Minority communities are especially hurt by voting limitations including eliminating same-day voter registration, decreasing government voter registration campaigns, and making it harder to stay registered to vote. Hispanic and African-American voters are twice as likely as white voters to register through voter registration campaigns.
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7 states require specific forms of photo ID, without exception, in order to register. Government photo IDs can be expensive, and even when free they require the applicant to supply other costly documents. About 1 in 10 Americans doesn’t have a government photo ID, while 1 in 4 African Americans is without one.
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70% of the voters purged in Georgia in 2018 were black. Voter purges are intended to prevent voter fraud by removing ineligible or inactive voters, but only about 31 out of over a billion U.S. votes between 2000 and 2015 were fraudulent. Instead, purges are often based on invalid reasons or incorrect information, and purged voters aren’t properly notified. In Virginia in 2013, the data used to purge voters had an error rate of 17%.
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Most states prevent people convicted of felonies from voting, sometimes permanently, which especially impacts black voters. Due to the extreme racial bias in the criminal justice system, black people often suffer worse convictions than white people for the same crimes. About 8% of African-American adults are disenfranchised, compared to only about 2% of other American adults.
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In-person voting can be very challenging for people with disabilities as 60% of polling sites lack the accommodations they need, and African-American voters are particularly likely to use early voting. In Georgia and Florida respectively, 35% and 54% of African-American people voted early in 2008; in 2011, 5 states shortened early or absentee voting periods. Decreasing absentee voting limitations is especially important right now, as COVID-19 has made in-person polls unsafe in many places.
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