when joseph johnson went to vote in his
first presidential election
this isn't what he expected the line
went this way
in front of our auditorium and then
snaked around
into our library the last person in his
polling location
didn't get to vote until 1am it was the
longest
line that i've ever waited in my entire
life some people
they were just like well screw it this
was in a heavily democratic part of
houston texas
and it was a primary election where
democrats and republicans were voting on
separate machines
but the county had given both parties
the same number of machines to use
also texas had closed hundreds of
polling locations in recent years
meaning more people had to vote at fewer
places
but not everyone has to wait this is a
map of all the polling locations in
joseph's county that had reports of
long lines and here's the percentage of
non-white voters in each area
notice how most places with lines were
in less white areas
the pole closures and the other
decisions that led to those lines
disproportionately affected people of
color and whether or not that was
intentional
those kinds of decisions in places like
texas used to be highly regulated
and much less frequent today that
oversight is gone
but the 2020 election could decide
whether it comes back
this is the edmund pettus bridge in
selma alabama
in 1965 a group of civil rights
activists including the future
congressman john lewis
marched across the bridge and were
attacked and beaten by police
they were marching for voting rights
back then
especially in the segregated south there
was rampant voter suppression of black
americans
it started back when the 15th amendment
granted black men the right to vote in
1870
that right was enforced by federal
troops who occupied the southern states
during a period known as reconstruction
but what happened after reconstruction
was that the states passed a number of
laws
that effectively disenfranchised african
americans
of course no law could say no black
people can vote
it had to be a little sneakier like the
grandfather clause
where you could only vote if your
grandfather could vote which is
impossible if your grandfather was a
slave
there were literacy tests where voters
mostly black voters had to answer
bizarre
questions before they were allowed to
vote not just tests to see whether or
not you could read
but things like could you recite the
state's constitution and
poll taxes requiring voters again mostly
black voters
to pay to be allowed to vote they
selectively
chose who who had to abide by these
rules
in the 1950s and 60s congress passed
several civil rights laws that attempted
to protect voting rights
getting rid of things like poll taxes
still by 1964
in mississippi barely seven percent of
non-white americans could vote
selma's bloody sunday drew attention to
that
it made americans and congress wonder if
local officials like
these guys could really be entrusted to
enforce these new civil rights laws
so congress wrote another one ten days
after selma the voting rights act of
1965 was introduced
it added additional protections got rid
of literacy tests
but it also had a way to prevent any
other creative changes
state governments had to submit their
changes to the federal government for
approval the voting rights act
identified parts of the country that had
a history of voter discrimination
mostly in the south and set up federal
oversight
so if these places wanted to change
anything about voting
like enacting a new law or closing
polling locations
it first had to get the ok from the u.s
justice department or
federal courts that it wasn't
discriminatory
immediately non-white voter registration
in these southern states grew
like in mississippi where it went from
barely 7 percent to almost
60 percent in just three years
the voting rights act did what earlier
civil rights laws hadn't
but in 2013 the supreme court with a
majority of republican appointed judges
took on a case about the voting rights
act
they decided that the way the law
calculated which states would have that
federal oversight
was outdated and therefore
unconstitutional
no one doubts that there is still voting
discrimination in the south
and in the rest of the country we do
however find that the coverage formula
in section 4
violates the constitution almost
immediately
voting laws that had been previously
denied for being discriminatory
were enacted in these states literally
the same day as the supreme court's
decision
texas did just that announcing a voter
id law that a federal judge had
previously rejected
because it was the most stringent in the
country and
imposed strict unforgiving burdens on
the poor
other states enacted voter id laws too
along with other measures that had been
previously stopped like purging voter
rolls
and closing polling locations 1
173 places in total 750
just in texas an analysis by the
guardian looked at the 50 texas counties
that gained the most black and hispanic
residents from 2012 to 2018
and the 50 texas counties that gained
the fewest black and hispanic residents
in these counties the combined
population fell by 13 000 over that time
and 34 of their polling places were
closed
in these counties the combined
population grew by
2.5 million people but 542 of their
polling places closed
many officials in these states say
changes like these aren't intended to
disenfranchise specific voters
but there's no way to really know what
we do know
is that almost all these states
governments are controlled by
republicans
and the groups that tend to be
disenfranchised by these changes
are more often poor people and people of
color
most of whom tend to vote democratic
even when they're saying it's not
it's very hard to believe that in fact
they didn't have a strategic discussion
about how they could minimize the
democratic party's vote
in the supreme court decision the chief
justice told congress it's okay to have
oversight just don't base it on old data
congress must ensure that the
legislation it passes
speaks to current conditions and so in
2019 the house of representatives did
just that
passing a new bill to update the
criteria for which states get federal
oversight
john lewis then a congressman in his
17th term
presided over the vote but the bill
passed almost
entirely along party lines almost no
republicans voted for it and nearly
every democrat did
then the bill moved to the
republican-held senate where it isn't
going to get a vote
and even if it does pass the senate the
trump white house has threatened to veto
it
arguing the oversight is unnecessary but
the house
senate and white house are all up for
grabs in the 2020 election
and this is one of the many areas the
two presidential candidates have
polar opposite views pass the bill to
restore the voting rights act
it's one of the first things i'll do as
president if elected
in 2020 john lewis died the bill whose
passage he presided over
was renamed in his memory if the john
lewis voting rights advancement act
becomes law
its formula would restore federal
oversight for several states
including texas it's like if there
are no rules to the game then no one
can really play the game thanks for
watching this episode of our 2020
election series
we're focusing on the issues that are
most important to you
this one was requested by hundreds of
people aaron asked
what will the candidates plan to do to
protect voters ability
to vote yasmine asked how will they deal
with voter suppression and the new john
lewis voting rights advancement act
we want to know what you think the
candidates should be talking about
tell us at fox.com election videos