Article Reflection No. 4 (4/17/2022)

Article #4: This is our last chance to ensure the 2020 election is not rigged

Reflection:

In the 2020 article “This is our last chance to ensure the 2020 election is not rigged”, journalist Myrna Pérez discusses the Voting Rights Advancement Act, how Americans have unnecessarily constructed obstacles to hinder the path of others’ votes, and also the hopes for an unrigged 2020 election.

According to Pérez, the Voting Rights Advancement Act (which had been passed that previous Friday) was used to bring back the full power of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This piece of legislation, Pérez writes, undermined racial discrimination in voting rights, and will help bring back an equitable voting system despite the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder verdict. In this case, the Supreme Court had decided that local areas with a racially segregated past did not have to “ ‘pre-clear’ new voting regulations” (Pérez 3).

To elaborate on the degrading barriers that were purposely built for the sake of preventing American (especially those of minority groups), the writer also discusses how “some states with early voting reduced the number of days of advance access to the polls” and “[voting systems] required forms of identification to vote that lawmakers knew many Americans did not have” (Pérez 5).

It’s interesting. Here we are, over two years later, months after the Capitol insurrection. Here we are, as the federal government continues investigating January 6. Reading this article is like traveling to the past; I know what will happen, and am aware of the passionate Americans believing or disbelieving that the 2020 election was, indeed, rigged.

These blockages are unfair and contradicts what our Founding Fathers wanted America to be. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution Bill of Rights clearly states that Americans have the freedom of speech, and therefore, the freedom of opinion. Are our own lawmakers going against the values America holds close to its heart as well as the principles that make up the foundation of our country? Those in minority groups are Americans, too—they have the valid right to share their perspective in the form of voting. To make voting more accessible means that the U.S. is coming one step closer to what it truly stands to be.