The suppression of voting rights has been a project carried out against Black, brown and Native American voters for centuries. Jim Crow local and state laws enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States beginning in the 1870s. The Supreme Court, in Plessy vs. Ferguson, 1896, upheld racial segregation in public facilities in the “separate but equal” legal document. This document legalized segregation for the next 69 years.

At last, after years of civil right’s activism to ensure one’s right to participate in the civil and political life of the nation, the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act were passedinto law. Specifically, Jim Crow laws were dismantled and barriers removed to black enfranchisement in the South, banning poll taxes, literacy tests, and other measures. Unfortunately, the voting rights act was altered in 2013 in Shelby County vs. Holden removing the rule that Southern States needed pre-clearance before implementing any changes to their voting laws or practices.

As a result, many states initiated new campaigns of voter suppression such as purging voter rolls, as was done by Brian Kemp when he was Secretary of State of Georgia. In October 2017, Kemp purged 500,000 voters from rolls. Kemp mocked a press release from a Democratic candidate warning that Georgia is systematically deleting voters from the rolls. Not to mention, he continued the purge of voters up until he ran for Governor in 2018 and refused to step down as Secretary of State while he was a candidate for governor ignoring protests that staying in office was a conflict of interest. Kemp also blocked new registrations based on “exact match” law. These policies effect Black voters disproportionately. Georgia has consistently withheld documents to federal committees preventing acceptable oversight.

The 2020 Election

The 2020 election changed everything about elections in the United States. Donald Trump launched the Big Lie campaign saying that the election was stolen from him, and that he actually won by a wide margin. Therefore, he sued several states with more than 60 lawsuits. However, all but one was thrown out by state, federal and the Supreme Court judges. Trump has never conceded. Millions of people believe that the election was stolen from him. No evidence was ever presented to support any of Trump’s allegations of election fraud.

There was one other aspect of the 2020 election that affected its outcome and that was COVID-19. Local and state election officials made great strides and efforts to make voting safer and easier. For example, in Georgia, the Secretary of State encouraged mail-in voting by sending a ballot application to every registered voter. Drop boxes were available 24/7. Encouraging people to vote by mail was successful in states. Because state laws vary, many states did not start counting mail-in ballots until after the polls closed on election day. Consequently, mail-in ballot results weren’t reported until late on election day, or one or two days later.

In many of the swing states, Trump was leading Biden on the evening of election day. He even claimed victory and no further ballots should be counted. This did’t happen. Then, as more ballot results came in, many of these states flipped to Biden, giving him the election. A Second Blue Wave washed over these states resulting in Joe Biden being elected president. Trump and millions of Republicans claimed fraud, election machine manipulation, stolen ballots and more.

Voter Confidence

Republicans claim there is a need to restore voters confidence in elections and to make election more secure. Christopher Krebs, director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, announced that the 2020 election was the most secure in American history. As a result, he put out a statement that said: “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.” Georgia counted the presidential ballots three times and got the same result each time: Joe Biden won by more than 11,000 votes.

There was no wide-spread fraud in the 2020 election. However, Republicans are continuing to say that the 2020 election was not secure. The facts are not on their side. But, the Big Lie, repeated hundreds of times, has found its way into the heads of millions of Americans.

The Republicans lost the Senate and the Presidency in 2020, and the House in 2018. They are pissed. As a result, they have decided that in order to win again, they need to change the rules of the game. The Brennan Center for Justice has reported that 24 states have put more than 55 restrictive bills in the works to suppress voting in their state. Restricting access to mail and absentee voting are in bills in 18 states. According to the Brennhan Center, Arizona and New Hampshire have the greatest number of restrictive bills. Also, Texas is in the same league as AZ & NH in that TX will limit mail in voting and reducing protections against voter intimidation while people are standing in line to vote.

Republican Suppression Vocabulary

They have a rich vocabulary. I’ve surveyed new election laws , examined documents at the Brennan Center for Justice voting laws roundup, as well a 16-page report of the Committee on Oversight and Reform in the House of Representatives. From these reports, a vocabulary of suppression emerged. Here are some of the key words Republicans use to suppress the vote and are included in their bills.:

Reduce, purge, cutoff, prohibit, limit, restrict, require, impose, slash, eliminate, prevent.

More than 30 Ways to Suppress the votes

The following are phrases that are found in voting bills that have been proposed or passed during 2021 legislative sessions around the country.