Majorities from major parties back state vote rules, poll says
DENVER — Majorities of Americans in both major parties think voting rules in their states are appropriate and support a voter identification law, but Democrats are increasingly worried about progress in voting rights for Black Americans.
A new poll from Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showed voting was the only one of eight subjects — including education and treatment by police — in which fewer Americans now than four years ago said African Americans had achieved significant progress since the civil rights era. Concern about a lack of progress is much higher for Democrats, 86% of whom believe more must be done to secure racial equality in voting rights, compared with 40% of Republicans.
That’s a reflection of the continuing partisan fight over election procedures that spawned more restrictive laws in 19 GOP-controlled states last year.
Still, even Democrats are fairly happy with the voting laws in their own states — red and blue. About 3 out of 4 Americans think the laws in their states are “about right,” according to the poll.
Recoa Russell, a 67-year-old retired machine operator in Mobile, Alabama, who is Black, lives in a state with some of the most restrictive voting laws in the country. But he said the rules there “work well. Just show your ID and pull the lever.”
Indeed, voter identification is the most popular of a series of voting reforms in the poll, with 70% favoring requiring photo identification before casting a ballot. Smaller majorities were in favor of automatic voter registration of eligible citizens and sending mail ballots to all registered voters, two top Democratic priorities. Republicans were more likely than Democrats to support the voter ID law, 87% to 55%.
The poll illustrates why Democrats have had such problems in their push for a federal overhaul of voting laws. An attempt to pass sweeping election changes stalled in the Senate earlier this year amid unanimous Republican opposition. For months, Democrats hesitated to even bring the bill to a vote because they couldn’t get their entire 50-member Senate caucus to agree to it.
One of the bill’s provisions
would have banned partisan gerrymandering, or the contorted redrawing of legislative lines to make it easier for one party’s representatives to win elections. The poll found that 69% of Americans believe that’s a major problem, with Democrats more likely than Republicans to say so, 80% to 58%.
The GOP had great success in the prior round of redistricting and has pushed to lessen legal oversight of the once-a-decade drawing of legislative lines.
Just 32% of Black Americans say there has been significant progress in racial equality in voting rights since the civil rights era, compared with 52% of white Americans. Majorities of Black and white Americans say more needs to be done, but Black Americans are much more likely to say a lot more is needed, 57% to 29% of whites who feel that way.