ABSTRACT
Over the long history of voter suppression in the United States, methods to exclude voters of the lowest political castes have varied, but the justifications for blocking the vote have not. Scholars date the current revival of voter suppression tactics to 2000, and the contested election debacle in Florida, which presented a case study of how partisan election administration, restrictive and racially-biased voting rules, and legal maneuvering can come together to suppress voting. The response was an intensification of the traditional tactics of voter suppression through the introduction of new legal requirements or the elimination of procedures that had made the path to the ballot easier. The 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump further heightened the public's awareness of voter suppression and how it can be achieved through the manipulation of electoral rules. In the current period, the fear of a Trump presidency gave rise to a large left-leaning “resistance” movement that put electoral politics at the forefront.
