I have been honored to volunteer as a voter protection lawyer for many elections. My belief is most Americans want to do what they can to protect our Constitution. But why do certain people want to impede a fair voting process?

There are various ways that voting rights have been suppressed. (If you want to see an excellent article on the many forms of voter suppression, please read “7 specific ways states made it harder for Americans to vote” from Vox on Nov. 7, 2016.) Below are a few examples.

According to The New York Times in October, the share of college students casting ballots doubled from 2014 to 2018, a potential boon to Democrats. Republicans are erecting roadblocks to the polls for college students. For example, in Texas, nine voting sites of one campus, which logged many of the nearly 14,000 ballots that full-time students cast last year, will be shuttered. So will many other campus polling places at other polling places at schools statewide.

According to the article, this is playing out on college campuses all over the country. How can any party or person think keeping young people from voting in their first election is good for our country?

The Atlantic in February 2017 reported on a comprehensive study finding evidence that strict voting laws suppress the ballot along racial lines. Researchers found that strict ID laws doubled the turnout gap between whites and Latinos in the general elections and almost doubled the white-black turnout gap in primaries.

By instituting strict voter ID laws, states can alter the electorate and shift outcomes toward those on the right. Where these laws are enacted, the influence of Democrats and liberals wanes and the power of Republicans grows. Unsurprisingly, these strict ID laws are passed almost exclusively by Republican legislatures. Do you think suppression of minority voting is good for our country?

A 2018 article form the Brennan Center For Justice indicates voter purges are a growing threat to constitutional rights. According to them, almost 4 million more names were purged from the voting rolls between 2014 and 2016 than between 2006 and 2008. This growth in the number of removed voters represented an increase of 33%, far outstripping growth in both total registered voters (18%) and total population (6%).

Is it fair to purge American citizens from voter rolls to change election results?

The above are literally government-sponsored ways of affecting who votes. And what about voting systems without paper backups, which is the case in many states? ABC News last year reported hackers at a Def Con hacking conference could gain access on a voting machine used in 18 states. The hacking required no tools and took under 2 minutes.

Protecting our elections via paper ballots is a major push of Minnesota’s Sen. Amy Klobuchar. The Russian plot to undermine the 2016 election revealed just how vulnerable U.S. elections are to foreign interference. Amy Klobuchar’s push to mandate paper ballots to protect one of our most important rights has so far stopped by the Republicans in Congress.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon in a Dec. 7 Star Tribune article said Minnesota topped the nation in voter turnout in both 2016 and 2018, which Minnesota residents should be proud of. But he warned some groups would like to see those numbers brought down. “This is not a time, going into 2020, for us to be anything but restless,” he was quoted as saying.

I agree. Let’s all protect every American’s right to vote.