Despite a century of progress, the fight for the right to vote in America continues.
Perceptions of Elections and Voting Rights in the Pacific Northwest
As we approach the mid-term elections in 2022, the integrity and security of local, state, and federal elections is being called into question. Decades after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, new legal and political barriers are once again making the right to vote an open question.
The United States has wrestled with the question of who has the right to vote since its founding. Despite a century of progress, throughout history systemic efforts to limit citizens access to the ballot have remained. The emerging use of “election integrity” as a political weapon has allowed more states to institutionalize voter discrimination in the name of election security.
How we view the safety of our elections is paramount to our understanding of why voting rights matter. In the run-up to the 2022 mid-term elections, we wanted to explore how voters view the role of voting rights as a function of a stable, equitable democracy.
“There were those who said that this is a many-sided and very complex problem. However viewed, the denial of the right to vote is still a deadly wrong.”
—President Lyndon Johnson upon signing the Voting Rights
Act of 1965
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What inspired this project?
The 2120 Initiative launched in 2020 to commemorate the centennial of the 19th amendment securing women’s right to vote in the United States.
In celebrating this milestone, we began to recognize not all women were guaranteed the right to vote in 1920. This led us to evolve the Initiative to bring attention to the continuous fight to protect voting rights in the United States – for everyone.
Today, the Initiative is focused on raising public awareness about the changing landscape of voting rights laws and to bring attention to the issues of voter disenfranchisement, voter discrimination, and voter suppression.