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Several issues spotlight this historic presidential election: economic policies, immigration, healthcare and voting rights. Voting rights have been viewed differently by both presidential candidates, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Harris proposed passing the John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act into federal law once sworn in. She wants to expand early voting, make registering to vote simpler and protect mail-in-ballot voting. This means that Harris’s campaign goals include getting Congress to pass voting rights protection laws that make it difficult for policymakers to restrict early voting and mail-in-ballot access.
Her plan for voting rights is to put efforts toward voter education and combat harmful legislation that challenges election laws. The main objective of her voting rights initiatives is to turn out voters, and in doing so, Americans’ votes are secured in making themselves heard in elections.
Trump’s alternative stance on voting rights has shifted from opposing absent voting methods to encouraging his supporters to utilize that specific method and early voting to help boost his voter turnout. His former stance demonstrates that he once held views similar to Harris’s on voting. Instead, his stance on voting rights has flip-flopped over the years and has been expressed by delegitimizing mail voting and early voting as leading to election fraud.
For instance, Trump proposed doing away with mail-in ballots after winning January’s Iowa caucus. But Trump’s advisors convinced him to loosen his stance on voting by showing the former president that his campaign could reach swing voters more broadly if they became more comfortable with early voting.
Young voters have turned out in record numbers in the 2020 and 2022 midterm elections. As a result of organizations and efforts to achieve youth voter turnout for this November, they are expected to participate again in voter turnout campaigns. In the upcoming election, there will be a question as to whether mail-in voting, early voting, and passing out snacks and water in long voting lines should be allowed.
This is why the presidential election will determine the future of voting rights.
Ashleigh Ewald (She/her/hers) is a Georgia-based journalist who is graduating early from Oglethorpe University in December. Follow her on IG: @ashleighewaldofficial.
Edited by Nykeya Woods