A criminal record is an obstacle for a black man in Mississippi who wants to go to jail. You don’t have to tell Wendell Johnson that. He was lucky. At the veterinary clinic where he applied they just asked him if he had been sentenced in the last ten years. He was released twenty years ago. He smiles wryly. “They wouldn’t have hired me otherwise.”
Wendell Johnson is hiding something else. Every two years, on Election Day, employees are allowed to leave work earlier to vote, but Johnson then secretly drives home in one go. “And I feel ashamed every time,” says the resident of Indianola, a sleepy town in the Mississippi Delta.
Johnson is 47 years old, has lived in Mississippi all his life and has never voted. He is not allowed to do that, as are 4.6 million other Americans who have lost their right to vote because of a conviction. That’s 2 percent of the population, more than any democracy in the world. Among black Americans, that percentage is nearly three times higher.
The erection of barriers for certain voter groups has a long history in the US. Voting has never been easy for every American – and it’s getting harder for many. Voter suppression has many faces: fewer polling stations in certain districts, shorter opening hours, ban on postal voting, redrawing of constituencies with the exclusion of certain groups. Or excluding people with a conviction.
Permanent denial
With a neatly trimmed beard, Johnson steps through the door of the Mississippi Center of Justice in Indianola. Citizens like him can ask for help here and Wendell Johnson wants his voice back. “The chances are slim,” he says, “but I have to try.”
How you lose your right to vote varies by state. Most US states have some form of what is called “disenfranchisement.” In New York, for example, you can’t vote while you’re in prison. If you are released, your voting rights will be restored.
About ten states, including Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky, can permanently deprive their citizens of the right to vote. Mississippi takes the cake. More than 11 percent of the population is not allowed to vote here, sometimes because of the smallest offences. One in six black citizens are not allowed to vote.
Wendell Johnson registered as a voter at the age of eighteen. ‘My mother had to do that,’ he laughs. “I had no choice.” But then he is arrested. ‘Cocaine.’ He goes to prison for five years. After his release, he receives a letter from the state: ‘That I was no longer allowed to vote for the rest of my life.’
Slavery
The Mississippi Delta was once the heart of the cotton industry and thus of slavery. And in slavery lies the origin of the legislation that deprives citizens of their voting rights. During the American Civil War (1861-1865), the southern states fought to maintain slavery. They lose. But rejoining the United States means conforming to a new constitution: everyone, white or black, must be able to vote. Except women, and Native Americans.
That is met with resistance. States like Mississippi have more enslaved people than white citizens. With the right to vote for both blacks and whites, white hegemony would disappear. Indeed, in the 1800s, Mississippi sends two black senators to Washington DC, the only ones in state history. That is short-lived.
A special (white) commission drafts a new constitution in 1890. Voting rights will be subject to conditions, including a carefully compiled list of crimes. The number of African Americans eligible to vote plummets from 80 to 6 percent. Eleven other states adopt the ‘Mississippi Model’.
22 types of crime
In the Mississippi Center of Justice in Indianola, lawyer Paloma Wu holds up a yellow A4 sheet of 22 types of crime. A selection: shoplifting, receiving stolen goods, robbery, arson, tree felling, writing a bad check. ‘poor crimesWu says. “Aimed at black people without naming it.” She sighs deeply. “I think it sounds crazy out loud, but that 1890 law still applies.”
Initially it does not affect Wendell Johnson, the first time after his release twenty years ago. ‘I thought: so what, then I won’t vote?! I’m still breathing.’ But as time passes, something in him changes. Friends run for election, but he cannot support them. When people ask what he votes, he makes something up. He starts to look up on Election Day. “Every time I feel…” He pats his stomach. ‘Here. A rock.’
Johnson stops following politics. That world is no longer his. A lonely feeling. “I’ve been free for twenty years,” he says, “but still not fully rehabilitated.”
Voter suppression distorts the representation of the people in politics. If fewer people from a certain group are allowed to vote, their interests are less represented. The result is less participation and ultimately a less functioning democracy.
“I will defend your right to vote and our democracy,” President Joe Biden vowed during a speech in Atlanta early this year. Since taking office, Democrats have been trying to pass laws to combat voter suppression. Republicans have that using the filibustera parliamentary trick, always managed to block.
It even seems to be going the other way. Since 2020, 48 laws have been passed in 21 states that make voting more difficult, the NGO Brennan Center for Justice found out, almost exclusively by Republicans. Most of those laws already come into effect these midterms.
The Supreme Court is hearing two high-profile cases this year surrounding the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prohibits states from excluding ethnic groups from signing constituencies. If the chief justices agree with the Alabama and North Carolina governments, scarlet states, that law would be virtually toothless. This would have major implications for non-white citizens — and the 2024 presidential election.
Stacks of forms
Actually, Wendell Johnson didn’t dare to come to the Center for Justice today. Afraid of disappointment. Friends have been encouraging him for years: just try it. Now he rests his elbows on the table and looks intently at Paloma Wu plowing through a bulky pile of forms. It’s possible in Mississippi: get your voice back. “On paper,” Wu says.
To regain the right to vote in Mississippi, both houses of the state Congress must vote two-thirds in favor of each individual request. Hundreds of citizens try that every year, but in the past 25 years less than 200 citizens have regained their voice. ‘That’s why I say: it’s possible on paper,’ says Paloma Wu.
A lot of people don’t even know if they can vote. There’s no place you can check that, Wu says. “When I call on behalf of a client, the state refuses to tell me if they have voting rights.” That’s dangerous: In states like Mississippi, Alabama or Tennessee, you can go to jail for years if you try to vote without the right to vote. “Pure discouragement.”
Incorrect information
After half an hour, Johnson slowly gets up from the table. He rubs his beard with a confused look on his face. “I can’t believe it,” he mumbles. ‘How?’ It turns out that the letter he received after his release contained wrong information. His conviction is not at all one of the 22 crimes with which you lose your right to vote. Johnson can vote.
The tears are in his eyes. ‘I feel… strange. Really, I arrived with a rock in my stomach, but I walk away with swagger.’ So he’s going to cast his vote on Tuesday? ‘Yes, with conviction. But it is double. All these years… I should have come here sooner.’