Threat of voter suppression forces some Black Marylanders into action

The Rev. Robert Turner had a message for his congregants last month at Empowerment Temple in Northwest Baltimore: Get to voting booths Election Day. He also had guidance on what to do if they encounter efforts to suppress their votes at the precinct.

The Alabama native said he was greatly disturbed but not surprised when the Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s voting map that created a new Black-majority district, opening the door for more states to redraw maps before the midterms.

“We can’t leave any votes behind,” said Turner, whose congregation has nearly 5,800 members. An overwhelming majority of them are Black. “Anybody who wants to vote on June 23, they should vote.”

The Supreme Court’s decision is reshaping races as President Donald Trump and Republicans are pushing new voter ID requirements and seeking to limit mail ballots and have threatened to send the National Guard to polling places in what they say are actions to prevent voter fraud. Critics believe this is voter suppression meant to keep minority voters who have historically opposed conservatives away from the polls.

Marylanders might breathe a sigh of relief knowing lawmakers and Gov. Wes Moore approved state voting protections. But, motivated by what they’re seeing and hearing elsewhere, some Black Marylanders aren’t taking chances and are preparing to ensure their ballots count.

Melissa Wells, member of the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland and Chair of the Government, Labor and Elections House Committee, says Black voters are facing one of the most significant threats of discrimination and disenfranchisement since the Jim Crow era, “shaped not only by restrictive policies but by an increasingly hostile legal landscape and evolving barriers on the ground.”

For the past year, Kyla Clark has been working with older people, making sure they have proper identification so they will be prepared to vote in the midterm elections.

One woman who needed a copy of her birth certificate and marriage certificate mentioned she wasn’t sure if she was even registered to vote or where she should go on Election Day, recalled Clark, who is a member of the Laurel City Council.

Another senior man inquired about his passport application, getting a copy of his birth certificate and updating his license to a REAL ID.

Clark said she anticipates suppression targeting her community — particularly Black people.

“When people are systematically prevented from accessing the ballot — whether through ID restrictions, misinformation or barriers to registration — it is not just an inconvenience; it is an injustice,” she said.

This year, some Black Marylanders fought efforts to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, proposed federal legislation that would have tightened voter identification requirements as Trump falsely claims voter fraud in the 2020 election.

Lauren Wyatt called it a potentially “frustrating bill” framed as an “election integrity measure” that “essentially just would amplify existing voter access gaps.”

Wyatt, the advocacy committee lead for Black Girls Vote, a nonpartisan national group, said the group released social ads warning people about the legislation.

“We can’t ignore the disproportionate effects that the bill is going to have on Black voters,” Wyatt said, adding that the financial costs of having to provide a passport would have been a barrier. Other people, including older folks and married women, may have difficulty obtaining their birth certificates, she said.

The bill passed the House but not the Senate.

Denise Deleaver, 70, is not taking chances. Since moving to Baltimore 55 years ago she hasn’t missed voting in an election, and she doesn’t plan to start this year.

“It allows me to have a voice,” the Ashburton resident said. “That one voice can make a difference.”

Last year, she thought she did everything necessary to prepare for the coming election by securing the REAL ID. When she recently heard one of the requirements of the SAVE Act could mean producing a birth certificate at the voting booth, she panicked.

“I don’t even know where that is!” she said.

When she hears younger people — particularly younger Black people — say they do not vote, she feels sad.

“You have to come out and show up,” she said. “They do a lot of lip service.”

Anything that is going to make voting more difficult or less accessible calls for concern for anyone, says Niambi Carter, an associate professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Carter said the people pushing these efforts, calling it “election integrity,” were really “legislating against a nothing event” because “all accounts from most experts is that electoral fraud is statistically zero in this country.

“These things are about creating a chilly atmosphere so that those people who are already marginal voters who don’t really participate” will not turn out, she said.

Turner pointed to efforts to roll back historic achievements of everything from the VRA to diversity, equity and inclusion policies under the Trump administration. “While we’ve been partying, they’ve been planning,” he said.

He plans to take members to voting booths in his church’s seldom-used vehicle and ask congregants to offer their vehicles on Election Day to provide rides. The church is coordinating efforts to help members know what proper forms of identification to bring to vote so they will not be turned away.

Turner sees this as a continuing plot started in the 1950s and ’60s that wasn’t fully implemented. It “significantly bothers” and “informs” him at the same time.

“We often focus on individuals and not institutions as a whole,” he said. “These recent actions have shown that, even when individuals passed or are no longer in office, racists have built institutions to carry their racist agenda.”