Recently in an interview on the PBS NewsHour, U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) commented, “in terms of (the) conduct of elections, states have always done that. We have always deferred to them. It’s something that has been relegated to the states. And it’s worked well, I think, throughout our nation’s history.”
He said it with a straight face. He may even have been sincere. But history has something to say on that point. It would be more truthfully argued that restricting the right to vote has been a part of the American political tradition from the beginning.
First, the vote was restricted to just white men. Women could not vote. Enslaved people could not vote. People who could not pay a poll tax in some Southern states could not vote. People who could pay but were Black … well, they still couldn’t vote. People who could not read could not vote … unless they were white. But, over time, we’ve evolved … haven’t we?
Now some are saying you’ve got to have a car or easy access to public transportation to vote and, also, the ability to take time off from work or from taking care of your children.
They say that even though it has been clearly shown that mail-in voting, drop-box voting and an “election period” rather than an “election day” is perfectly reasonable and perfectly American.
In the 2020 election, we demonstrated the capacity to enable every eligible voter to cast his or her ballot easily. It’s called evolution. That it could be done did not mean, of course, that it was done in every part of the country.
Under our form of government, a democratic republic, the right of every registered voter to express their point of view at the polls should be inviolate. Is there any element in our form of government more fundamental?
I remember vividly the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I was walking out of a college class with a Black friend. The assassination was a shock to my heart and mind.
But to my friend, Gene McCabe, the situation was even darker. It meant that a former senator from the state of Texas would become president. He was deeply concerned. Yet, less than two years later, Lyndon Johnson signed the 1965 Voting Rights act, invalidating the laws and practices that had been established in Southern states to suppress the rights of Black citizens to vote.
Why isn’t Senator Thune aware of this history? Unlike the Wilmington Insurrection and the Tulsa Massacre, Jim Crow was no secret.
Following President Trump’s defeat at the polls last November, there were and are those who said “the system” was not working. Others saw Trump’s defeat as evidence that it was.
Republican legislatures were shocked and offended. In Georgia, Texas, Arizona, Alabama and other states, Republicans have passed or proposed laws where the basic intent of which is to diminish the ability of low-income Black people to vote.
A lot of people who may work two low-paying jobs to make ends meet can’t afford to take time off to stand in line for hours in order to cast a vote and, in predominantly-Black rural districts, cannot travel many, many miles to get to a voting booth or drop box during business hours.
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts asserted the absurd notion that there was no longer any reason why Georgia, Mississippi and the others needed to have proposed changes in their voting laws reviewed by the Justice Department to ensure that there would be no return to Jim Crow.
Isn’t it obvious, Roberts held, that racism and legal manipulations were a thing of the past?
In the present day, I’m sorry to say, Donald Trump, Sen. Thune, and their U.S. House of Representatives colleagues are the spiritual descendants of those Confederates who went to war to keep people enslaved.
They now do their best to keep Black and brown voters from participating in the political life of our democratic republic. As President Biden asked them just this week, “Have you no shame?”
There is a final question and a disturbing answer on the political table right now. Is there anything more un-American than making voting more difficult on purpose? Unfortunately … there is: Denying the validity of an election if you don’t win is about as un-American as you can get.
Jim Walsh is the chair of the Nahant Democratic Town Committee.
