Brown Bag Series: Democracy Forum; Voter Suppression Past & Present, with Tim Kipp & Nick Biddle

Kipp and Biddle review voter suppression, past & present. Beyond formal exclusions of gender, race and wealth applied throughout most of the nation’s history, intimidation, gerrymandering and registration restrictions are applied. Voter suppression is driven by commitment of elites to contain & control what the Founders described in 1787 as “the turbulence and follies of democracy.” We assess voter suppression in the November ‘16 election to measure how fully it demeaned and diminished America’s putative democracy.