Book Review: The Myth of Voter Suppression

Fred Lucas has the deep journalistic experience that qualifies him to write this book; his expertise is evident on every page. The Myth of Voter Suppression is an exhaustively documented treatment of the burning political question of the day: how can we ensure that each vote in an election has been cast by a legitimate, qualified voter without making the voting process so onerous that it keeps people from the polls? What becomes clear in the book is that not everyone has the same desire for fair and accurate elections. Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, puts a real zinger in the foreword on page xiii: “That’s the Left’s real fear here: not that election integrity laws are evil, but that they are effective.”

The need to secure the vote in a day of bitter political divisions is crucial. Some on the Left allege that any implementation of effective voter identification laws is actually a surreptitious attempt to suppress the vote of the poor, the under-privileged, and minorities. Such a charge deserves to be examined carefully and closely: Lucas does just that. His treatment of the subject is open handed in one respect: he exposes cheating on both the Democrat and Republican sides. It is the practice of the Left (which I must admit is generally Democrat) to oppose any attempt to secure the integrity of elections, calling such attempts “voter suppression.” Lucas coins a rather clumsy term he uses repeatedly to label these opponents: the “voter suppression hysteria industrial complex.”

The book is written in two parts. Part 1 provides a history of the ways and means of fraud in elections, as well as legislative attempts to secure the vote. Lucas’ statement in the Introduction sets the tone and direction of the book:

“A war is being fought in this country. The battlefields are Congress, in state legislative chambers, and in the courts. At stake are American democracy and the integrity of elections. The two warring narratives overlap—voter fraud vs. voter suppression—and both have historical legitimacies. But regarding the current times, only one narrative has facts to support it. The other has only emotion and inflammatory rhetoric” [xxii].

Chapter 1 explores the historical linkage between fraud and suppression. As he does repeatedly, Lucas demonstrates that legislative attempts to secure the vote since the bipartisan Voting Rights Act of 1965 have generally resulted in higher, not lower, turnouts—even among minorities.

In Chapter 2, Lucas walks through the data and statistics from Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Texas, exposing the lies that have been spun about “voter suppression” in those states. During President Biden’s January 2022 trip to Atlanta, Biden made the claim that Georgia’s efforts to put protections on the integrity of the vote were actually efforts to suppress the vote. Biden claimed, “It’s no longer about who gets to vote; it’s about making it harder to vote… It’s not hyperbole; this is a fact.” Lucas responds firmly, supplying data to back up his response to Biden’s claim: “It’s neither hyperbole nor fact. It’s demonstrably false” [31].

The author examines the data, in Chapter 3, regarding the historical voting practices of minorities to demonstrate that state-level voter ID laws have not negatively affected minority groups. Chapter 4 reveals the political forces arrayed against such common-sense efforts as purging the voter registration roles of people who have died or who have moved into a different district. Part 1 concludes with Chapter 5 detailing historical examples of the methods and attempts that have been aimed at tampering with an election.

Part 2 studies various aspects of the 2020 election. Lucas does not necessarily believe the election was stolen. On page 94 he says,

“Although the full story of the 2020 election hasn’t been told, subsequent investigations have provided noteworthy discoveries. Trump has overplayed the significance of each new discovery as absolute proof that he was the real winner—which the discoveries don’t prove.”

The anomalies of the 2020 election are explored in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 details various Democratic legislative attempts at the federal level that would make election fraud easier to commit. Chapter 8 exposes President Biden’s attempts to wrest the regulation of elections from the states to the federal government (whereas Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 of the US Constitution grants that power to the states).

Lucas examines Stacy Abrams in Chapter 9, and her multitudinous claims to the effect that the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election was stolen from her. Lucas shows that she has enjoyed a rather lucrative career making such claims. “Follow the money” is the essence of Chapter 10, as Lucas uncovers the various organizations funding the opposition to voter identification and election integrity laws. Spoiler alert: they are all on the Left.

The threads Lucas has traced in the book find their summary in the Conclusion, entitled “Stopping Tammany Hall 2.0.” He argues that legislative reform must happen at the level of individual states, and he explores several efforts that are underway.

My copy of The Myth of Voter Suppression has 453 endnotes, each providing documentation enabling the reader to go back to the original sources to substantiate the factual claims presented in the book. Lucas concludes with this thought:

“History shows there have always been demagogues resisting changes to bring more integrity to elections. It’s important the public arm itself with the facts—both historical and contemporary. This is the only way to combat the lies of the new political machine” [178].

For the citizen who wants to arm himself or herself with the facts, The Myth of Voter Suppression is a good place to start. Five stars, highly recommended.

[Full disclosure: I received a free PDF copy of the book from the author for the purposes of review. I was not compensated in any way for this review.]