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POV tags are not meant to be a permanent fixture for any article on Wikipedia. There has been no further discussion, nor did there seem to be a WP:Consensus in favor of the tag in the first place, according to it's relative TP section NPOV: More balanced examples or address the issue? This tag is about 3 years old, so there has been more than enough time for the editor(s) that placed this tag to have addressed any issues they saw as POV. The tag also cites WP:RECENTISM, but due to the extensive history of this term, I believe it has passed the ten year test WP:10YT. If any editor still feels that certain aspects of this article are still POV, please address them here, or better yet, fix them, instead of just putting the tag back on. That is just lazy editing IMO, and could also be construed as using the POV tag inappropriately as a sort of "badge of shame".
See WP:ACHIEVE NPOV, "As a general rule, do not remove sourced information from the encyclopedia solely on the grounds that it seems biased. Instead, try to rewrite the passage or section to achieve a more neutral tone. Biased information can usually be balanced with material cited to other sources to produce a more neutral perspective, so such problems should be fixed when possible through the normal editing process."DN (talk) 21:20, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
Do you have any examples? Nobody seems to be able to find any examples of Democrats suppressing the vote? Do such examples exist, or are Republicans the only ones suppressing the vote? Nobody wants to update this section.Scorpions13256 (talk) 18:42, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
There are examples already in the article of "Dem" voter suppression. See Jim Crow laws. Of course, things have changed since then. DN (talk) 19:18, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
POV tags again
SEE [1]. this page reads like a progressive hate screed and much of it's "findings" have been debunked on Politifact and Snopes.com)". I have removed this tag because being WP:TRIGGERED is not reason enough to cite a POV claim. If you have citations that dispute anything in this article, I kindly request you share them with the rest of us before using tags again. DN (talk) 02:59, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Coretta Scott King on Jeff Sessions
On 2019-05-17 user:2a02:c7d:69c0:2400:e0b2:4ae8:f063:49e7 deleted a comment that read, "(Sessions was accused by Coretta Scott King in 1986 of trying to suppress the black vote.)<nowiki?[1]</nowiki> This was deleted, claiming, "Texas: this should not be here."
I'm willing to believe it might be better someplace else in the article, but I believe it belongs in this article. Moreover, the previous sentence says, "Under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, however, the DOJ has expressed support for Texas's ID law." It therefore seems reasonable to me that this comment belongs there. Accordingly, I've reverted this deletion. DavidMCEddy (talk) 18:34, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
NPOV: More balanced examples or address the issue?
Most of the categories in this article use an example of the US Republican party doing the misdeed in question. This article would be improved by using examples from across the US political spectrum. As an alternative, some non-partisan (which probably means non-US) discussion of why the examples lean heavily toward one party might be in order.RJB9000 (talk) 00:39, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
@RJB9000: Have you found any examples of voter suppression by other groups in United States elections? Jarble (talk) 17:47, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
Democrats, being in dense metropolitan areas, are more into voter inflation, rather than suppression. Hard to prove a voter doesn't exist, or was alive at the time of the election, or not an American citizen, or legalizing illegals then using motor-voter to "legally" (?) register them, etc. etc. Oppose ids. That sort of thing. Student7 (talk) 00:19, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
Rubbish. Please cite some actual evidence that such is the case. Activist (talk) 09:46, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
Check out WP:GEVAL. Complying with NPOV does not require false balance. The fact that most of the examples given are of Republican actions simply reflects the fact that in the modern era, only one party is engaging in voter suppression. 207.98.198.84 (talk) 05:52, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
The other is involved in voter "encouragement" through such measures as moter-voter, which (ultimately) allows illegal immigrants to vote and stuffing the ballot box. Works in densely populated areas. Student7 (talk) 17:54, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
"Moter"-voter? Time to pay more attention to the books. This contention is also bunk. Kris Kobach seems to have made it his life's work to prove such a case and managed, after spending millions of taxpayer dollars, had found one voter who had not yet taken the oath of citizenship and half a dozen elderly white Republicans who didn't realize they were voting illegally in local elections when they has residence in two states. Activist (talk) 09:46, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
This article is about the distinct concept of "voter suppression", which appears to be discussed in enough reliable sources to satisfy Wikipedia's notability guideline. If you know of enough reliable sources discussing the concept of "voter inflation" or "voter encouragement" to satisfy notability, feel free to write an article about it (although what you're describing sounds like it already falls within the scope of the existing article on electoral fraud). Regardless, the National Voter Registration Act (motor voter) does not allow immigrants to vote; immigrant voter registration and voting in federal elections are criminally prohibited by 18 U.S.C.§ 1015(f) and 18 U.S.C.§ 611, respectively, and every state has its own analogous bans. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 19:30, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
Actually, almost all the examples are not examples of "voter suppression", but of discouraging or removing those who are not eligible to vote from voting. The concept of "voter suppression" as a propaganda term seems appropriate for Wikipedia, but examples are not known to exist. — Arthur Rubin(talk) 18:22, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
The article omits any reference to the 2008 voter suppression by the New Black Panthers at multiple voting locations in Philadelphia. The article also omits more than 400 instances of voter fraud in the 2012 presidential election in North Carolina, where most of the fraudulent cases involved illegal immigrants voting.
Actually, despite all the hyperventilation about the supposed NBPP "voter suppression" at a single precinct in Philadelphia, not a single intended vote was ever determined to have been suppressed. Please read up on the case before repeating this Fox "News" B.S. Activist (talk) 09:46, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
With respect to Texas, one can refer to Robert Karo's research about voting in Texas border counties during Lyndon Johnson's many campaigns there. In some of those precincts, fraudulent voting by illegal voters or even by Mexican residents has been a regular occurrence for many decades. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JP734 (talk • contribs) 19:03, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
There is no "Robert 'Karo'," but Caro did make a case that Congressman Johnson may have stolen the 1947 Senate election, ironically, since he made the case that his 1941 special election 1,311-vote loss to the sitting Texas governor was the result of theft. Activist (talk) 09:46, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
The article should either be more neutrally named (voting reduction?), or restricted to only those methods which are of questionable legality or morality. Among the specific types, only "disinformation", inadequate (not "inequality of") election resources, and "Jim Crow" laws fall into that category. — Arthur Rubin(talk) 18:31, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
Claiming that things like motor-voter laws "ultimately allows illegal immigrants to vote" is off-the-wall nonsense. 207.98.198.84 (talk) 05:14, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
It's fairly clear the article should not exist at all in its present state, as it is now being used as a propaganda page to imply that making it more difficult for someone to vote is "voter suppression", without consideration of whether the person is eligible to vote. In any case, it's not "political repression". — Arthur Rubin(talk) 04:38, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
The current quality of this article's content aside, the topic refers to the idea of denying eligible persons the right to vote. But that is neither here nor there. Can you elaborate as to how, exactly, this concept isn't "political repression"? It appears to be a "clearly appropriate" category to me. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 07:29, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
It's a matter of definition. The definitions of both terms need to bo modified, in order for it to match. It's certainly not persecution, and often it is difficult to determine the group "repressed" — it's not the group discouraged from voting. I'm not sure it should match, but the definitions in both articles need to be changed — even if any of the body of this article is appropriate. I've taken the first step in fixing the definitions, in this article. — Arthur Rubin(talk) 09:32, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
Maybe if article were renamed it would help. "Impediments to voting in the United States" would be very npov, for example. Doesn't imply a conspiracy in its title. Student7 (talk) 18:30, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
Making it more difficult for people ineligible to vote to actually vote is not "political repression", by any stretch of the imagination. — Arthur Rubin(talk) 22:52, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
Yes. And declining to have an article which documents dead people voting in cities, busing to vote at multiple sites, stuffing ballot boxes, moter-voter (which makes no specific sense except that it rhymes) and other things that Democrats do or have done to inflate the vote. pov article. Student7 (talk) 18:59, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
@Student7 and Arthur Rubin: There have been no discussions on this talk page for several months. Is it OK to remove the cleanup tags now? Jarble (talk) 00:50, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
Way overdue, IMHO. Activist (talk) 09:49, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
The title is faulty IMO (WP:POV). There are articles on only two countries, the US and Canada, probably among the 25 countries least likely to suppress legitimate voting. Unless there is a project to chronicle voter suppression in "developing" world countries, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and the like, the title should be changed.
Maybe manipulation of elections/voting? This would include both parties attempts, including motor-voter, gerrymandering by Democrats as well as Republicans, etc. In short, it would be an npov title containing information documenting both sides' attempts to doctor the voting lists to get more votes. Not just one-sided. Student7 (talk) 15:47, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
I thought I replied already. In addition to most of the examples, both general and specific, not meeting the definition added to the lede, there is almost unanimous support for the statement that there are serious problems with the article. The particular tag under discussion may not be the right one, but there needs to be something there. — Arthur Rubin(talk) 02:53, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
To the OP: Yes, it should be under that category. It's not political repression to prevent the ineligible from voting, but several examples (e.g., creating ridiculously long wait times or robocalling people suggesting they relax and stay home) indiscriminately affect the eligible and ineligible.
It's fair to suggest though that the Democratic equivalent (voter inflation) be merged with this article - or at least referenced from it - so as not to give the false impression that this issue is one-sided. 118.208.94.79 (talk) 21:57, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
To add to article
In regard to this sentence:
"In September, a federal circuit court of appeals reversed an earlier ruling that struck down a law requiring voters to have a residential street address."
It should be made clear in this article that this law was targeted specifically to Native Americans, many of whom live on reservations where their homes often do not have street addresses. 76.189.141.37 (talk) 04:36, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
Can you provide a credible source documenting that? Wikipedia asks contributors to cite sources, especially on anything that might be controversial. DavidMCEddy (talk) 05:08, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
Accordingly, I'm reverting your addition of the following for lack of credible documentation:
As a valid counterpoint to the argument to curtail voter I.D., It is also an effort by left-leaning organizations to falsely claim that minorities are somehow being systematically "disenfranchised" by Right-Wing Republicans. Nothing could be further from the truth. Free I.D.s are available in every State for anyone over 65 years of age, anyone receiving welfare assistance, and homeless people.People with jobs receiving a paycheck must have an I.D. to cash a check. There are also numerous other requirements for a citizen to posess a valid Identification card.
Conservapedia was created to counter an alleged liberal bias in Wikipedia. The most extreme example I know of this is the Wikipedia article on Kris Kobach: Anyone with no prior knowledge of the events documented there, who also refused to check sources cited therein, might conclude that Mr. Kobach was being viciously attacked in that article.
If you want to restore your alleged "valid counterpoint", you need to cite credible sources. DavidMCEddy (talk) 05:02, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
DavidMCEddy The claims of intentional disenfranchisement are exhaustively documented. The Fish defendant's case name has changed with Kobach's exit from elected office. A second case was Bednasek v. Kobach. Activist (talk) 10:02, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
Needs more work
I have done a bunch of work on the article, but it needs more. There is a good deal of material that needs updating; it mentions allegations, but says nothing about what happened with those allegations. Also, I caught two instances where key facts in the cited sources that would lead to the conclusion that voter suppression had NOT occurred were not included in the article, leaving it unbalanced. This makes me question whether the rest of the material here has been presented in an evenhanded manner. There is also a good deal of material that, based on the text, might or might not have involved voter suppression. That ambiguity should be noted (or cleared up), or the material should not be in the article.
Tagged article for WP:UNDUE concerns and because it needs updating. SunCrow (talk) 19:49, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
I've removed tagging and added requested sourcing and will work at further improvement. Activist (talk) 10:05, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
I appreciate the sources you have added to the article. However, the applicable tags on both the disputed section and the page as a whole are being re-added because the issues raised have not been addressed. If you believe those tags to be inappropriate, you should discuss those concerns here instead of summarily removing them pursuant to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. SunCrow (talk) 16:08, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
SunCrow an editor has purged this article of the massive and inappropriate purging of tens of thousands of voters from the Florida rolls for the 2000 presidential election, done by Governor Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris, most likely changing the outcome to a victory for Jeb's brother George. This issue has been exhaustively covered by many sources, most thoroughly by Greg Palast. SunCrow, you have misrepresented the major findings of the Palm Beach Post. I've also reverted an edit that you made about the Georgia election roll purging where you eliminated the most pertinent information from the source and actually inserted exactly the opposite text of what the existing source said. I see you also again massively changed the endlessly debunked "New Black Panther" nonsense in Philadelphia to make it sound as though it had caused actual voter suppression, though no evidence exists that it changed a single vote. I'm asking you to take this to Talk and to stop autonomously changing legitimate information in articles such as these to comport with what appears to be your world view, rather than the facts at hand. Other than that, Merry Christmas to you and remember the Fourth Commandment. Activist (talk) 16:14, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
Activist, I have attempted to engage with you in good faith here, but you have once again made it abundantly clear that it's pointless for me to do so.
Your first accusation is that I "purged" the article of content on the issue of voters in the State of Florida being inaccurately identified as convicted felons in 2000 and being removed from the voter rolls as a result. You added that I misrepresented the findings of the Palm Beach Post. The Palm Beach Post article that I believe you are referring to can be found at https://web.archive.org/web/20041010061949/http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/election2000/election2000_felons2.html. Your accusation is FALSE. That article says that "a review of state records, internal e-mails of DBT employees and testimony before the civil rights commission and an elections task force showed no evidence that minorities were specifically targeted." There is a difference between a poorly-executed effort to remove convicted felons from the voter rolls (which is incompetence, but not voter suppression) and a deliberate removal of eligible voters from the voter rolls (which is voter suppression). It appears that the unfortunate situation in Florida was the former, not the latter, which is why I removed the information from the article.
Your third accusation is that I "massively changed the endlessly debunked 'New Black Panther' nonsense in Philadelphia to make it sound as though it had caused actual voter suppression, though no evidence exists that it changed a single vote". Actually, before I worked on this article, there was absolutely no mention of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case from 2008. I added sourced material from the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case Wikipedia page (see my edit at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Voter_suppression_in_the_United_States&diff=926538500&oldid=926533259). I have reviewed the subsequent edits I made to this material and believe them all to be neutral and accurate. Your accusation is FALSE.
Earlier today, I addressed you about your mischaracterization of my work in an edit summary and your inappropriate removal of template messages pursuant to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. You ignored what I said and instead spewed out false accusations, which is something I have experienced with you multiple times. I will most certainly enjoy the Christmas holiday, and I will take your advice and remember the Fourth Commandment (although I have no idea what it has to do with this conversation). I would advise you to remember the Ninth.
If any honest editor wants to discuss the issues raised in this post in good faith, I'll be more than happy to do that. SunCrow (talk) 20:11, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
This is simply ridiculous. For instance, SunCrow removed the following text, in toto, though rephrased per WP guidelines, from a New York Times Article about vote suppression:
"false information about casting ballots online by email and by text message, the circulation of doctored photographs in 2016 which claimed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were arresting voters at polling places and included threatening language meant to intimidate Latino voters."
Activist, I stand by 100% of my edits. I edited the content regarding the NYT article so that it would more clearly and concisely summarize that article. Not sure what your problem is with that. Also, contrary to your accusation, I did not add bare URLs to the page; the links I added were filled in, not left bare (see diff at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Voter_suppression_in_the_United_States&diff=934351845&oldid=934350781). (Do you know what a bare URL is? If not, please see Wikipedia:Bare URLs for clarification.) It is true that my footnotes often do not include access dates. If someone behaving less disagreeably than you typically do were to bring that to my attention, I would probably respond in a cooperative way. As to your question about my sex, that is answered here. As to your honesty and good faith being "gratuitously questioned", that is nonsense. There is nothing gratuitous about it. In the many instances where you have attacked me with falsehoods, I have thoroughly debunked them. It's not reasonable to expect other people to trust you when you habitually lie about those with whom you disagree. SunCrow (talk) 20:59, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
More nonsense. Your edits included these, in the article,
Previously existing text: (Suncrow's deletions underlined)
Republican Abigail Thernstrom, a former vice-chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights who was appointed by George W. Bush, became a vocal critic of the investigations over the NBPP case. In an interview with CBS News, Thernstrom said that she believed "the evidence is extremely weak" that the DOJ during the Obama administration had discriminated against white voters.No Proof in New Black Panther Case: Official. CBS News. July 25, 2010. Retrieved January 5, 2020.</ref> Thernstrom explained her opinion on the case in an article for conservativeNational Review magazine, in which she referred to the NBPP case as "very small potatoes".Danielson, Chris (2013). The Color of Politics: Racism in the American Political Arena Today. ABC-CLIO. p. 163. ISBN978-1-4408-0276-8. She said conservative Commission members were politically motivated to use the New Black Panthers issue to "topple" the Obama administration, saying "My fellow..."
SunCrow's revisions:
SunCrow's subject line: (→Pennsylvania: reword; remove repetition)
Republican Abigail Thernstrom, a former vice-chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights who was appointed by George W. Bush, became a vocal critic of the investigations over the New Black Panthers case. In an interview with CBS News, Thernstrom said that she believed "the evidence is extremely weak" that the DOJ during the Obama administration had discriminated against white voters.No Proof in New Black Panther Case: Official. CBS News. July 25, 2010. Retrieved January 5, 2020. Thernstrom explained her opinion on the case in a National Review article in which she referred to the case as "very small potatoes".Danielson, Chris (2013). The Color of Politics: Racism in the American Political Arena Today. ABC-CLIO. p. 163. ISBN978-1-4408-0276-8./ref> She contended that her "fellow...
Regarding SunCrow's deletion of "NBPP," in favor of once again spelling out the entire proper name of the organization, as it had been repeated five times in the article, at the top of the Pennsylvania section, I had abbreviated it after its first mention there to save space for Wikipedia readers, just as I might have for "GOP," or "ACLU." So SunCrow actually added repetition.
"Reword?" "...topple the Obama Administration?" Spare us. Res ipsa loquitur
Regarding the National Review from the article lede "Since its founding, the magazine has played a significant role in the development of conservatism...establishing itself as a leading voice on the American right."
Just before made these edits, SunCrow had avoided making a simple [citation needed] notation, instead entirely deleting this paragraph:
Critics charged the Obama Justice Department had refused to apply civil rights law in a colorblind fashion; the DOJ, they argued, would never have watered down the case had the alleged wrongdoers been white. The matter had made headlines again in 2010 because of renewed allegations by Coates, the DOJ lawyer who originally brought the case, that the voting rights section has long been "hostile" to anything but cases in which minorities are victims, not perpetrators. Coates failed to offer specific evidence that the DOJ acted improperly. There was no evidence that Shabazz's actions were directed or incited by the party or its national leader.
It took me all of 30 seconds to find a source, one of many, for the text, which I restored. As to my efforts to help make Wikipedia more neutral, informative and readable, SunCrow has characterized thusly, "...you habitually lie about those with whom you disagree." Hmmm. Activist (talk) 20:43, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
Yadda yadda yadda. SunCrow (talk) 08:11, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
This section needs a lot of work. I have tagged it as confusing/unclear, POV, unreliably sourced, and containing weasel words. SunCrow (talk) 06:41, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Towards addressing and removing the warning template on "Purging of voter rolls" section
The warning suggests the section contains unimportant or irrelevant information, with the hidden text suggesting that the examples in this section do not include evidence of voter suppression.
This section is under the heading of "Methods", suggesting that the section should describe how purging of voter rolls is a method of voter suppression. So before giving the examples, I propose adding some text explaining that purging of rolls is the process by which names are removed from voter registration lists, and when that process is done carelessly, it is possible for eligible voters to be unwillingly and unknowingly un-registered. [1]
With that context, it is clear that the existing content of the section are in fact examples of purging done badly, which necessarily constitutes voter suppression. The author of the hidden text suggests the examples do not constitute suppression and evidence of suppression needs to be presented. I respond to that for each example:
1. Florida: The news article cited clearly states that the purging of voters whose names were the same as names of convicted felons resulted in eligible voters going to the polls to vote only to be denied the right to do so on election day because of the negligent purging process. These voters were suppressed and this example should stay in the article.
2. Brooklyn, NY: The articles cited in this section clearly state that the purge of over 100,000 people was found to be illegal. While the illegal purge was corrected and voters re-instated before a congressional primary in August 2016, the purge was only discovered *after* widespread complaints of voters being turned away - or suppressed - in the April 2016 presidential primary election (documented in the NYTimes article already cited). Voter suppression happened as a result of this purge. This example should stay in the article.
3. Georgia: The article describes illegal voter purging within 90 days of an election. The purging is illegal so close to the election *because* of the high probability that voter suppression will result. This makes the Georgia case a clear example of how voter purges are a method of voter suppression and that is precisely the theme of this section.
4. Wisconsin: Over 200,000 voters were purged because "they were flagged as having potentially moved" or did not respond to mailing within 30 days. With such broad rules for purging, it is clear that many eligible voters will have wrongfully been removed in this process. And it has already been shown that mass voter purges are a method of suppression.
In summary, the warning about this section being unimportant and irrelvant to the topic of voter suppression is wrong. The warning should be removed.
Davemfish (talk) 18:39, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
spin off history to a new article?
Most of this article is organized chronologically. What do you think about spinning off that part into a new article on "History of voter suppression in the United States", then organizing the rest around different specific tactics used to undermine electoral integrity in the US? And maybe change the name to something like "Attacks on electoral integrity in the United States"? I think the following belong together:
Questionable restrictions on voter registration
Questionable purging of voter roles (including caging)
Limitations on early and absentee voting
Limiting the number and locations of polling places
Voter ID requirements that disenfranchise people who should be allowed to vote
Gerrymandering
There seems to be a widespread belief among supporters of Mr. Trump that the US has a major problem with voter fraud. The single most reliable source I know about this is the "Findings of fact and conclusions of law" in Fish v. Kobach, written by Judge Julie A. Robinson, who was appointed to the bench by US President George W. Bush, a Republican.[2] In brief, Judge Robinson found that Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach was able to document 39 non-citizens who had registered to vote. To secure Kansas elections from that massive threat, he convinced the Kansas state legislature to pass a law requiring documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC). While that law was in effect, over 31,000 new voter registrations were rejected, representing 12.4% of all new voter registrations. Some of those had DPOC, but their application was rejected, because the person registered with the state motor vehicle bureau, which did not have procedures for asking for DPOC and recording it if provided. Others were born under circumstances where a birth certificate wasn't created. One was born in a military hospital, and the records were lost after the military base was closed. Mr. Kobach's expert witness, Hans von Spakovsky, was found to be an advocate, not an expert, who cited a U.S. GAO study for the proposition that the GAO 'found that up to 3 percent of the 30,000 individuals called for jury duty from voter registration roles over a two-year period in just one U.S. district court were not U.S. citizens.' On cross-examination, however, he acknowledged that the 3 percent figure was from one of 8 jurisdictions, 4 of which reported zero non-citizens called for jury duty, and the other 3 reported less than 1 percent.[3]
I've so far been unable to find any credible source that supports the claims of Mr. Trump about this and people like Mr. Kobach.
It seems to me that {{v:confirmation bias and conflict|the rules of evidence in the court of public opinion}} is whatever will maximize the power of those who control the money for the media. By contrast, the US judicial system is far from perfect, but tends to have better fact checking than the mainstream media.
updates for 2020 election and implications of pandemic on voting
Different states currently are deciding on different policies regarding vote by mail. Given the current pandemic, these policies will shape the ability of individuals to vote. It may be a salient point to address these implications as possible areas of voter suppression if these regulations restrict political participation of certain groups more so than others, etc. Heatherkong (talk) 17:56, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
Wikiquote:Paul Wyrich includes a link to a video of him saying, "So many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome: good government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." Are you suggesting that video may not be authentic? Or that it's not evidence of voter suppression, only motivation if that?
What would you say about Fish v. Kobach? The "Findings of fact and conclusions of law" in that case read like a comedy, except that 12.4% of new voter registration applications were denied, over 31,000 citizens, to protect the state's elections from the threat to integrity of 39 non-citizens who had allegedly registered to vote. Moreover, Kobach's expert witness Hans von Spakovsky cited a GAO study that found that up to 3% of people called for jury duty from voter registration rolls in one federal jurisdiction were non-citizens, while failing to mention that the same section of the GAO report he cited included data from 7 other district courts, and 4 of those reported zero non-citizens while the other 3 reported less than 1%. Robinson discussed his many "misleading" comments. I'm not an attorney, but I think Spakovsky should be tried for perjury. He's a member of the Georgia Bar Association, whose official ethics includes being forthright in court. I think he should be disbarred.
The evidence of voter suppression in the United States goes far beyond mere allegations. Would you also want to change the name of the article on "Lynching in the United States" to "Alleged lynching ..."? DavidMCEddy (talk) 07:00, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
Unclear Organization
The organization in this article is effectively nonexistent. It would be nice to actually have some clear sense of what this article is saying, whereas now it just seems to be a mish-mash of vaguely sourced claims and partisan complaints. Sections should be clearly organized and should focus on specific unambiguous examples of voter suppression, where turnout actually meaningfully declined. Right now, most sections fail to inform a reader of the actual impacts of voters.
In a number of cited claims of voter suppression here, voter turnout increased substantially, which makes the claim that substantial voter suppression occurred questionable. It can happen, but sourcing should deal with the actual facts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.62.152.16 (talk) 02:56, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
Words fail me
I just came upon this article today and was disgusted. Its first sentence reads as follows: "Voter suppression in the United States concerns allegations about various efforts, legal and illegal, used to prevent eligible voters from exercising their right to vote." However, the article included information on a wide range of voting-related policies such as voter ID laws, early voting, etc. By including that information, the article necessarily implied that these policies are examples of voter suppression. That is blatant POV, and likely POV with a partisan tinge. The article also included bizarre minutiae about long lines at voting booths. While long lines could be examples of voter suppression, they could also be examples of governmental incompetence; without some evidence of bad intent, there is no reason to include this type of information in the article. Then, there was the absurdity of including a section on felon disenfranchisement. By definition, felon disenfranchisement refers to laws that prevent felons from voting. According to the article, voter suppression prevents "eligible voters from exercising their right to vote". If felons are ineligible to vote, stopping them from voting isn't voter disenfranchisement. I have cut a lot of material that didn't belong here, much of which read more like a poorly-written advocacy piece than an encyclopedia article. And then there's the fact that the article contains a total of two sentences on voter suppression during Jim Crow. Seriously? This article is so bad that we might be better off just starting over again. How did it get this way? What is going on here? SunCrow (talk) 05:42, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
Do you have any argument here or has finding out about the skeletons in the right wing closet caused a little emotional reaction? This sounds like the response of a red faced 40 year old rather than a rational paragraph — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.35.73.98 (talk) 09:50, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
Pre-Civil-War content
First three comments copied over from Firefangledfeathers's talk page at their request—
Hi, you just reverted my addition to Voter suppression in the United States in which I quoted an 1824 South Carolina bill asserting the importance, over all other laws, constitutions, and treaties, for the government to "control and regulate" political causes; your edit comment said that this was "not needed" in the article, which currently does not have any material on pre-Civil-War voter suppression.
This certainly wasn't meant to be thorough coverage of pre-Civil-War voter suppression in the United States, just a start. But an official government declaration about control of political activities and related subordination of "their" colored population seems pertinent and reliably-sourced, as the WP:P&G jargon goes.
I'm not terribly thrilled at the idea of throwing the work away but maybe you could give me an idea of what sort of pre-Civil-War coverage of the topic is needed, that it might be combined with? --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡|℡| 19:24, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Ah, amending my above comment, I'm noticing that I missed the "1838 Gallatin County Election Day Battle" subsection. The South Carolina thing seemed like a better contrast to voting rights being granted post-Civil-War, but would you prefer it be added next to the existing pre-Civil-War content about Mormons? --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡|℡| 19:37, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Hi Struthious Bandersnatch, I was impressed by the quality of your writing and very much on the fence about reverting. I am not 100% sure that my viewpoint is correct. Probably the best place for this discussion is at the talk page. Could you copy your message there? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 19:39, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for bringing the discussion here! To me, the South Carolina info would only be relevant if it restricted voting rights over and above a total ban on Black voting. As far as I know, South Carolina didn't allow Black people, free or enslaved, to vote until after the Civil War. I could be wrong!In general, I would support including information here about how the various states handled the voting rights of free Black people. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 20:36, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Hmmm, yeah, I'm not certain that there were explicit bans on black voting, though it'd be good to find out; my impression has always been that the methods relied on in early America (and the rest of history, really) were state terrorism and carve-outs to rights supposedly given to white people to prevent them from voting the "wrong way" or using the franchise to agitate for the wrong things.I believe, for example, that in many slave states in the early nineteenth century publishing or circulating abolitionist pamphlets was a capital crime in statute... so that's how far "freedom of speech" went with the Founding Fathers.Even if South Carolina did explicitly prohibit free blacks from voting, though, isn't the quote I'd added still quite relevant? That quote gives a good example of the mens rea written out plainly for all to see, as they were willing to do back then; whether or not the pretext for forcing a voter to recite the Constitution from memory or guess the number of jelly beans in a jar is to supposedly ensure a competent electorate, that quote is white supremacy literally laying out how racial subordination of blacks supersedes any other rationale for any government activity, and justifies government to control and regulate any cause that might undo the subordination.(So, to be clear, as a start for an article section covering pre-Civil-War voter suppression, I was expecting that this would be an example of the intent—of which there are many more examples too because white Americans said this kind of stuff, in writing, all the time—which would tie together sourced examples of implemented voter suppression policies and activities, of both free blacks and abolitionist whites, or even whites in favor of not-harsh-enough slavery: from browsing Ira Berlin, I believe perceptions of just how draconian American slavery needed to be intensified from the turn of the century onward. And I've never looked into it but I'd expect some Gangs of New York type anti-immigrant voter suppression to show up against whites too.) --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡|℡| 23:05, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
The following statement, which appears in the lead paragraph of this article, appears to me to be a synthesis derived from the views of two contributing editors whose work appeared in The Guardian and The Atlantic, the two cited references that appear as footnotes:
That the sources are purely opinion pieces is evidenced (for the Guardian article) by the following disclaimer appearing in a linked page, "Unless otherwise stated, all statements and materials reflect the views of the individual contributors and not those of theguardian.org, the Schumann Media Center, Craig Newmark Philanthropies or the Guardian." The editors of Atlantic website are a bit more stealthy, calling their opinion pieces "Ideas" instead. No explicit disclaimer could be found for this piece, but an astute reader will clearly see that it is an opinion piece as well.
Since the statement really does not belong in the lead, and since it reflects only the opinion of the respective contributors, I will be removing it from the article. Johnnie Bob (talk) 22:12, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
Johnnie Bob That's not how Wikipedia works. You should be working for a consensus, not just making up your own rules because you WP:JDLDN (talk) 00:30, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
Does anyone still finds these tags necessary? If not they should be removed as it has been (checks watch) 2 YEARS...Please list all the issues that need corrected so they can be addressed and discussed on the talk page. I will be checking back in a week to see if any progress has been made. DN (talk) 22:51, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
Couldn't you similarly say that every op ed piece in The New York Times is an "unreliable blog"?
It would be better if that citation were to an article in a reputable, refereed academic journal with good citations. However, those citations are often harder to find, and I don't think they are necessary unless something is contested. In this case, your deletion of that citation triggered user:AnomieBOT to tag those places with {{citation needed}}. Deleting citations like that seems to me to be an attack on the integrity of Wikipedia.
... AND Forbes is NOT Breitbart. I didn't read every word of that article, but it seems like a reasonable historical review published in a reputable journal by someone who seems to be qualified to know that subject fairly well. What I read is consistent with what I know about the subject. ??? DavidMCEddy (talk) 14:58, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
Your question is answered at WP:RSP - NYT blogs are green-rated WP:NEWSBLOGs, but Forbes contributor blogs are specifically called out as Generally Unreliable. There's even a link, WP:FORBESCON.
Forbes contributor blogs are not the magazine. There is sufficient confusion on this point that they are distinguished from magazine content. For magazine content, it should be "from the print edition", a staff writer, or old content before Forbes started putting up any old blog posts.
A lot of Forbes blog content is great! A lot is trash. It's bad enough that the whole area is considered "Generally Unreliable".
If you honestly thought the two examples were comparable, I urge you to read the discussions that went into the WP:RSP descriptions.
It may well be a pretty nice blog post! But it's specifically Generally Unreliable, unless the author specifically passes the subject-matter expert provisions of WP:SPS. That's why I removed the cite but not the content. It's absolutely a matter for discussion, but I think you've greatly overestimated the general reliability of Forbes contributor blogs.
WP:V does not say "use something that looks pretty good", it says to use Reliable Sources - David Gerard (talk) 15:25, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
Also, if you've been here since 2011, you should know what "POV editing" is. I can't think how removing blog posts as sourcing is "POV editing" - David Gerard (talk) 15:36, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
I support David Gerard's actions and reasoning here. The source is unreliable, but the content looks verifiable; it makes sense to keep the content with cn tags. I briefly looked into the Forbes author, and she does not appear to meet the exception noted in WP:SPS. DavidMCEddy, I'd recommend self-reverting. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 17:04, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
Republicans have passed or attempted to pass many laws that have been seen asrestricting?
Is there any credible evidence to support the Republican claims that these measures are needed to ensure the integrity of our elections?
The available evidence I can find supports the claim that Republicans understood at least by 1980 that, "our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." (See Wikiquote:Paul Weyrich.) Since then, Republicans have repeatedly been hauled into court by Democrats and ordered to cease voter suppression activities ... until the Supreme Court shifted so far to the Right that such activities are now legal, as discussed in this article.
The best single, seemingly balanced analysis of this issue I know is Judge Julie Robinson's "Findings of fact and conclusions of law" in Fish v. Kobach.
If you know honest evidence supporting the Republican efforts in this area, I want to know. From what I've seen the rules of evidence in the court of public opinion is whatever will maximize the social status of those who control the money for the media. The rules of evidence in the US courts are often more balanced.
I've reverted your change to more simple and direct language that seems supported by the available evidence. DavidMCEddy (talk) 13:14, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
New Article for Voter suppression in Georgia??
I saw that this article has many sources related to historical and contemporary instances of voter suppression, so I thought it would be valuable to create a page on voter suppression in Georgia specifically. The parent article might need to be updated because of the new information that has risen on the topic, and it might be biased toward a more leftist perspective, so editing a few of those places might be a good place for me to start working. In this new article I am creating, it would follow a similar structure to its parent article of voter suppression in the United States. I would like to have categories explaining the historical context of voting rights in Georgia considering it was part of the Jim Crow south as well as the contemporary issues of voter suppression with requiring IDs and not allowing people to give voters food and water while they wait in long lines. I would like to highlight the struggles of various communities—Black voters, rural voters, non-English speaking voters, previously incarcerated voters, immigrant voters, etc. and for aforementioned information that is lacking in this article, I might add these topics here. I would also like to include how COVID-19 impacted voting in the past presidential election and the legislation that stems from that in my article. I have more information on my talk page, so check that out if you would like! I am very receptive to feedback since this will be my first article! :)
Dpalmer3157 (talk) 03:47, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
Historical and post 2020
@PBZE: Given the many reports of new major restrictions on voting procedures, and the substantive evidence contradicting the official rationales given for those changes, I think the lede to this article should retain the previous reference to attacks on voting rights by Donald Trump and Republicans since the 2020 elections. I support your recommendation about including its use for racial discrimination in the past. DavidMCEddy (talk) 08:17, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
@DavidMCEddy: Voter suppression to some extent has been done multiple times throughout the history of the United States. The recent voter suppression being done by the Republican Party is significant, but not more than voter suppression in the Jim Crow era which at present is barely even mentioned in the lede. There's no reason why the most recent instances of voter suppression should take up half the lede; it would be recentism to do so. Maybe the lede could be expanded to include the historical examples as well as the most recent one, weighed proportionally. PBZE (talk) 08:24, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
On 2021-12-26 User:23.240.160.134 twice deleted credible reports of actions by President Trump's Postmaster GeneralLouis DeJoy that allegedly degraded the quality of service in the US Postal Service in an effort to reduce the number of mail-in ballots processed during the 2020 election. The first deletion was for "Unclear relevance". After that was reverted, User:23.240.160.134 deleted the passage again, saying, "Not entirely sure what the reason was to defend this. Common Dreams and the Nation are far from objective sources. They simply aren’t."
Both Common Dreams and The Nation regularly publish material by well-respected authors. As of 2021-12-26 I cannot find information in the article on either publication that raises questions about the credibility of what they publish.
The edits by DavidMCEddy and his subsequent defense are not based in policy. Common Dreams and The Nation are both described in their own pages as progressive and not described as reliable news sources. DavidMCEddy’s description of them as “publishing highly respected authors” is based in his personal opinion. If he wants to find reliable sources suggesting this, he can.
Additionally, he reverted a change to the Mississippi section, where the entire section consisted of one poll worker posting ambiguously racist content on private social media. How this in anyway could amount to “voter suppression” (it technically would only increase voter turnout if it accomplished anything at all, which is highly doubtful) is not described, which I made clear in my edit description. He has claimed that both edits were filed under “unclear relevance.” This is patently untrue, as it had been three different edits, only one of which had that in the edit description. Check page history. 23.240.160.134 (talk) 17:08, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
I see you are new to Wikipedia. How familiar are you with WP:GUIDELINES? More to the point, why would it matter if the sources described themselves as reliable? If i say I'm a millionaire, unfortunately that does not make it so. DN (talk) 01:48, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
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Regarding multiple diffs, the last one here [2], I have looked through most of the article but I did not see which citations from RS explicitly state, support and provide evidence that the Southern Strategy falls under the purview of Voter Suppression or vice versa. Could we list those citations here to discuss, please? DN (talk) 22:02, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
Editorial cartoon by Thomas Nast from the January 18, 1879 issue of Harper's Weekly criticizing the use of literacy tests. It shows "Mr. Solid South" writing on the wall: "Eddikashun qualifukashun. The Blak man orter be eddikated afore he kin vote with us Wites." The Republican Nast often satirized the Democratic Party by caricaturing its adherents as poor, ignorant, and violent.
From 1890 to 1908, the white Democratic legislatures in every Southern state enacted new constitutions or amendments with provisions to disenfranchise most blacks[1] and tens of thousands of poor whites. Provisions required payment of poll taxes, complicated residency, literacy tests and other requirements which were subjectively applied against blacks. As blacks lost their vote, the Republican Party lost its ability to effectively compete in the South.[2] There was a dramatic drop in voter turnout as these measures took effect, a decline in African American participation that was enforced for decades in all Southern states.[3]
That section doesn't use the phrase "Voter suppression", but what it describes is clearly voter suppression. Can there be any doubt?
I'm reverting Springee's deletion of the "See also" referral to "Southern Strategy". DavidMCEddy (talk) 18:13, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
That is really a stretch. Also, the "southern strategy" is described as a Nixon era appeal to closeted racism. Content from pre-WW1 is not part of the southern strategy. Southern voter suppression in the late 1800s certainly is a true thing but it's not part of the southern strategy. This is especially true since the southern strategy is viewed as an underhanded strategy used by the GOP while the material you quoted was something done by pre-WW1 southern Democrats. DN was right to suggest removal. Springee (talk) 18:34, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
How can "new constitutions or amendments with provisions to disenfranchise most blacks" NOT be "voter suppression"? How is that "a stretch"? DavidMCEddy (talk) 18:44, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
That isn't part of the southern strategy. That is the pre-southern strategy history included in the article (why, I'm not certain). The opening sentence of the article sums it up, "In American politics, the Southern strategy was a Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans.[1][2][3] As the civil rights movement and dismantling of Jim Crow laws in the 1950s and 1960s visibly deepened existing racial tensions in much of the Southern United States, Republican politicians such as presidential candidate Richard Nixon and Senator Barry Goldwater developed strategies that successfully contributed to the political realignment of many white, conservative voters in the South who had traditionally supported the Democratic Party rather than the Republican Party" Nothing in there is voter suppression. Springee (talk) 18:52, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
At this time I would agree with Springee. See the opening sentence on Voter suppression..."Voter suppression in the United States is various legal and illegal efforts to prevent eligible voters from exercising their right to vote."...Now see the opening sentence at SS..."In American politics, the Southern strategy was a Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans."...Without reliable sources that clearly connect A to B, what we end up with looks like WP:SYNTH, no offense. There's nothing really connecting VS to SS other than that they both had links to racism. If you find some reliable sources in the future that say otherwise please feel free to share them with us here or at SS. Thanks. DN (talk) 17:08, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
This section is for editors that have placed tags to address the specific issues identified below. Let's focus on AGF and try to work together to build consensus.
This article or section appears to be slanted towards recent events. (April 2022)
This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points. (November 2021)
This article needs to be updated. (November 2019)
This article may be unbalanced towards certain viewpoints. (August 2019)
This article may lend undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, or controversies. (November 2019) DN (talk) 06:06, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
It's been a couple weeks and no editors seem to have come to state their cases...Odd. I suppose I can make some fixes on my own but it's hard to address the issues if I don't know what they are. DN (talk) 05:16, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
I suppose I'll start in the lead. This content seems like it may be part of why the "slanted towards recent events" tag is on. I will remove it and see that stays in the body where it belongs. "Following the loss of Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential elections, Republicans have passed or attempted to pass many laws restricting voter access, and have received condemnation and accusations of engaging in voter suppression." DN (talk) 19:08, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
Made more progress today, adding women's suffrage. Still quite a bit of cleaning up to do and I'm still certainly open to suggestions (and help). Thanks. DN (talk) 04:23, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
It seems unmentioned on wikipedia. Mathiastck (talk) 23:54, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
Just from the sound of it, I'm not sure why you you would look for it in this particular article ie "Voter suppression in the United States", but I don't know much about it. Maybe try searching California voter laws etc? DN (talk) 23:05, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment in Summer 2017. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jvaldez0341.
