Congress must ensure every eligible American can access the ballot box

“I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would find myself fighting in 2019 the same issues my ancestors have waged since arriving on the shores of this country in 1619.”

This is the testimony received from voter Stacey Hopkins at a Subcommittee on Elections field hearing examining the state of elections administration and voting rights in Georgia this February.

“In 2017 I found myself, a Fulton County voter, challenging the legality of my state and county for beginning the process of illegally targeting myself, three of my adult children and over 380,000 voters in one action in a singular year … to be classified as inactive voters and designated to be purged off the voter rolls using a method known as the ‘postcard trick.’”

Our nation has a long history of failing to ensure equal and unencumbered access to the ballot for all her citizens. While more blatant instances of voter suppression such as poll taxes, literacy tests, and outright voter intimidation are largely relics of the past, they have nevertheless been replaced with a new generation of equally insidious efforts to deny minority and vulnerable populations access to the ballot.

Chief among these are the persistent efforts by state election officials to purge otherwise eligible voters from active voter registration rolls.

The Brennan Center for Justice found that between 2014 and 2016, states removed almost 16 million voters from the registration rolls. At least 17 million voters were purged nationwide from 2016 and 2018. Notably, these purge rates have been found to be significantly higher in states previously covered by the Voting Rights Act preclearance provisions – key protections struck down by the Supreme Court’s ill-advised 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision.

Yes, laws require states to perform list maintenance and yes, states have a responsibility to keep voter rolls up to date. However, during a series of field hearings held across the country, the Election Subcommittee, which I chair, found too often that “list maintenance” is rife with error and deployed in a manner that disproportionately removes minority voters.

The purported rationale behind these purges also often exaggerates and perpetuates the false narrative of alleged non-citizens voting, while the practical result is the removal of otherwise eligible citizens from the voting rolls.

My home state of Ohio was prepared to purge 235,000 voters in September of this year. When third parties examined the proposed purges, at least 40,000 people were found to be included in error.

In January 2019, a Texas official issued an advisory to county voter registrars claiming thousands of people identified as non-citizens had voted in Texas elections – a demonstrably false claim he later retracted.

Witnesses at Subcommittee hearings in Georgia, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Arizona and Washington, D.C. provided troubling testimony of removal practices that persistently disenfranchise voters.

These actions are not unusual. Efforts to remove eligible voters persist.

As of today, the registrations of more than 230,000 voters in Wisconsin remain in jeopardy while the order of a circuit judge to immediately remove these voters is appealed by the state’s attorney general and others.

This month, the state of Georgia purged more than 300,000 voters, approximately 4 percent of the state’s total registration. Yet just two hours before a court hearing to block the state’s action, Georgia’s secretary of state admitted 22,000 voters were erroneously purged.

Ms. Hopkins’ testimony this February was sadly prescient: “I live in a state when [sic] I am forced to constantly prove and confirm my identity – which is static in nature – or forced to overcome numerous barriers in order to exercise the right that forms the basis of all our nation’s guiding document[s] – the right to vote.”

The Constitution does not say the right to vote is only guaranteed if you vote often enough, it says it is guaranteed – period. The Constitution says Americans not only have the unabridged right to vote, they also have the right not to vote.

Congress must ensure every eligible American can access the ballot box, cast a ballot free from discrimination and suppression, and hold a steadfast faith in our democratic process that their ballot will be counted as cast. The House has done its part in passing H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act, which cracks down on voter purges that have disparate impact on minority populations. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has consigned it to his legislative graveyard.

The right to vote is sacred. There is much work to be done. As we head into the 2020 elections, the right to vote for hundreds of thousands of Americans still hangs in the balance.

Marcia L. Fudge represents Ohio’s 11th District in the House. She is the chairperson of the Subcommittee on Elections of the Committee on House Administration