Brennan Center for Justice

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, 24 states have implemented new restrictions on voting since the 2010 election - including implementing voter ID laws and limiting early voting. This is part of a larger effort to hinder turnout at the polls and disenfranchise people of color, people with low incomes, people with disabilities, and young people. Research shows that registration barriers, inflexible voting hours, and poll closures also disproportionately impact these same groups. Nationwide,roughly 6 million American citizens are barred from voting because of discriminatory ex-offender, disenfranchisement laws and recent polling shows voting is routinely harder for people of color than their counterparts. During each election cycle, voter suppression tools - including improper voter purges, such as those in Ohio, which were recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court - keep countless eligible Americans from voting. And in recent years, the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which was intended to prohibit racial discrimination in the electoral process, has been under attack. In 2013's Shelby County v. Holderdecision, the Supreme Court gutted the VRA, leaving many marginalized communities, including people of color, shut out of the electoral process.