One Person, No Vote

After the 2016 election, the media fixated on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s exploitation of social media to provoke political tensions in Donald Trump’s favor. This included Woke Blacks, which advocated for social justice before urging African Americans to boycott the election, and Blackivist, which had more followers than Black Lives Matter’s official account because of bots. While this issue is serious, it is really “piggybacking” on existing GOP efforts to stifle elections (150).

After Barack Obama won Indiana, then-Governor Mike Pence enacted a law that required counties with at least 325,000 residents to get bipartisan election board approval to open multiple early voting locations. As a result, Indianapolis’s county lost two sites while less-populous areas increased theirs. Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp launched prolonged investigations into the Asian American Legal Advocacy Center and New Georgia Project that produced no evidence. More states enacted new voting restrictions in 2017 than in the previous two years combined.

In contrast, Democrat states took measures to facilitate voting. Oregon introduced automatic voter registration (AVR) in 2015 to automatically register citizens to vote upon applying for or renewing their driver’s licenses. The state’s rolls increased by more than 222,000 with voter turnout increasing from 64% to 68% in 2016.