absence of the 1965 Voting Rights Act

Keith Parker,Dora Tilles,Dawn Brown Mcglotten,Clifton Brown

doi:10.11648/j.ijecs.20210605.11

Abstract

In June 2013, the Supreme Court ruled in Shelby County v. Holder that states with a history of racial discrimination no longer needed to approve proposed changes to their voting procedures with the federal government. The court ruled that the coverage formula was based on 40-year-old data that was not applicable to current needs. Thus the 2016 presidential election was the first in 50 years without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. The objective of this paper is to examine the changes in voter turnout between the 2012 and the 2016 national elections due to the changes in the Voting Rights Act. Using data from the voter file vendor Catalist and information from the U.S. Census Bureau, this paper examined changes in turnout rates for different racial/ethnic groups between 2012 and 2016. The findings indicated (1) African American turnout declined substantially; (2) white turnout increased considerably; (3) Latino American turnout increased, and (4) in the key swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, fluctuations in voter participation were especially strong. Voter enthusiasm and perceived voter suppression efforts had a huge impact on voter turnout. In addition, not being able to identify with candidates or properly researching candidates’ political goals hampered the desire to vote, especially in Black Americans.

Highlights

The Constitution of the United States grants American citizens the sacred right to vote in local, state and national elections [19, 29,30,31,32, 46, 47, 59]
The findings reported in the first section of this study focused on changes in voter turnout rates during the 2012 and 2016 national elections between racial/ethnic groups
As noted by Frey (2017), the very low turnout among Black voters in 2016 was notable and disappointing because, in large part, the 2012 national election marked the first time since records were kept Black voter turnout rates were higher than White voter turnout rates

Summary

Introduction

The Constitution of the United States grants American citizens the sacred right to vote in local, state and national elections [19, 29,30,31,32, 46, 47, 59]. Passage and enforcement of the 1965 VRA removed decades-old barriers (i.e., literacy tests, poll taxes and the use of separate ballot boxes) that had made it challenging for Southern black people to register to vote and vote. Southern states which had employed literacy tests and other voter suppression tactics saw black voter registration rates increase an average of 67% between 1964 and 1968, from 33.8 to 56.5 percentage points [15, 64, 73]. Southern states which did not deploy literacy tests and other forms of voter suppression tactics reported an average increase of roughly 19%, from 60 to 71.4 percentage points, in black voter registration over the same period of time (see [15, 64, 73], for further discussion). Passage and enforcement of the 1965 VRA resulted in economic and social mobility, enfranchisement, and an increase in black office holding [12, 23, 29, 43, 73, 76]

Objectives

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Discussion

Conclusion