Systemic Racism is REAL.
Reduced voting rights in Michigan.
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Have you ever heard of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon? It’s that thing that happens when you hear or learn about something new, and then it suddenly appears everywhere.
For me, that “thing” is systemic racism. I’m aware of confirmation bias and I try not to somersault to conclusions, but some things are so blatantly racist there is no room for misinterpretation. Excluding minorities from fully participating in the voting process falls into that category.
Racial Politics: The practice of political actors exploiting the issue of race to forward an agenda.
Straight-ticket voting was recently banned in Michigan, but a federal judge put a block on the ban ruling that it would place a disproportionate burden on African Americans’ right to vote. If you are unfamiliar, straight-party voting allows citizens to vote for all of the partisan candidates of a particular party by filling a single bubble on their ballot. Regardless of whether or not straight-ticket voting should be allowed, Judge Gershwin Drain’s insinuation that African-American voters will be confused if they have to fill in more than one bubble is insulting to all Americans, regardless of color.
Additionally, the argument was made that the elimination of straight-ticket voting will significantly increase the time it takes to vote. In communities with a high percentage of African-American voters, excessive wait times are already problematic. New studies have identified long lines as a modern form of voter suppression. Think about that for a minute. Long wait times suppress African-Americans from voting. If African-Americans were to fully participate in the voting process, the impact would be severe. Therefore, what is also being said is that straight-ticket voting is the ONLY practical way that African-Americans can vote.
Possessing a theoretical right while having zero chance to exercise that right is no different from not having that right at all.
Minorities have been and continue to be excluded from fully participating in the voting process because of well-known and well-documented time constraints. Rather than provide adequate accommodations that would protect the right to vote, the “solution” has been to offer straight-ticket voting. NOTHING has been done to reduce the time it takes to vote other than to reduce voting rights.
The conclusion that Judge Gershwin Drain should’ve arrived at is that African-Americans are disproportionately burdened by Michigan’s restrictive voting laws. Michigan is one of the few states that doesn’t offer no excuse absentee voting or early voting — which people of color tend to take advantage of at greater rates than whites.
The assertion that filling in more than one bubble on a ballot will confuse African-American voters is nothing more than thinly-veiled racism and using straight-ticket voting as a solution for long wait lines is merely a way to suppress African-Americans from being able to fully participate in the voting process.
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Tiffany Hayden is Libertarian running for Congress in Michigan’s 13th district. She’s running against John Conyers -the longest-serving member of Congress in history, with a budget of less than $5K, despite the average cost of a Congressional campaign being $1.7M.
