The Past as Prologue: Defending Democracy against Voter Suppression Tactics on the Eve of the 2012 Elections
![handle is hein.journals/rutlr64 and id is 1041 raw text is: THE PAST AS PROLOGUE: DEFENDING DEMOCRACY AGAINST
VOTER SUPPRESSION TACTICS ON THE EVE OF THE 2012
ELECTIONS
Ryan P. Haygood*
'The past is never dead. It's not even past.
- William Faulkner]
ABSTRACT
We are experiencing an assault on voting rights that is historic
both in terms of its scope and intensity. In the last two years, fifteen
states passed twenty-six restrictive voting measures that threaten to
disproportionately harm voters of color. As many as five million
eligible voters are in danger of not being able to register and/or cast
a ballot this November. This assault-which was launched to affect
the 2012 elections as well as future ones-threatens to undermine
the record levels of political participation achieved during the
historic 2008 presidential election by suppressing the political
participation of people of color, the poor, the elderly, and the young.
These concerted efforts to curtail the right to vote are a direct
response to two important recent developments: first, the
unprecedented levels of political participation by African Americans
and other voters of color in the 2008 presidential election; and
second, the significant growth of communities of color, as reflected
in the 2010 Census.
This Article examines these coordinated, antidemocratic efforts
and offers some important democracy-enhancing responses.
* Director of the Political Participation Group, NAACP Legal Defense and
Educational Fund, Inc. ('LDF'). LDF's Political Participation Group uses legal,
legislative, and public education strategies to advocate for the full, equal, and active
participation of African Americans and other marginalized groups in America's
democracy. I am thankful to my voting rights colleagues Dale Ho, Natasha
Korgaonkar, and Leah Aden, past LDF intern Sophia Lin Lakin, and current LDF
intern Jamelia Morgan for their work on this Article. Without their invaluable
substantive contributions, this Article simply could not tell the story. A version of this
Article was published previously by the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People. NAACP LEGAL DEF. AND EDUC. FUND, INC. & NAACP, DEFENDING
DEMOCRACY: CONFRONTING MODERN BARRIERS TO VOTING RIGHTS IN AMERICA (2011),
available at http://naacp.3cdn.net/67065c25be9ae43367_mlbrsy48b.pdf.
1. WILLIAM FAULKNER, Requiem for a Nun, in NOVELS 1942-1954, at 471, 535
(1994).
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The Past as Prologue: Defending Democracy against Voter Suppression Tactics on the Eve of the 2012 Elections
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