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Why Democracy is not Protected Today

As society has become more partisan, questions surrounding voting patterns with party lines have become prominent. Democracy remains extremely important in today's political climate because it allows for a prospering government that represents the people's wants. It ensures that fundamental freedoms are given to the people and that human rights are protected. However, the democracy that we are promised is not always seen. After Americans around the nation were disappointed in the 2016 presidential victor, Donald Trump, voting patterns with political parties needed to be evaluated to indicate increases or decreases following his term. Since the Republican party won, it could be assumed that Republican voter turnout was high. However, that is not true. The electoral college disappointed millions of voters when voting against the popular vote for Donald Trump. Much of the Republican party denied fairness in the election. However, multiple repetitions of state counting established that Donald Trump lost the election. The denial that much of the United States went through due to stubbornly seen leaders made many question democracy. 


Because of this, many Republican leaders tried to implement new voting procedures, which included allowing Republican officials to overthrow and essentially rule and purge voter rolls and voting-related decision-making in democratically governed areas. This makes both parties now question the realness of democracy in our country. Republicans could not throw out ballots they deemed questionable to ensure that state voting favored their party. This was highly illegal when the former president tried to do it, but with new wanted laws, this could be seen as fair. Imagining that one is associated with the democratic party, hearing that though the election was just in 2020 that new rules would leave future elections skewed is highly discouraging. Not only would this cause voting numbers to drop in future elections but give more power to said party over time because they would continue to vote while others do not. An increase in negative partisanship is highly drawn from unfairness within the system, causing parties to divide in ideology and hate each other.


As said by Brennan Center, in 2021, 19 states enacted 33 laws to make voting harder in the United States. These laws included less language inclusivity through translation, smaller voting periods, and decreased locations, causing many low-income individuals to be significantly affected. The country is going backward as the people's wants cannot even be shown since a large majority cannot vote. These low-income families that are highly targeted are mainly people of color, indicating that the voting requirements taking place are highly unjust. As a woman of color, the targeting and underrepresentation of such groups are dreadful. For democracy to be accurate and feel as though this country allows us to express and see change within our wants should be a priority. However, the first step to that is to start trusting our government. Though things will not always go the way we hope, parties cannot undermine the government to such an extent that they are changing laws. With such open backlash and high partisanship, the country we see as a whole will split into many hateful fragments. It is that in specific that will make democracy decline. 


https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-october-2021


This post was created by Vice President Neharika Rao.
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