One Person, No Vote chronicles the insidious practice of voter suppression that has not only shaped shameful parts of our nation's history, but is still in practice today. Hiding behind the fake battle cry of voter fraud, one party leverages strict voter ID requirements, voter roll purging, closing of voting stations, and gerrymandering to systematically diminish the voting power of certain demographics while inflating the influence of its own supporters.
You know, if I were in politics, and I realized my party's base was slowly shrinking over time because the vast majority of people didn't agree with me anymore, my first thought would be to figure out what was wrong with my policies and how I can change them to be more inclusive and attractive to a wider demographic. It would never occur to me to restrict voting IDs to only take valid driver's licenses, which I know a large percentage of the people who are voting against me don't have, then close every DMV in the area where they live, then move all the voting stations so far away from them and public transportation that they can't reach them, and then sit back and congratulate myself on a job well done. I mean, we do still live in a democracy, right? And this isn't some rare thing, happening in the middle of nowhere. Many states are actively attempting or have successfully achieved these measures.
Needless to say, this book was maddening to read. It made me feel so frustrated and angry to hear of all the injustices being perpetrated against these people who are already the most downtrodden of society, being its poor and minorities. This targeted disenfranchisement, if successful, ensures that their needs and their voices will never be heard or advocated for.
And yet, I can't rate this book higher because it was so tedious to read. It was dry, filled with paragraphs and paragraphs of data and statistics. It breaks down every aspect of modern voter suppression in the most technical way. And while it tries to tell the human side of the story, it does so from a macro level, not from an actual first person's perspective, which makes it really hard to get into the narrative and retain everything I read. The book's not that long, only 200 pages, and still it took me six days to get through it.
But even though this is tough to read at times, both due to the frustrating topic and the tedious way it's written, it's still a timely and relevant topic, one which is crucial to understanding the current state of our democracy and why recent politics has been the way it is. For that, I'm glad I picked up this book.
Readaroo Rating: 3 stars
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