'We can't just rally every four years:' Young people of color stand up to voter suppression in Florida and Texas
- Florida and Texas lawmakers introduced bills organizers say are designed to disenfranchise voters
- Organizers compare bills, which disproportionately harm young voters of color, to Jim Crow laws.
- The John Lewis Voting Rights Act recently passed in the House and could provide a path forward.
As a DACA recipient, Claudia Yoli Ferla can't vote in United States elections. Yet she's still making every effort to ensure that other young people of color have the opportunity to make their voices heard through the electoral process.
"I grew up knowing that I was undocumented and that I couldn't vote," Ferla told Insider. "I grew up knowing that ICE could come to my family's door and shatter all of our dreams within minutes."
Now the executive director of MOVE Texas, a grassroots organization focused on providing civil education and promoting voting rights in marginalized youth communities, Ferla thinks young people of color will be crucial to obtaining any legislation that provides a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients and other bills that can bring about change and equality.
In Florida and Texas, two crucial battleground states where legislators have introduced a bounty of bills designed to make voting more inconvenient and inaccessible, young people of color are leading the charge against voter suppression.
It hasn't been easy, especially since both states have been hit especially hard by the pandemic compared to other areas of the country with higher rates of vaccination.
Both states had organizations that planned to participate in the various voting rights rallies established by March On for Voting Rights, a coalition of civil rights groups and partner organizations, on Saturday - the 58th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leading the momentous March on Washington and giving his historic "I Have a Dream" speech.
While Florida went forward with marches despite recent spikes, Texas had to postpone its events due to the delta Covid surge.
Whether virtual or in-person, organizers in both states say they won't stop mobilizing.
The fight against voter suppression became all the more urgent with voter suppression bills restricting mail-in voting, levying penalties for mistakes on forms, and imposing other constraints on those trying to cast their ballots make their way through state legislatures.
"We're a couple of heart-beats away from a huge power shift," said Laurie Woodward Garcia, founder of Broward for Progress, a Florida grassroots organization that works to increase voter representation and participation. "We can't just rally every four years."
Organizers compare voter suppression to Jim Crow
"If our votes were not powerful, if our votes were not valuable, there wouldn't be such a concerted effort to suppress it," Eldrige, who works specifically with formerly incarcerated individuals to educate them on their rights, told Insider.
African Americans and people of color have traditionally been disenfranchised.
Though the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited racial discrimination, such disenfranchisement persists in more insidious ways after the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 in Shelby County v. Holder that nine states no longer needed to clear changes to their voting processes with the federal government before enacting them.
Several of these states, including Texas, not only have a history of disenfranchising voters of color, but have put forth some of the most limiting legislation to date.
Voter suppression efforts have only become worse since the 2020 presidential election, when the "Big Lie" - which erroneously claims, despite ample evidence to the contrary, that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump - emerged.
Organizers told Insider any progress on voting rights for marginalized communities could be derailed by mostly-Republican driven campaigns to obstruct voting under the guise of protecting against fraud.
"Most of our people who work in our service industry are people of color and for them, voting by mail makes voting a more accessible option," Nelson said. "If you work the early shift, you might be working another shift or going to your other job afterward, with no time in between to vote."
"Most of our people who work in our service industry are people of color and for them, voting by mail makes voting a more accessible option," Nelson said. "If you work the early shift, you might be working another shift or going to your other job afterward, with no time in between to vote."
In her work attempting to combat voter suppression, she has advocated for ballot boxes to be placed at the four Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Florida, but this goal has not yet come to fruition.
Nelson added that other restrictions that could harm young voters of color include S.B. 90, a bill requiring voters to renew their request for mail-in ballots each year and limiting who can deliver a mail-in ballot on another voter's behalf.
Gov. DeSantis signed the bill in May.
After months of back-and-forth, Texas' House of Representatives passed a bill that would outlaw drive-through and 24-hour voting locations and restrict election officials from sending out unsolicited mail-in ballot applications, among other limitations.
State Democrats had attempted to block the legislation by leaving the state, protesting in Washington DC.
Saatvik Ahluwalia, digital strategist for the Austin Asian Communities Civic Coalition, a Texas- based organization that rallies AAPI voters, says such restrictions will disproportionately harm Asian voters - more than 70% of whom cast a mail-in ballot, per TargetSmart, a Democratic political data firm.
The John Lewis Voting Rights Act would boost accessibility.
Voters also risk penalties for making a false statement - or as voting rights advocates call it, a simple mistake - on a voter assistance form.
"These laws criminalize really benign activities, including election workers' ability to help someone," Ahluwalia told Insider.
"They're confusing and the average volunteer might not understand the complexities of the law and is going to wonder whether they're going to get in trouble," he added.
These voter suppression laws are why Carmel Pryor, the senior director of communications for the Alliance for Youth Action, a coalition of organizations dedicated to increasing youth political power, said her organization and so many others are fighting to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, also known as H.R. 4.
Named after the late Georgia Congressman and civil rights leader, the bill would strengthen the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibited racial discrimination in elections, namely by reinstating and updating the provision in the original bill struck down in Shelby County v. Holder.
In the bill's current form, jurisdictions with 15 or more violations in the past 25 years need to get approval from the Justice Department before enacting changes to their election laws.
The bill passed in the House without a single Republican vote, but faces challenges in the Senate. Given the filibuster requires a three-fifths majority to pass the legislation, it's unlikely it will pass in the Senate given Republicans' fierce opposition to the bill.
"We have to fight this fight everyday," Woodward Garcia of Broward for Progress said. "The term voting isn't sexy, but what's sexy is healthcare, how much money is in your paycheck, healthcare, and knowing your voice and vote matter."
As the fight for comprehensive legislation that protects voting rights continues, young voters of color are prepared to step up as they inherit a country rife with climate and racial injustice, lack of economic opportunity and debilitating student loans, and insufficient healthcare.
"We need to change the narrative about young people being apathetic and not caring about politics," Pryor said, adding that "coordinated efforts" often prevent young voters from "having their voices heard."
"They recognize they are impacted by so many different issues at the ballot box and they've been showing up to vote in record numbers."