11/07/2023

A Democracy Activist Describes her Own Experience with Voter Suppression

It's not as easy to vote in the U.S. as it was 20 years ago

Like it or not, we're now one year away from the 2024 election, which at this point promises—alarmingly—to be a referendum on the value of democracy itself. As the CEO of Vote.org, it is Andrea Hailey's job to closely track developments in voting access and voter suppression. Her organization's nonpartisan mission is to help voters everywhere register to vote, and then follow up at the polls.

She and her team have been very busy lately. Thirteen states have recently enacted new laws that are meant to expand voting access and protect poll workers from harassment, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's School of Law.

At the same time, 14 states, including Florida, Texas and Georgia, have enacted new laws that would seem to tighten restrictions on who can vote, and how. For Hailey, these issues aren't simply abstract policy questions. Her own family has experienced voter suppression firsthand, in a confounding way. She shared her family's experience with Fast Company.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Fast Company.