The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is dying the death of a thousand cuts. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court stuck a dagger in the VRA’s guts with Shelby County v. Holder, striking down the formula that determined which jurisdictions had to get federal approval before making changes to their elections.
Earlier this year, the high court took a machete to another critical section of the VRA with Louisiana v. Callais, making it more difficult to use the law to challenge voting districts that dilute Black voting power. The hard-fought Voting Rights Act is bleeding out.
Fierce, divisive debate abounds during one of the most important electoral cycles this country has seen. The prized civil right of voting has become a special target for the Trump administration. Now that the law is on life support, Trump and his MAGA monsters have turned their arsenal to local, county and state jurisdictions. They are challenging existing processes and laws, being aided and abetted by GOP electioneers, state attorneys general and lower courts.
In a country that calls itself the greatest democracy on earth, let’s start with voter turnout. It’s pathetic. In the last 30 years, voter turnout in national elections has generally hovered well below the levels seen in many other democracies. Turnout is higher in presidential elections but can plunge during midterm elections. Australia’s voter turnout rate is 90%.
Let’s look at a couple more voting statistics. In 2024, about 62 million voting-age American citizens were not registered to vote, according to Census Bureau estimates. The divergence in numbers is wide because there is no standard protocol for how jurisdictions collect the data.
Then there’s this disturbing fact: Millions of Americans who are eligible to vote simply don’t vote. In the 2024 presidential election, 154 million voting-age citizens cast ballots, according to the Census Bureau. That leaves a mighty force of nonvoters to be reckoned with.
All the MAGA politricking will intentionally disadvantage Black and Brown voters. Black and Brown people are disproportionately represented among nonvoters.
One compelling reason identified by both groupings is their deep sense of alienation from the government. The irony is that these are exactly the marginalized sectors that need to be empowered to pressure government to be more attentive to their needs. But everyone has the duty to truly make it a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”
I used the metaphor of the Voting Rights Act bleeding out. For African Americans fighting for the right to vote, the blood is real. The people who lost their lives are real. Our receipts of lost lives, wealth, property and dignity are the reasons why we must continue to wage this war with courage and purpose.
The MAGA tactic of creating confusion and fear has been quite effective. The confusion looks like making mail-in voting more difficult, raising questions about who is on the voting list, whether your polling site is open, where your polling site is on the new gerrymandered map, whether ballots will be counted and creating other unnecessary hurdles for voters.
The fear tactics include sending ICE or other law enforcement to polling places, creating misinformation about foreign interference, raising the false narrative about voter fraud so that voters think the system is rigged, threatening city and county officials and manufacturing other disruptive legal obstacles.
Our people have been beaten down by the stress of living in a society where much of the judiciary and legislative branch has fallen under the MAGA spell. Democracy defenders face a vital mission: to mobilize and energize disillusioned voters, helping them rediscover their strength and play a key role in shaping their communities and future. Together, we must organize our communities into fighting machines, ready for whatever tricks are thrown at us. And we can expect plenty of tricks between now and the November elections.
Jamala Rogers is an opinion writer and one of the founding members of the Organization for Black Struggle, based in St. Louis.