Another century in the ongoing fight against voter intimidation
In Arizona, voters at ballot drop-off boxes are being harassed by unidentified groups, some of whose members are masked, armed, and wearing tactical gear. In Florida, police arrested people for voting illegally, even though no one had accused the same people of breaking any laws when they cast their ballots in 2020. In a recent poll, 40 percent of voters said they are worried about violence and intimidation during the midterm elections.
The phrase “voter intimidation” might lead some to wonder what year — if not what century — is being discussed. It shouldn’t. Since ratification of the 15th Amendment gave Black men the right to vote in 1870, no era has passed without white extremists trying to thwart the constitutional rights of many Americans.
Now, as a majority of Republicans continue to believe repeatedly disproved lies about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, there’s no ignoring legitimate fears that the next violent insurrection will occur not at the US Capitol but at polling places nationwide.
“It troubles me that suddenly others feel compelled to act out in a way that’s potentially criminal intimidation or criminal threats, trying to undermine democracy under this cloak of patriotism,” Sheriff Paul Penzone of Maricopa County, Ariz., told NBC News. “In doing so, what they’re doing is destroying the most important institution in our nation — the freedom and right to vote.”
Security has been increased at ballot drop boxes in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and is home to more than half of Arizona’s population. An organization of Latino voters and a retiree association are seeking a temporary restraining order against those they allege are waging a “coordinated campaign of vigilante voter intimidation” in the state. At least six complaints of reported voter intimidation have been referred to the US Department of Justice by Arizona’s secretary of state.
“The Justice Department has an obligation to guarantee a free and fair vote by everyone who’s qualified to vote and will not permit voters to be intimidated,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said during a recent press briefing.
That’s not stopping some Republicans. Through Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s state Office of Election Crimes and Security, 20 people, most of them Black, were arrested for voter fraud in August. A 2018 state constitutional amendment automatically restored voting rights to felons but excludes those convicted of murder or felony sex offenses. But Florida’s voter registration forms are written in such a murky way that the eligibility requirements were unclear. Charges in at least one of the cases have already been dismissed, but that may not alleviate the concerns of those who might now be too intimidated to vote. And that’s what Republicans want.
This nation’s history of voting rights is also a history of violence and intimidation.
For more than 150 years, Black people — and some of their white allies — have been arrested and threatened, beaten and murdered, for trying to assure voting access to all.
Each bullet or noose was never intended for a single target. It was a warning, just as those once-distributed postcards of mutilated Black bodies hanging from trees were more than gruesome souvenirs. They were white supremacist calling cards meant to inform everyone that the unpunished perpetrators would kill to protect rights they believed belonged to them alone.
Even with all the recent laws restricting voting rights, intimidation remains one of the most basic forms of suppressing the vote. Making it difficult to vote will deter some people. But having to navigate masked vigilantes armed with guns and cellphone video cameras can have an even more chilling effect.
Such scenes aren’t simply meant to evoke this nation’s old horrors. They unfold as a reminder that with racism, the past is ever present. And the intimidation extends beyond voters.
A Boston Globe review in five battleground states — Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia — found high turnover among election officials. Nationwide, threats against poll workers have created a critical shortage of volunteers. Democracy is being slowly eroded by complicit Republicans.
Even as they undermine voting rights, GOP officials love to call themselves “the party of Lincoln.” Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, was murdered by John Wilkes Booth three days after calling for some Black men to be granted the right to vote. This nation’s first presidential assassination was a violent response to Black voting rights.
In her “On the Pulse of Morning,” recited at Bill Clinton’s first inauguration, Maya Angelou wrote:
History, despite its wrenching pain Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.
In a nation that has never fully mustered the courage to face its pain, the horrors of voter intimidation are again being inflicted upon another generation. Violence may soon follow. Instead of “The Star Spangled Banner,” our true national anthem is the echo of America’s ugliest histories forever relived.
Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at renee.graham@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @reneeygraham.