Why the Physical Conditions of Vote Centers Matter for Equitable Voting
When my political science professor asked if anyone in my class wanted to participate in a study on the conditions of vote centers, I was initially confused. Having gone with my parents to vote several times, the conditions of vote centers were never something I valued. Vote centers were, in my mind, just a place to go, vote, and leave. Not a true determiner of whether or how someone voted.
I ended up saying yes to the project and was given six locations to visit and a smorgasbord of data to collect. This included, among other things, availability of bathrooms and parking, length of lines, ease of locating the center, handicap accessibility, and any signs of electioneering.
One of the locations I visited was at San Jose City College. Pulling into the parking lot, I expected the vote center to be within view. It was not. It took me over 25 minutes of walking and asking others to find it. It was here I realized the relevance of the study.
For those who work more than one job or are single parents, the time spent looking for the location would be prohibitive. Given their other responsibilities, spending 25 minutes searching for a location is not feasible. And for those who live in the over 20 states that don’t have voting leave laws, this further exacerbates the issue. If employees can’t get paid time off to vote and voting isn’t quick enough to fit in with their other responsibilities, the votes of the most vulnerable communities are being suppressed.
Also important is the availability of public transportation. Santa Clara County has moved away from many, smaller polling stations to fewer, larger vote centers. Since these locations are further apart from each other, public transportation is crucial for voters without cars. Yet, the study at large found that only 63% of locations were near public transportation. Although those without cars can vote by mail, for those who are homeless or without a mailing address, a physical vote center is often the easiest way to vote. And if people cannot reach these centers, they can’t do so.
The conditions of each center are another important factor. It is not uncommon for voting lines to be over 30 minutes. This necessitates the availability of bathrooms. Yet, the study found that just 42% of vote centers had a clearly marked restroom. If people need to use the bathroom—and there is none—voters will often leave the line, unable to cast their vote.
It's clear, then, that the conditions of vote centers are crucial to holding a fair election. Although poor conditions aren’t necessarily de jure voter suppression, the result of poor conditions is de facto suppression.
More shocking however is the abundance of true, de jure attempts of vote suppression across the country. Many states have attempted to employ the system of ‘Exact Match.’ Exact Match requires the name a voter provides to exactly match their government records. It seems logical but, in fact, this is a very clear attempt to suppress minority voters. For example, if a person whose name is D’Wayne writes their name without the apostrophe as Dwayne when they vote, their vote could be thrown out. Georgia used Exact Match until 2019—and 80.15% of voters who were affected were “African-American, Latino, and Asian-American applicants.” Florida was recently challenged for their use of the same system.
‘Signature Match’ is another harmful system when used incorrectly. It requires a match between a signature on a voter'sabsentee ballot to the government’s record of that person's signature. Thirty-one states engage in Signature matching—which isn’t necessarily problematic—but 11 of them don’t allow fixes if there is a mismatch. For those with disabilities that affect their manual dexterity or for those whose signature subtly changes over time (i.e. most people) this is obviously problematic.
And lastly, the laws around voting are incredibly complicated. Many states purge voters from their rolls based on inactivity, sometimes disqualifying legitimate voters who are then confused when they are unable to vote. Many states require Voter ID, while others don’t. Same-day registration is legal in some states while illegal in others. Without a common set of laws around voting, the process of voting becomes complicated and therefore disincentivized.
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Santa Clara County—despite its shortcomings mentioned earlier—is a good example of equitable voting. California doesn’t have many of the harmful voting laws listed above, and in general, vote centers in Santa Clara are easy to locate, clean, and accessible. But across the nation, it's clear that more must be done to make voting more equitable. Democracy relies on these efforts.
*Cover image credit: San Jose spotlight