Vote of Confidence

In her early days as a volunteer poll watcher, Caitlyn Silhan witnessed a number of voters being turned away from their polling station. Even though they had updated their registration at the same time as their driver’s licenses, poll workers could find no record of it. Silhan, a civil litigation attorney at Waters Kraus & Paul in Dallas, went on to successfully sue the state of Texas for noncompliance with federal law in 2016 and 2020.

“Now, if a Texan goes to update their driver’s license online, they can update their voter registration as well,” she says. 

Casting a ballot shouldn’t be confusing. “The onus should not be on the voter,” Silhan says, “assuming they’re properly qualified and seek to properly register to vote.”

In 1789, when the U.S. Constitution took effect, there was no expressed protection for the right to vote; it was left to states to determine eligibility. Most limited the right to white, land-owning males; some specified Christian men. The 15th Amendment gave Black men the right to vote in 1870, and the 19th granted the same to women in 1920. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, a signature of the Civil Rights Movement, sought to strengthen the 15th Amendment by prohibiting racial discrimination at the ballot box, and it has been amended and its reach expanded several times.

“Voting is the right from which all other rights derive, because voting gets you those elected officials that pass laws on every other right and appoint judges who rule on every other right,” says Richard Bell, a New York personal injury and civil rights attorney and author of Voting: The Ultimate Act of Resistance. “When you don’t vote, then somebody else makes the choice for you, and you may not like that choice.”

Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have limited the reach of the Voting Rights Act by giving states more power to create their own laws and, according to attorneys who help clients with voting issues, making it harder for people to cast their ballots. Some local authorities have closed polls, purged voter rolls, trimmed early voting, complicated ID requirements, and placed restrictions on mail-ins. In 2021, when Georgia passed a bill making it illegal to hand out food or water to people standing in line to vote, the new law was both attacked by voting rights advocates and satirized on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Voter suppression comes in many forms—from gerrymandering to outright intimidation. “I’ve heard stories about certain communities having the polling places surrounded by large dogs to keep people from walking up,” says Julie Kane, a trial lawyer at Colson Hicks Eidson in Coral Gables, Florida, and co-founder of the American Association for Justice’s Voter Protection Action Committee, which recruits lawyers, paralegals and law students to work at or monitor polls and serve as call center volunteers. 

Chris Jackson, an appellate attorney at Holland & Hart in Denver, is seeing an increase in gerrymandering due to recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions to stay out of the state-voter debate. “States have been a little bit more aggressive about drawing districts in a way that they think protects their political parties or their interests,” he says.

Media coverage of voting woes is not overblown, says Silhan, who co-leads her firm’s pro bono voting rights cases. And some suppression tactics still sneak under the radar. In Texas, she points out, some high schools aren’t registering young voters despite guidelines saying they should. “I think that’s a shame. Whether it’s on purpose or not, I think that is contributing to low voter turnout.”

So what can you do to protect your right to vote? 

Make sure your registration is active and accurate by contacting your local elections office or checking your status at vote.org.

For a map of early voting details and deadlines in your state, visit 866ourvote.org. Call your county’s election office to see if countywide voting is available or if you must go to your assigned precinct. 

Jackson recommends voting early or, where possible, by mail. “That gives you more time so that if something goes wrong, it’s not the very last day and it can be fixed.” 

A mistake, even a seemingly small one, can keep you from voting. “Sometimes, despite all of the efforts made to help [college] students know where and how to vote, they try to vote at school, and they can’t because they’re registered at their mom and dad’s house,” Kane says. 

If you’re ill, out of town at election time, or a college student not planning to stay in that state after graduation, you may be able to submit an absentee ballot if you request it well ahead of time. (See vote.org for directions.) Keep in mind: Election officials are also more likely to challenge absentee ballots, as they did in 2018 when Georgia faced two lawsuits over signatures that allegedly didn’t match those on file. 

If you’re voting in person, work out the logistics beforehand. What kind of ID is required at the polling place? Do you need help getting there? Verify that your polling site hasn’t changed. “You don’t want to head to the local elementary school and it turns out that your polling place is now actually the high school across town,” says Jackson. 

Official local election websites can streamline the process and save time on election day. “In Dallas County, they have maps that update [the length of lines] in real time,” Silhan says. “That is really helpful for people who are taking time off from work or their other obligations to cast a ballot.” 

Get in line before the polls close; otherwise, you may legitimately lose your chance to vote. People with disabilities, the elderly, and those with language barriers are generally entitled to on-site assistance as long as the helper is not trying to influence their vote. 

No matter how well you prepare, it’s still possible to run into a problem. But you do have recourse. 

“I’ve had clients where [poll workers] can’t find their name because there’s some kind of administrative error,” Bell says. “The polling place would tell them, ‘You don’t live here anymore. You’ve got to go back up to Jacksonville,’ and this is in South Florida. That is not feasible to be done on election day, and we had to get the director of the board of elections for the entire county involved to admonish the polling places. And they finally got to vote.” 

If you’re certain you’re registered but are turned away for any reason—something as benign as a misspelling of your name on the voter registration roll could trip you up—“Do not leave,” Kane says. Be polite but firm, and ask for a provisional ballot, which is assured by federal law. After the polls close, your registration status will be verified and your vote counted like any other. 

If you have any questions or are still denied the opportunity to vote, call the 866-OUR-VOTE hotline.

Outright intimidation, such as using harassing language or peering over your shoulder while you vote, is considered a felony in some states and should be reported to a nonpartisan poll watcher, legal volunteer, or even the local police. “In recent elections, we’ve seen emotions running hotter and hotter,” says Kane. 

Although it’s become a political talking point, voter fraud is “exceedingly rare,” Silhan says. “There has been a lot of noise around the issue, but I think it is safe to say that it is essentially a nonissue.”

Bell points to studies by The Heritage Foundation, MIT and Brennan Center for Justice. Using Heritage Foundation’s online database of voter fraud, The Hill concluded in 2020 that “across the 50 states, there has been an average of three cases [of fraud using mailed ballots] per state over the 20-year span. That is just one case per state every six or seven years.” According to Brennan Center data, incident rates of voter fraud are between 0.0003% and 0.0025%.

“These studies have concluded that voter fraud, both in person or by mail-in ballot, is so rare in this country that it happens in the general range, percentage-wise, of being struck by lightning,” Bell says. 

When it comes to easing conflicts surrounding the voting process, some attorneys say there’s at least one glimmer of hope. The proposed John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would restore the parts of the Voting Rights Act the Supreme Court struck down 10 years ago, including the federal approval required for individual states to enact certain changes in the laws. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill by a slim margin in 2021, but the Senate did not. 

At least for now, U.S. citizens may have to work a little harder to make sure their voices are heard. “Especially over the last five to eight years, [election law] has exploded and become this very hot-button issue,” says Jackson. “But the nonpartisan thing that I think everybody can get on board with is that everybody should vote and that everybody’s right to vote should be protected.”

Election Resources

Spots to register and check the where, when, who and how of a ballot

• vote.org
• 866ourvote.org or 1-866-OUR-VOTE
• nass.org/can-i-vote
• vote411.org
• lwv.org/voting-rights
• findlaw.com/voting