Voting rights are under siege at virtually every level of our democracy, and as a result, our democracy is under threat. As I write these words, the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is assembled in a hearing devoted to the questions concerning the status of the fundamental right to vote in our nation. At the same time, Democratic representatives from the Texas House are continuing in their mission to bring attention to this assault on the most foundational of liberties in our democracy.

To explain, with the addition of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1919 (and ratified in 1920), though the full realization of its benefits, the right to vote was established as a fundamental right inherent, guaranteed, in one’s national citizenship. The Supreme Court recognizes a fundamental right as meriting the highest and most profound degree of protection from government encroachment. Unfortunately, the walls of protection erected around the fundamental right to vote are under assault.

At the state level, in state after state (links here, here, and here), Republicans are concocting, introducing and passing laws making it more difficult for citizens to exercise the fundamental right to vote. They are doing this even though they are well aware of the fact that demographic shifts in their respective states are not in their favor for the future.

Political action and change typically occur at a snail’s pace, but the rate of speed at which these voting infringement laws are occurring is revealing. The Brennan Center for Justice says, “Between January 1 and July 14 of 2021, at least 18 states enacted 30 laws that restrict access to the vote.”

At the national level, two federal pieces of legislation could provide some degree of legal uniformity concerning protecting the right to vote in our democracy. The Congressional passage of the “For the People Act” would help end voter suppression legislation in the states by establishing limitations upon a state’s ability to further burden the right to vote. The “John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act” would also, in essence, reestablish the legislative intent behind the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which has essentially been gutted of its power by the Supreme Court cases of Shelby County v. Holder (2013) and Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (2021). Congressional Republicans have, thus far, seen to it that both of these pieces of legislation be dead on arrival.

In the United States Supreme Court, voting rights being under siege is most recently evident in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (2021). It’s a terrible decision that portends even rougher days ahead for voting rights by further stripping the Voting Rights Act of 1965 of any significance and power. In Brnovich, the Court considered whether the state of Arizona’s refusal to count ballots cast in the wrong precinct, along with its ballot collection restriction, had an adverse and disparate impact on the state’s American Indian, Hispanic and African American citizens. The Court employed a totality-of-circumstances test and asserted that the issue must not be determined entirely on the subject of disparate impact on a particular people group, instead of using the test most appropriate in challenges involving infringement upon fundamental rights. In short, in the battle between voter fraud and racial discrimination, as related to the right to vote, the risk of voter fraud outweighs the risk of racial discrimination. In other words, the Court determined that it is more important to disenfranchise American citizens of their right to vote to attempt to prevent one illegally cast vote. As an aside, this philosophy is in direct conflict with our nation’s mantra that individuals are “innocent until proven guilty.” The justice system would rather criminals go free than falsely convict one innocent individual.

What can be done to preserve and protect the fundamental right to vote in light of these realities? Here are a few ideas:

• Citizens must be aware of and take these threats seriously.
• Citizens must be prepared to make known to respective representatives their opposition to these voter suppression laws via all non-violent and legal means available.
• State representatives, like those of the Texas House, must muster a maximal response and, if not defeat, then at least stifle Republican efforts to steamroll over any citizen’s right to vote.
• State representatives must also do all within their power to lobby on behalf of federal legislative action that will protect the right to vote.
• State representatives must inspire and compel the President and Congress to pass laws that protect the right to vote against ideologically driven judicial decision-making.

It takes politicians and citizens like you and me to take action and protect our voting rights. Because when voting rights are under siege, our democracy is in danger.

Eddy F. Carder, Ph.D., J.D., teaches constitutional law and philosophy in Prairie View A&M University’s Marvin D. and June Samuel Brailsford College of Arts and Sciences.