I-Search Paper (Voter Suppression)

Part 1: The Search Story

I believe that we do this every election; it is our right as the American people to vote for change in our government, or to keep it the way it is. When the colonies declared independence, they included this right to the foundation of their country because they had no say in their government. They fought for this right to start their new country. As America grew and developed, many other groups of people continued to fight for that same right and to be treated the same as anyone else under the law. We can see throughout US history that we find this to be false, from immigration, gender roles, and even human rights. Sometimes, things like this are on our ballots. Before I started researching, I knew that voter suppression has been a problem since the days of Jim Crow and even after the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. However, what made me want to write about this topic was this year's election.

When I posted on the Padlet I asked “How did voter suppression affect people during Jim Crow and how does it affect voters today?” and Professor Klann linked an example of a literacy test given to Black voters in the 1960s. However, the more I researched, I realized that my focus went down a different path. Rather than focusing how voter suppression has affected marginalized groups, I moved my focus to how voter suppression has evolved and the attitudes surrounding it. I first went to the Digital Public Library of America and found a few political cartoons about attitudes about voter suppression in 2008 and 2011. I also used “voter segregation” and found a political cartoon from 1965 titled “Obstacle Course” showing a glimpse of what voters had to go through in Alabama. It was difficult to find primary sources about this past election, but we’ll get into that in part two. I was searching on Google for a long time going through articles and news coverage. So how has voter suppression evolved and the attitudes surrounding since the 1960s? How did it affect this past election? The sources changed my direction of this assignment from my original question. These sources helped me realize that voter suppression has evolved to appear to be less targeted and masked to help the voting process, and we can see that in their attitudes. Although many people have the right to vote, there are many obstacles to dodge.

Part 2: The Search Results

I started my research with the databases provided for us on the Canvas pages. I used keywords like voter identification, voter segregation, and voter suppression. Some of the databases provided little to no primary sources so I was a little distraught in the beginning until I used the Digital Public Library of America.

I found three political cartoons, two of which I didn’t realize were from the last 15 years. The first one I saw was “Obstacle Course” from 1965. The description reads: “A bandaged voter is climbing over a police nightstick, he has already made it around the giant flare, shotgun, and gas mask. There is a helmet in front of him that has Alabama Highway Patrol on it.” I think this, along with the example of the literacy test Professor Klann provided me, gives me insight into what Black people had to do to register to vote or cast their ballots. This political cartoon also showcases the attitudes against Black people who wanted to vote. The imagery incites violence against the man in the middle; he is bandaged up and has to “hop over” the nightstick and pass through the Alabama Highway Patrol helmet to go in the direction of the polling station. A lot of obstacles for one person to navigate through and makes me ask a question: if I had to go through that much trouble and potentially get hurt in the process, would it be worth it? The second and third political cartoons I found were “Voter ID Approved” from 2008 and “Voter ID Arrest” from 2011. I realize that these cartoons are biased which are important when you think about attitudes about voter suppression.

The description of “Voter ID Approved” reads:

Panel 1. GOP elephant and Democrat donkey sit on a bench together reading a paper. Headline “The high court upheld Indiana's law which requires voters to show ID.” Panel 2. The democrat wonders why the judges can't see that thousands of voters will be disenfranchised. Panel 3. The republican wonders why he can't see that states have an interest in stopping voter fraud. Panel 4. The democrat is wearing blinders.

The description of “Voter ID Arrest” reads:

South Carolina passed a measure requiring voters to bring an ID to prove they were citizens. In today's world, for liberals, that seems to be a bridge too far. The Attorney General, Eric Holder, believes that requirement might disenfranchise some voters. Lady Justice can't do her job in verifying a true vote in South Carolina.

Both of these hold attitudes that insinuate that asking voters for identification is important for the validity of an election. Although that may be true, the ACLU says that Voter ID Laws are an act of voter suppression because “ID cards aren’t always accessible for everyone. The ID itself can be costly [...] This can be a significant burden on people in lower-income communities. Further, the travel required is an obstacle for people with disabilities, the elderly, and people living in rural areas.” Again, these are obstacles that people have to go through.

I had a lot of difficulty finding primary sources for examples of voter suppression from today’s election. A lot of this is because it’s so recent. The only primary source I found required a lot of digging. I was trying to find anything about voter suppression in 2020 and the governor of Texas came up a lot. According to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit report, Governor Greg Abbott made a proclamation that specified that “specified that mail-in ballots could be delivered only to one designated location per county.” I saw a lot of articles that addressed this as a form of voter suppression. For smaller counties, this wasn’t a problem. For bigger ones it potentially meant long lines to drop off ballots when funding for the USPS was decreasing and the risk of catching COVID was increasing everyday.

Although I lucked out with primary sources, there were a lot of secondary sources. A CNN article talked about how thousands of people with felony convictions couldn’t vote in this year’s election. Another compared today’s voter suppression to Jim Crow; it was really surprising to see because that was my topic initially.

Part 3: Reflecting on My Research Question

During this research process I learned that it’s never straight forward; there are always gonna be obstacles especially during historical research. What makes history interesting to me is that there are so many different versions and perspectives depending on a number of factors (gender, race, class, etc.). Additionally, I don’t know if it’s just me, but I feel like some aspects of history get lost in time and it could be difficult to find sources. On the other hand, history is always writing itself as time goes on. There are going to be primary sources about the time we’re living in right now. The research process made me realize that sometimes situations don’t go away; they evolve into something else. Voter suppression, for example, didn’t go away when Jim Crow did and it doesn’t just target Black people. The research process helped me refine my question into something a little more refined. Rather than how voter suppression affects people then versus now, I started to focus on how much has it changed, if at all.

I think that the primary sources I did find answer a very small amount of a huge question. I think voter suppression is a huge topic spanning over decades, and there’s no way I could fully answer it. I had to revise my research question during the research process because I wanted to focus more on the evolution of voter suppression rather than the effects of it. I realized that many people are still affected by voter suppression, but why? Shouldn’t all people have a say in their government? Isn’t the government supposed to serve the people? Voter suppression has not gone away and it is not just about race anymore. It’s about different ways of thinking, gender, class, money, power, but it isn’t meant to be perceived like that. Voter suppression is strict identification laws and one ballot per county. It’s making casting a ballot or even registering to vote a long and potentially threatening process that people sometimes choose not to endure. It affects the people who govern us and our future.