The Modern Poll Tax

One of the most striking moments in the course was the administration of the Alabama Voter Registration test. We were told the test aimed at voter suppression rather than voter registration. I feel I can confidently assume that no one in our class of thirty some students passed the test. It went far beyond what one might characterize as an attempt to ensure informed electorate. Though we like to imagine that civil rights issues are no longer matters of legislation, that is to say the problems are now confined to private thoughts and not matters of law, there are still attempts to encroach upon and limit the rights of citizens to participate in the most basic forms of democracy. There are still those who would eliminate some members of society from roles in the political process. The new target demographic is not limited to the black community, though they do comprise a section of it. The group of "undesirables" that some seek to eliminate from the political process is now the poor. The mechanism for this suppression comes in the form of Voter ID laws. These laws, though nominally an attempt to ensure that voter fraud is not committed, suppress the votes of the poor. Minorities are often a high percentage of this group. These laws range from those that require a full photo ID, one of the harshest measures, to requesting some form of identification(ProPublica). States which require full photo IDs are considered some of the harshest because those licenses often acquire money to obtain. Things like driver's licenses, though unremarkable to some, are a chore for those without financial flexibility to obtain(ACLU: Frank v. Walker). This problem, affects more than just African Americans it affects the American poor as a whole It is interesting to note that the battleground of civil rights has perhaps shifted from race to poverty. That is not to say that race is no longer a significant factor or that the issues are not intertwined, simply that race may no longer be the dominant factor. The use of voter ID laws is a cure that is worse than the disease. A nominal attempt to ensure voting security has far greater repercussions for voter repression. Eric Holder has argued that these measures can be compared to the poll taxes of the Jim Crow south (ProPublica). The recent voter ID legislation reveals that our position of civil rights can indeed be regressive. Our society must maintain a perpetual Civil Rights Movement, in which the populous is on guard against encroachments upon the rights of all citizens. 

Sources: 

1)ProPublica: Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About Voter ID Laws 

http://www.propublica.org/article/everything-youve-ever-wanted-to-know-about-voter-id-laws

2)ACLU: Frank v. Walker 

https://www.aclu.org/voting-rights/frank-v-walker-fighting-voter-suppression-wisconsin

3)NCLS: Voter Identification Requirements 

http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voter-id.aspx