The outcome of presidential elections hinges on a fairly straightforward principle that has long held true: the party that does a better job of shaping the electorate to its advantage wins. The strategy to accomplish this often employs candidates whose messages of optimism or fear are meant to inspire more of their voters while disheartening those who support the competition. But sometimes, a more direct approach is taken: voter suppression.
Enacting frivolous and cumbersome requirements to help win elections is nothing new. The votes of people of colour, black Americans in particular, were intentionally suppressed during the era of Jim Crow’s racial segregation laws through a variety of exclusionary measures: poll taxes levied a fee for voter registration; literacy tests were ostensibly administered to assess prospective voters’ mental fitness; grandfather clauses were intended to exempt white voters from new eligibility restrictions; and old-fashioned violence used to physically prevent black Americans from voting and intimidate others from even making the attempt.
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