Voter Registration Is Inherently Racist

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October 25, 2018

By Chris Winters, yesmagazine.org

And several other reasons that the midterm elections are testing how far some states can go in disenfranchising certain voters.

Volunteer checking voters in at polling place

What if we had an election and everyone came?

That’s not a hypothetical question, because we’re right now in the middle of the midterm election season where one of the two political parties is trying to make sure fewer people are going to vote.

Midterms are said to be a referendum on the incumbent president, but probably nothing is more at stake than elections for state legislatures. Whoever controls the state houses in 2018 will be in charge of redistricting after the 2020 Census—and that happens before the 2020 presidential election, when President Trump actually will be on the ballot.

The fact that, according to Cook Political Report, as of Oct. 12, 327 out of 435 House of Representatives seats are considered locks by one of the two big parties points to how antidemocratic the whole system has become.

Turnout in midterms is historically low, but there are signs that this year might be different. Pew Research saw a surge of voting in the primaries by more than 50 percent over the 2014 midterms. Call it the Trump Effect, or call it something else, these midterms are shaping up to be one of those turning points that determine the direction of the nation for decades to come.

Read the full article here

Read more about voter disenfranchisement here

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