Published in the Jackson Hole News&Guide on October 30, 2024. Read the whole piece online and grab a subscription to JHN&G or your local paper (or both!) while you're at it.
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Fewer than 1 in 4 registered voters cast a vote in Wyoming’s August Primary Election. Just over 20% of the electorate determined the outcome of more than 90% of the races in the state.
How did we get here?
Well. When our laws are changed to make it harder to vote, we shouldn’t be surprised that very few people cast a vote.
In 2021, then-Minority Whip Andi LeBeau made an impassioned speech on the floor of the Wyoming House. She reminded the body that the Voting Rights Act of 1963 granted indigenous people the right to vote. That her mother and grandmother were among the generations of women who could not cast a vote in Wyoming or U.S. elections.
When she finished, a series of men stood up to explain why they believed a bill further restricting access to voting was vital and necessary. Every single legislator conceded that there was and is no voter fraud in Wyoming … then charged ahead to change our laws anyway.
One lamented the end of the “good ol’ boy era”—an especially tone-deaf sentiment in the context of Rep. LeBeau’s remarks. (Even with the benefit of time, the tone deafness has yet to diminish.)
Another said, “You have to show your ID to open a bank account or buy a beer!”
While both of those things are true—you do have to show identification to open a bank account or buy a beer—it’s an argument made in bad faith: The U.S. Constitution does not give you the right to open a bank account or buy a beer. It does confer upon you the right to cast a vote. We do not speak about opening a bank account as “sacred”—a word often used in reference to the right to vote.
In that debate—and in the years since—we’ve heard the same men question the existence of voter suppression. (This is not a surprise: White men have always had the right to vote; their vote has never been the target of suppression.)
So, when a woman—especially an indigenous woman speaking from her family’s experience of voter suppression—pointed out that a new bill would lead to future voter suppression, we would have done well to listen to her.
Lately, voter suppression masquerades as "election integrity." From “voter fraud prevention” to “voter identification” to the Governor’s Executive Order to the national SAVE Act, these cleverly named and seemingly benign bills often have a big impact on select populations. They disenfranchise the elderly, those living in poverty, the working class, Black voters, indigenous voters, naturalized citizens, rural voters, and women.
And it could get worse for women.
Among the provisions in the SAVE Act: lacking a passport or other proof of citizenship that shows their married names, women must produce a birth certificate (bearing the seal of the state where it was issued) and a current form of identification—both with the exact same name on them.
Sounds simple, right?
Roughly 90% of women who marry adopt their husband’s last name. That means that roughly 90% of married female voters may have a different name on their ID than the one on their birth certificate. According to the National Organization for Women, one third of all women have documents that do not identically match their current name. That could instantly disqualify women in the midst of a name change.
Women are more likely to work minimum wage and highly regulated jobs where it is more challenging to get enough time off to get to the polls. Let’s say they get to their polling place and they’re among the women without two forms of identical identification. At that point, it’s likely they’ll have to cast a provisional ballot. That means they’ll need to come back to the polling place—doubling the amount of time and travel away from work—to prove out and have their provisional ballot counted.
For women who experience stalking or intimate partner violence, casting a vote may put them in significant danger. Registering to vote in most states—including Wyoming—means making your address public. Voter files are public information except in states that have made provisions for safety-based exclusions.
Policy changes around elections might seem innocuous—as though they are gender neutral or all about “election integrity” and “security”—but, like all policy decisions, they demand our attention and a closer look.
Laws generally reflect the experience and ideology of the people making them, which is why former Rep. LeBeau’s warning was so important and prescient. When only 1 in 4 people casts a vote—and elected officials insist on making it even harder to cast a vote in the future—voter suppression is a clear threat to our democracy.
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