Voter suppression has a long history in the United States. Over the past two decades, there has been a resurgence of strategies implemented to suppress the Black vote and others in communities of color.

Barriers in front of the ballot box, cutting voting times, purging voter rolls, and the imposition of voter identification laws have placed special burdens on African Americans. They are not the only group whom this is impacting: young and older voters, poor people, and BIOOC citizens are all being negatively impacted.

The Ohio NAACP continues to educate Ohioans about the regressive strategies designed to impact the Black vote. Voter fraud and illegal voting are not widespread within the Black community. What is widespread are the challenges to disenfranchisement of eligible voters due to lack of accepted identification at the polls and vote purges.

Supreme Court of Ohio Case
Ohio Redistricting Voting Rights

Early voting and automatic registration help every eligible American be prepared to vote. We are working to ensure that challenges to allowing Blacks to vote are removed.

We advocate for voting opportunities on weekends and evenings so that no one is excluded from the voting process. Additionally, we promote the opportunity for same day registration so that getting on the voting registration rolls and updating personal information are accessible, convenient, and protected.

We are working to ensure that every person has access to transportation so that they can vote and ensure that polling places have sufficient voting machines and poll workers to reduce wait times in highly populated BIPOC areas.

African Americans and other BIPOC citizens are barred from the ability to vote because of past criminal convictions. The Ohio NAACP advances engagement for Americans who are living in our community and believe they can no longer vote due to felony disenfranchisement laws, a part of our Jim Crow past.