VOTER SUPPRESSION IS real, and voter fraud is an exaggerated myth. America should be alarmed about these basic truths, because the reality of voter suppression and the dangerous lie of voter fraud represent a real threat to the legitimacy of the November election and the health of our democracy, which was sick long before the devastating arrival of COVID-19.
In June, Georgia’s primary exposed glaring problems and injustices that do not bode well for the November general election. People in Atlanta—particularly the parts that are predominantly African American—experienced onerous waiting times due to failures with new voting machines, ill-equipped poll workers, and the secretary of state’s failure of leadership. This followed the debacle in Wisconsin, where the Republican-controlled legislature insisted on an in-person primary at the height of the pandemic, forcing people to choose between their health and their right to vote.
The U.S. prides itself as being a beacon of democracy, and yet instead of making it easy for every eligible citizen to vote, some elected officials are erecting barriers to make voting more difficult, which they try to justify with spurious claims of voter fraud. For example, in April President Trump admitted why he and many Republicans oppose the expansion of voting by mail, saying that “Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to state wide mail-in voting. Democrats are clamoring for it. Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason, doesn’t work out well for Republicans.” In other words, according to Trump, making it easier for people to vote, even amid a pandemic, disadvantages Republicans.
This is a moral crossroads for our nation and for the Republican Party in particular. Does it want to be the party that can only win national elections through voter suppression, or will it actually try to win over a majority of the electorate? The Religious Right and Christian nationalists seemingly only believe in democracy when it suits them. Now that a majority white, Christian nation is in the rearview mirror, the only strategy left to maintain their so-called “biblical values” agenda is to suppress the votes of the only part of the U.S. that is more church-going and religious than they are: African Americans.
Through the Lawyers and Collars campaign (lawyersandcollars.org), Sojourners—in partnership with the National African American Clergy Network—is fighting to ensure that the ballots of Black voters will be cast and counted without interference. We are mobilizing clergy and churches to hold election officials accountable for a free, fair, and safe election, and we will provide a moral presence at polling sites to ensure that all people are able to exercise their constitutional right to vote. Our nation has been in a cold civil war that may not withstand a highly contested election—let alone one that people feel has been stolen. It is imperative that we ensure the vote reflects the will of the people. Otherwise, “liberty and justice for all” will increasingly become hollow and meaningless, and we will have failed not only a test of our democracy but also a test of our Christian discipleship. We invite you to join the growing movement of moral resistance to voter suppression.
Rev. Adam Russell Taylor is president of Sojourners and author of A More Perfect Union: A New Vision for Building the Beloved Community. Follow him on Bluesky @revadamtaylor.
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