Voting is the cornerstone of democracy and a fundamental human right recognized under international human rights law and protected by the United States Constitution. Yet during the 2016 election cycle, American voters faced new and confusing voter ID laws, along with intimidation and voter roll purging, all of which combined to suppress the right to vote in poor and minority communities. If state legislatures continue to pass restrictive voter identification laws without also making provisions for ensuring that all eligible voters have access to the required types of identification, it is likely that poor and minority communities will continue to be disadvantaged.
In the United States, elections are administered at the local level and are most often regulated by state, not federal, law. As a result, it is the local election commissions or county elections boards that are the duty bearers and are obligated to respect, protect and fulfill the right to vote—yet these same boards have often been responsible for denying this right. In fact, widespread fear of voter harassment and intimidation during the 2016 presidential election led organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to publish information on how to recognize and report such intimidation. Major media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and USNews & World Report also published similar articles.
