Voter Fraud Is Still a Myth, and 11 Other Stats on the State of Voting Rights in America

Voter ID bills, ongoing legal battles, and long waits at the polls.


Three years ago, the Supreme Court gutted an important provision in the Voting Rights Act, opening the door to a succession of voting restrictions. But recent court decisions have stymied efforts by mostly Republican-led legislatures to restrict voting access in Texas, North Carolina, North Dakota, and elsewhere before the November election.

Still, as the following stats show, the fight for voting access isn’t over yet:

Sources: Card 1: Brennan Center for Justice; Card 2: National Conference of State Legislatures, Brennan Center for Justice; Card 3: North Carolina State Board of Elections, Veasey v. Perry opinion, Frank v. Walker opinion, University of California, San Diego; Card 4: TMJ4, Frank v. Walker opinion; Card 5: University of California, San Diego; Card 6: The Sentencing Project; Brennan Center for Justice; Card 7: 2012 Survey on the Performance of American Elections; Card 8: Justin Levitt, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Graphics: Mattias Mackler; Clinton: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate