Voting Laws

Inquiry Question:​ How do voting laws affect a democracy? Why is this important? 

Annotate to answer the inquiry question.  

Laws from Civil War stopped 6.1 million from voting 

Republican Donald Trump was chosen as the next president on November 8, 2016, ​during an election in which 
millions of people were prevented from voting by rules that date back to the Civil War. These rules were made 
to keep white males politically powerful. 

About​ 6.1 million people​ who ​were convicted of breaking laws could not cast ballots because of policies that 
keep felons​, people who have committed several, or very serious, crimes, from voting. The number comes 
from The Sentencing Project, a criminal justice reform group.​ According to the most recent numbers from 
Florida, Wisconsin and Michigan,​ Hillary Clinton lost by a number of votes smaller than the number of those 
banned from voting. Many of those banned are poor or black or both. 

The Electoral College Problem 

Clinton won at least a million more votes than Trump, but lost the Electoral College. This system gives each 
state a number of votes roughly proportional to the population. In other words, the larger the state, the more 
votes it gets. But even small states get at least three electoral votes. Each state chooses "electors" to cast the 
votes for their state. There are 538 electoral voters for the country in total. ​The candidate who wins the majority 
of the electoral votes in the country wins the election. 

It is unusual for the winner in a presidential election to win the Electoral College, but not also win the "popular 
vote." ​The popular vote means the total of actual votes in the country cast by eligible citizens. ​The last time this 
happened was during the much-debated 2000 presidential election. Republican George W. Bush won the 
Electoral College, defeating Democrat Al Gore, who won the popular vote. 

In 1787, James Madison, one of the founders of the Constitution, introduced the idea of the Electoral College. 
He wanted this to be used instead of a popular vote system. He wrongly thought black people in the South 
presented a “difficulty … of a serious nature.” The North contained higher numbers of white men who could 
vote than the South did at the time. ​Even though enslaved blacks could not vote, there were large numbers of 
them living in the South. Madison wanted to boost the political power of the slave-holding Southerners. The 
Electoral College, which appoints votes relative to how many people live in a state, would give more voting 
power to the South. His plan included the racist idea that a black person would only be counted as three-fifths 
of a person as a "compromise." 

Not Just Old, They're Wrong 

Now, a constitutional scholar named Juan Perea is saying that these historical laws may have helped elect 
Trump. 

Perea is a law professor at Loyola University Chicago. He recalled the history of disenfranchising, or 
preventing certain types of people from voting. In the 1800s, black people were disenfranchised. Several 
Southern states fought for the continuation of disenfranchising people when they resisted the ending of 
slavery. They formed the Confederacy following the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln. Then came the Civil 
War. 

After the South lost the war, the U.S. passed the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, formally outlawing 
slavery. There was one catch, though. ​The formerly enslaved blacks could only be free if they had not 
committed a crime. 

By 1869, 29 states had signed disenfranchisement laws. 

Perea believes disenfranchisement contributed to Clinton’s loss. ​He also believes that voter identification laws 
put in place after the Supreme Court took away power from the Voting Rights Act of 1965, along with new 
voting laws in 15 states, played a part. 

This Affected Michigan And Especially Florida 

He says the election of Barack Obama seemed threatening to values held by many Americans. “The failure to 
understand and acknowledge the deep history of American racism leads to underestimation of its current 
existence and impact.” 

According to The Sentencing Project, all but two states have disenfranchisement laws that strip the rights of 
people convicted of felonies, including running for office and voting.  

Florida has some of the strictest voting rights policies. One out of every four black people there are not allowed 
to vote because of criminal records.  

It is a state where Clinton needed approximately 120,000 more votes to win its 29 electoral votes. 

Florida is also the same state that was argued about in 2000, when Gore lost the election to George W. Bush. 
Researchers Christopher Uggen and Jeff Manza estimate that if disenfranchised voters had been able to vote, 
they could have overwhelmingly swung the state. 

Respecting Votes From Citizens, Not Electors 

The Sentencing Project has estimated that the number of people affected by these laws has grown from 1.1 
million in 1976, to approximately 2.5 percent of the country’s voting-age population today.​ Marc Mauer helps 
lead The Sentencing Project. He said 23 states have enacted some kind of reform.  

There has been a movement to change the Electoral College that has gained support since Gore lost in 2000. 
New York overwhelmingly agreed in 2014 to join nine other Democratic states and Washington, D.C. Together, 
they have 165 electoral votes. If they gain a total of 270 — the majority needed to elect a president — the 
nation will move to a popular vote. 

Inquiry Question:​ How do voting laws affect a democracy? Why is this important? 

Write one paragraph answering the inquiry question. Support with evidence/supporting details from the text. 
DO NOT use quotes.  

The voting laws in our country is affecting our democracy in a very negative way because it is stopping millions 
of people from not voting. Millions of people are not allowed to vote because of the laws made back in the Civil 
War, these laws were based on racism not giving black poor man the right to vote even if they were free most 
of them had criminal records also another reasoning of not allowing them to vote. This is important because 
this is stopping a huge amount of people from voting, making the Electoral College votes inaccurate, because 
of the laws which were made so only white rich males were allowed to vote. And this is affects the democracy 
because not everyone is being allowed to vote and not allowing them to have voice making the United States 
more of a oligarchy.