November 7th, 2020

My research explores voter suppression, which has since been a hot topic over time, and the signs are more visible today than ever.  This is a critical subject because a change needs to happen in our democracy to prevent any one party from continuing to disenfranchised minorities or other parts of our population for political agenda. Voter suppression seems to be an ongoing issue as our democracy is being challenged.  The outcome of our election will be the American people’s decision as to who will be the next president.

Why I selected this source is because it speaks volumes to our democracy being challenged today.  “Trumps’ Voter-Suppression Strategy Is a Crisis (Even If It Backfire).” (Levitz, E, 2020)  Before I started my research, I had outlined several questions for my research proposal about voter suppression.  This article I found by Eric Levitz was perfect to incorporate in my proposal.  Eric has a profile on LinkedIn giving his educational background and work history.  He is a senior writer, with a master degree in fiction writing from the John Hopkins University 2010-2012.  His main argument is about our current president trying to win the reelection by disenfranchising as many voters as he can no matter what the cost is.  The support the author used is from various sources such as New York Times, Politico, Business Insider and five thirty eight approval rating for the presidents. 

What are the strategies for Trump’s voter suppression, a crisis even if it backfires?  Our country has been voting for centuries.  November, we will cast our ballot for the 2020 president of the U.S. The voter rights act of August 6, 1965, was enacted to prevent discrimination.  However, we have another form of discrimination in modern times.  We call it voter suppression as we see it much clearer with 2016 and the current elections.  With the current administration, President Trump is doing so much strategizing, what is the payoff for him?  The summary of this article talks about the current president dividing our country by disenfranchising people and how his campaign is intimidating voters and bringing law suits for various reasons without bases.  “The president is trying to win reelection by disenfranchising as many Democrats as he can.  As of this writing, 78 million Americans have already voted, putting the U.S. on pace to witness its highest-turnout election in more than a century.” (Levitz, E, 2020)

I found this article in Credo “Obstacles to voting: 6 essential reads on the challenges of election 2020.” (Holmes, 2020)  As I’m reading this article this is critical to help narrate and support my direction with the paper and the challenges our voters are faced with getting to the polls.  The author Catesby Holmes has a profile on LinkedIn the give her educational background holding a master degree in English from Wesleyan University. She works for The Conversation US and her position as a Global Affairs Editor. 

What are the challenges voters faces in the 2020 election?  The U.S is in the middle of a pandemic with an election year between President Trump (R) and selected candidate Biden (D).  If we research and explore voter suppression further we can learn to protect our democracy from it.  With the pandemic, we see people protesting all across the U.S., intimidation on the minority groups, mail-in ballots and the administration saying there will be voter fraud.  Today there is much uncertainty as most people are having difficulty determining facts from fiction.  The Governor of Texas has limited drop off boxes for each county for voters to deposit their ballots.  The Republican Party in Texas filed an emergency order with the Supreme Court of Texas to reject over 100,000 votes from a drive-thru polling site in Harris County.  Here are challenges voters are faces with in the 2020 election? 

pandemic

polling place reductions or consolidations

long lines at polling stations

shortage of poll workers

voter suppression

minority group disfranchise

2020 census outcome

We are getting closer to November 3, 2020, and we see more and more voter suppression. One of the issues is closing down polling locations, which is confusing for the voter as to where they are to go and vote.  When the voter arrives in their polling location, there is a wait time; some areas are up to eight hours or longer.  The polling location I went to was an hour and forty-five minutes wait; we are a small town.  Once inside the location, I realized there were only four machines to use to cast a ballot.  I had previously worked as a poll worker in the midterm election, and there were nine machines at that location.  I was astonished to see the limited equipment for the voters.  At the polls, workers consisted of half republican and the other half democratic at each location, so there are checks and balances for the voters.  The shortage of poll workers has a lot to do with the pandemic, and the majority of the workers are elderly as they are afraid to be around a large group or mass of people.  “Obstacles to voting: 6 essential reads on the challenges of election 2020.”  (Holmes, 2020)        

This article support “The Changing Racial and Ethnic Composition of the U.S. Electorate.” (Budiman, A., Igielnik, R, 2020)   The authors are Ruth Igielnik is a senior researcher for Pew Researcher Center.  Abby Budiman has a profile on LinkedIn as she works for Pew Researcher Center as a research analyst.  Budiman has a double major in Bachelor of Science degree.  The author argument is about the changing of the demography of the election within the minority groups.  This source is important to establish how the minority are performing within the election    

How are Hispanics changing the battleground states’ elections at a higher rate than any other ethnic group?  We see changes in the minority groups in this election, especially in the Hispanic groups in Texas and Arizona.  Even the pandemic is not stopping these voters from exercising their rights in voting.  “Non-White eligible voters accounted for more than three-quarters of total U.S. electorate growth since 2000.” (Budiman, A., Igielnik, R, 2020)  We should see a higher turnout within the Hispanic population.  Since 2000 and up to 2018, the election has seen Hispanic voters increase conservatively about 80% according to the chart, (Budiman, A., Igielnik, R, 2020), “The changing racial and ethnic makeup of the U.S. electorate.”  After the election result getting the facts and statistics for voters in the Hispanic population to see if there has been increase.

In the minority areas, political officials would confuse the voters by gerrymandering or moving or eliminating polling locations.  In the past, officials would purge voters, especially in the minority areas, but that would depend on local and state laws.  If you have not voted in a certain amount of time in some states, the voter will need to re-register again. “Voter suppression is a strategy used to influence the outcome of an election by discouraging or preventing specific groups of people from voting. It is distinguished from political campaigning in that campaigning attempts to change likely voting behavior by changing the opinions of potential voters through persuasion and organization.  Voter suppression, instead, attempts to reduce the number of voters who might vote against a candidate or proposition.” (McDaniel, J, Jr., 2020) 

This source is a contribution to my paper and is talking about our democracy for “Election Security and Voting Rights.” (Price, 2018)  The argument talks about how our election was violated by outside interference from Russia and how critical Democrats and Republicans need to protect our democracy and the voters.  Price is a contributing writer for CQ Researcher and a Washington-based freelance journalist.   

What are the scare tactics to suppress voters at the polls using technology?  After the U.S. presidential election in 2016 that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee emails and campaign ads against Clinton so, there is a concern with outside interference.  Over the last few years both parties have been focused on the cyber security to protect our election process.  The Democrats and Republican have been working with all social media such as Facebook and Twitter to eliminate misleading information or ads that create chaos for the public.  The executive’s on all social media have learned and made a lot of changes to their platforms with the requirements and guidelines to display businesses or government ads.  I have noticed that there are limited political ads for this election compare to our election in 2016.  According to a chart “Percentage of American Who Trust That Election are Fair, by Party Identification”   (Price, 2018).

I chose the census for a source was important because it effects each city and funding for local areas.  The author Mike Schneider is American T.V News anchor and he started in 1975 as a news writer.   The U.S. 2020 Census was challenge in the Supreme Court by the current administration to put a halt on the counts by a certain date.        

What are the issues with the 2020 census and the impact it has on the election?  This year the U.S conducted their 2020 census until the first week of October.  So, I decided to work for the U.S. Census Bureau as one of their census field supervisors (CFS).  While the census was enumerating, the Trump administration was suing the census in The Supreme Court to end the process.  There were many issues with duplicate addresses, and the enumerators would go to that address about four-plus times.  Some respondents would say they mailed-in the form or went online to complete the request.  Most of the areas that needed to be counted were the minority and rural areas.  The issues I experienced working for the census will affect the population counts especially in the minority areas.  According to the ruling (Schneider, 2020) “The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that the Trump administration can end census field operation early, in a blow to efforts to make sure minorities and hard-to-enumerate communities are properly counted in the crucial once-a-decade tally.”

The guiding research proposal question, is voter suppression on the rise to backfire or to succeed?  Is our democracy being curtailed or challenged?  Both of these questions have a determining factor of the outcome to the election as it will dictate whether President Trump will succeed in his reelection campaign.

RESEARCH QUESTION:

1. What are the strategies for Trump’s voter suppression, a crisis even if it backfires?
2. What are the challenges voters faces in the 2020 election? 
3. How are Hispanics changing the battleground states’ elections at a higher rate than any other ethnic group?  
4. What are the scare tactics to suppress voters at the polls using technology?
5. What are the issues with the 2020 census and the impact it has on the election?

My target audience is Professor Gregory Romano and English two for collegiate writing research proposal for developing a bibliography.  The benefit for the reader concerning this topic is essential to protect our democracy and how voter suppression is rampant in our 2020 election and how it affects the American people.

The research plan is to further develop a bibliography by discussing the outcome of our current election.  I will be discussing about the Election Day, the turn out, and how the mail-in votes played a critical part in the presidential election outcome.  The concern was voter suppression, so did it backfire or succeed in our process of the election.

The conclusion of my research proposal is that I have outlined the concerns of the American voter about our democracy.  In my research I have provided articles and journals about how minorities are disenfranchised but did they play a vital role in our election process for 2020.  When faced with the pandemic, did the voters get to exercise their right to vote without any inference from foreign countries? 

Reference   

Budiman, A., Igielnik, R. (2020, September 23). Retrieved from The Changing Racial and Ethnic Composition of the U.S. Electorate: https://www.pewresearch.org/2020/09/23/the-changing-racial-and-ethnic-composition-of-the-u-s-electorate/

Holmes, C. (2020, October 26). Obstacles to voting: 6 essential reads on the challenges of election 2020. Retrieved from The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/obstacles-to-voting-6-essential-reads-on-the-challenges-of-election-2020-145436

Levitz, E. (2020, October 29). Trump’s Voter-Suppression Strategy Is a Crisis (Even If It Backfires). Retrieved from Intelligencer: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/10/historic-voter-turnout-trump-voter-suppression.html

McDaniel, J, Jr. (2020). The Issue of Voter Suppression. In Vote for Justice (p. 17). http://www.enej.org/assets/pdfs/EpiscopalNetworksVoterGuide2020.pdf.

Price, T. (2018, October 12). CQ Researcher. Election Security and Voting Rights. http://library.cqpress.com.allstate.libproxy.ivytech.edu/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre2018101200&type=hitlist&num=0.

Schneider, M. (2020, October 14). Supreme Court halts census in lates twist of 2020 Count. Retrieved from AP News: https://apnews.com/article/us-news-census-2020-c6cb554611d328b423ac508e5008f9cd  

Engl 215-27B-B4-202020-VI Democracy WP#1 Research Proposal (3).docx

Written by:

Greg MD