Uncounted

An answer to the assault on voting rights—crucial reading in light of the 2020 presidential electionThe Voting Rights Act of 1965 is considered one of the most effective pieces of legislation the United States has ever passed. It enfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters, particularly in the American South, and drew attention to the problem of voter suppression. Yet in recent years there has been a continuous assault on access to the ballot box in the form of stricter voter ID requirements, meritless claims of rigged elections, and baseless accusations of voter fraud. In the past these efforts were aimed at eliminating African American voters from the rolls, and today, new laws seek to eliminate voters of color, the poor, and the elderly, groups that historically vote for the Democratic Party.Uncounted examines the phenomenon of disenfranchisement through the lens of history, race, law, and the democratic process. Gilda R. Daniels, who served as Deputy Chief in the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and has more than two decades of voting rights experience, argues that voter suppression works in cycles, constantly adapting and finding new ways to hinder access for an exponentially growing minority population. She warns that a premeditated strategy of restrictive laws and deceptive practices has taken root and is eroding the very basis of American democracy—the right to vote!

There is a sad sense of history's repeating itself in this focused, hard-hitting, and highly relevant work, which moves from the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, which effectively tore down hindrances to voting in the South, to today's newly erected voter suppression tools by the states...An accessible human story of a longtime history of voter suppression., In this guide to the practice [of voter suppression] and its effects a law professor Daniels, former deputy chief in the civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department, describes how it works and provides a road map and a call to arms for participants in what she calls the fight to vote...This book is a valuable resource for all participants in civic life., Replete with documentary evidence and examples, this work sounds an alarm for any and all readers interested in reversing the damage and danger of the nondemocratic dynamic threatening truth, justice, and the fight to vote., We are blessed in this presidential election year that former Deputy Chief of the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and voting rights expert Gilda R. Daniels has written the definitive book on fighting against voter suppression and the erosion of our democracy...#RequiredReading., Brilliantly captures the pervasiveness of efforts to suppress the vote of minority populations in the US. Constantly metamorphosing to evade legal restraints and capitalize on new tactics, attacks on the franchise threaten the very foundation of our democracy. Uncounted is a must read for all who care about defending and strengthening our democratic system.

Gilda R. Daniels is Professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law.