{"id":77603,"date":"2024-02-22T13:14:44","date_gmt":"2024-02-22T18:14:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/?post_type=r_cas_magazine&p=77603"},"modified":"2024-03-03T13:00:15","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T18:00:15","slug":"protecting-the-vote","status":"publish","type":"r_cas_magazine","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/arts-sciences\/article\/protecting-the-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Protecting the Vote"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Steve Holt<\/span><\/h6>\n

If there\u2019s one thing <\/span>Christine Slaughter<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Max Palmer<\/span><\/a> want their students to know about voting rights, it\u2019s that they\u2019re complicated\u2014and progress is rarely linear. \u201cAs a country, we tell this nice, neat story about how [voting] started out really restricted and then gradually got better,\u201d says Palmer, an associate professor of political science and associate chair of the department. \u201cThat\u2019s not at all the case.\u201d In reality, voting procedures vary from state to state, and the history of voting rights includes both progress and setbacks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Palmer and Slaughter, an assistant professor of political science, study <\/span>who<\/span><\/i> participates in the political process, and <\/span>why<\/span><\/i>. In a new course they\u2019re coteaching this spring\u2014Voting Rights (PO 336), BU\u2019s first undergraduate course on the subject\u2014the pair cover voting rights\u2019 complex history. For example, they point out that while the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a significant victory for voters of color, it took years for the federal law to be fully implemented in every state and locality. And after record-high levels of Black turnout in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, the Supreme Court gutted many of the Voting Rights Act\u2019s protections in its landmark 2013 decision, <\/span>Shelby County v. Holder<\/span><\/i><\/a>. In many states, policies enacted following the <\/span>Shelby<\/span><\/i> decision have made voting harder in communities of color.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt every turn where there\u2019s progress, there\u2019s retrenchment,\u201d Slaughter says. \u201cIt\u2019s a complicated thing to ask, \u2018Where have we seen progress?\u2019 when the goalposts around who can participate are constantly being challenged legally and through informal practices.\u201d In a presidential election year, with several legal challenges to voting practices pending in the courts, the lessons being taught in the new course are perfectly timed\u2014lessons Slaughter and Palmer hope their students will carry into policies they shape and campaigns they lead down the road.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who shows up, and why<\/b><\/h3>\n
\"\"
Max Palmer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Palmer and Slaughter research voting rights from different, but complementary perspectives. Palmer\u2019s research into election turnout includes looking at the institutional barriers that keep voters away from the polls. He\u2019s <\/span>found<\/span><\/a>, for instance, that Americans without access to a vehicle are roughly half as likely to vote in person as those with a ride. Palmer also studies redistricting, which is the process lawmakers use to redraw voting maps based on updated census data\u2014a process called gerrymandering when it\u2019s used to advantage the political party in power.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does it mean when one party is going to control your leg<\/span>islature no matter what happens in the election?\u201d Palmer says. \u201cThat\u2019s not responsive government, that\u2019s not effective government, that\u2019s not real representation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slaughter studies voting patterns with a political psychology lens. A key finding of hers is that minoritized groups continue to participate in the political process, despite barriers that make voting and participating in other ways difficult.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we see things such as longer wait times for African Americans, when we see requests for photo identification, these different practices making it more difficult to vote, how do we understand why voters persist and engage in politics\u2014despite these obstacles and barriers?\u201d Slaughter asks. For some Black women, the answer to that question might be hope. Slaughter\u2019s <\/span>research<\/span><\/a> has shown that Black women who are generally optimistic about the future of the country participate in politics at a higher rate than those who are not as hopeful.<\/span><\/p>\n

More than an election year issue<\/b><\/h3>\n
\"\"
Christine Slaughter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

News and conversations about voting rights understandably tick up during presidential election years. But Slaughter insists we not relegate it to something we bring up every four years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many things\u2014school board elections, city council elections, redistricting\u2014that happen outside of the presidential election and general primary window,\u201d Slaughter says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thinking about when and where the right to vote has been exercised, and where it may have been infringed upon, needs to happen more than once every four years, Slaughter says. State and local governments implement elections\u2014not the federal government\u2014and the right to vote is not explicitly enshrined in the Constitution. Several states are still redrawing electoral district lines based on 2020 US Census data, a process Palmer says is often partisan. In states where one party controls the legislature, redistricting is sometimes used to stack the deck against the opposing party. In 2018, for example, Republican candidates for the Wisconsin State Assembly won only 45 percent of the statewide vote but, due to partisan gerrymandering, won 64 percent of the seats. Palmer and his coauthors have proposed a <\/span>potential solution<\/span><\/a>, which involves dividing redistricting into a two-stage process where each party controls one stage, and could result in fairer maps. Heading into the presidential election, Palmer says his eyes are also on the states where <\/span>courts<\/span><\/a> may rule on the legality of new electoral maps. Notably, federal courts in Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana sent electoral maps that disenfranchised Black voters back to the legislatures to be redrawn, while the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the legality of a racial gerrymander in South Carolina.<\/span><\/p>\n

Slaughter says she\u2019ll be looking at voter turnout and experience among communities of color in 2024, especially in places like Texas, where Republican leadership has <\/span>closed hundreds of polling locations<\/span><\/a> and added identification requirements in the last decade, both of which disproportionately affect Black and Latino voters. \u201cThis will be the third presidential election where we don\u2019t have the full protections of the Voting Rights Act, specifically <\/span>the Section 4(b) coverage formula<\/span><\/a>,\u201d she says, referring to the portion of the act ruled unconstitutional in the <\/span>Shelby<\/span><\/i> decision. \u201cHow will we see minority voters participate in the election?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Charting a new course<\/b><\/h3>\n

Each week, with Slaughter and Palmer as their guides, 27 undergraduate students chew on questions like these in PO 336. Palmer says he\u2019s wanted to teach a course on voting rights for several years, but only now has the room in his schedule and the right coinstructor with whom to partner. Where Palmer\u2019s research has focused on the laws and institutions that define electoral politics, Slaughter\u2014who joined the CAS faculty in 2022\u2014brings a behavioral lens to the subject. The first part of the term was spent reviewing the history of voting rights, including the struggles of women, immigrants, Hispanics, Native American, and Black voters. The course will conclude with a study of contemporary laws and issues related to voting.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe want courses in our department that are relevant to what\u2019s happening in the world today,\u201d Slaughter says. \u201cWe want to equip our students with the skill set not only to see the legal and institutional contours of voting rights but also the behavioral aspect. Students are interested in political organizing, working for campaigns, or running for office themselves, and we want them to understand who you see show up on election day is not just who wanted to show up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Political Science Professors Christine Slaughter and Max Palmer are coteaching a new course: Voting Rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":77611,"template":"","department":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-articles\/77603"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-articles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/r_cas_magazine"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-articles\/77603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77865,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-articles\/77603\/revisions\/77865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"r_cas_department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/department?post=77603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}