
          Voter Participation Is Now the Challenge
          By Willingham, AlexAlex Willingham
          Vol. 9, No. 2, 1987, pp. 21-24
          
          Since the enactment of the Voting_Rights_Act, black voter
participation has improved dramatically, often operating as an
integral part of winning coalitions. However, under-registration and
low voter turnout continue to handicap the black_population in the
South. This is the uncomfortable fact behind claims of an influential
black vote made after the Jesse Jackson campaign in the 1984
presidential primaries and again after the 1986 elections. Such claims
were fueled by certain black political leaders and also by
conservative whites smarting over the defeat of incumbent Southern
senators who failed to attract black votes in 1986. Both groups have a
special interest in exaggerating the importance of the black vote. But
the reality is that blacks in the South, even some in key
jurisdictions, are neither registering nor voting in respectable
numbers.
          A case in point is the 1986 campaign in Georgia's Fifth
Congressional district where John Lewis won election over Julian
Bond. The district is centered in Atlanta and includes black_voters
with an active history of participation. Both Bond and Lewis are
well-known veterans of the civil_rights movement and voter
registration work. For the heated run-off between them less than sixty
percent of the eligible blacks in Fulton county (the bulk of the
district) were registered to vote, and barely more than a third
actually cast ballots. Limited registration and turnout did not
prevent the election of a black Congressman there, but only because
court-ordered redistricting provided a large black majority; in a
district with the same black registration and turnout, but with a
smaller black majority, a viable white candidate might have beaten
Bond or Lewis.
          In the Second Congressional district in Mississippi, black
citizens--though a majority--were unable in 1982 and 1984 to elect a
U. S. Congressman. In 1986 when the district elected Mike Espy to
become Mississippi's only black congressman, it was considered an
upset although he was elected over a white in a district with 57
percent black_population. Despite the large percentage of blacks in
the South, Lewis and Espy will serve with just two other black
colleagues among the 138 Southerners in the 100th Congress.
          In a real sense, these are protected victories, won through the
reapportionment process. And reapportionment, the most important
election reform strategy of recent years, has been so successful it is
now nearly exhausted as a remedy. The single-member district is now
widely used throughout the South. From courthouse to statehouse,

thousands of at-large elective offices once unattainable to minority
candidates have been transformed into districts which give ample
expression to black voting choices and, due to segregated housing
patterns, just about assure election of black candidates.
          The momentum for districting remains strong. The Alabama
legislature has enacted local courtesy laws enabling a cluster of
Black_Belt counties to convert to singlemember districts for the
election of county governing bodies and school_boards. Another l70
Alabama jurisdictions may convert to single-member districts under
terms of a pending lawsuit. In Mississippi all county supervisors are
elected from single-member districts. Even Southern legislatures, the
bodies responsible for reapportionment, are elected from single-member
districts in eight of the Southern_states; only a few multi-member
districts remain in Arkansas, Georgia, and North_Carolina.
          Generally, the federal_courts have upheld single-member districting
as one effective remedy for electoral discrimination even as
legislative and administrative policies have moved in regressive
directions. In Thornburg v. Gingles, a 1986 decision on North
Carolina's legislative reapportionment, the U.S. Supreme_Court
disallowed several at-large features of a districting plan and
specifically emphasized that the election of racial minorities should
be considered a critical factor in evaluating election systems. The
Thornburg decision has been considered pivotal because the Reagan
Administration entered the case and made a special argument, rejected
by the Court, that would have restricted the reach of reapportionment
law.
          Mere conversion to single-member districts does not settle the
issue of discrimination in elections. The problem is illustrated in
cases such as that of the Mississippi county supervisors where,
despite single-member districts, blacks account for only 38 of the
state's 410 supervisory positions although blacks are a substantially
larger percentage of the state's population. A similar pattern holds
among the Southern state legislatures. Even with the large-scale
conversion to single-member legislative districts, for example, blacks
would have to more than double their present number of state
legislative seats merely to match their numbers in the region's
population. As single-member districts come more into use, a remaining
issue--and one likely to dominate the 1990 round of
reapportionment--is how to draw districts so as to create effective
minority constituencies.
          Recent reforms have been based on certain key assumptions which
justify the priority given to the reapportion-

ment strategy: that
Southern state voting policies would be retrogressive, that blacks
would under-participate relative to whites, that cross-racial
coalitions would be unlikely, and that minorities would not be elected
to single executive and state wide offices. These assumptions can now
be reviewed.
          Southern state policies on voter participation, traditionally
hostile to the black voter, have been improving. Flexible voter
registration hours, satellite registration sites and deputy registrars
are now more common. Election officials in several states publicly and
systematically encourage voter_registration.
          While barriers to voting have diminished, differential rates of
voter participation continue. And when this is combined with white
racial bloc voting the results could be an artificial constraint on
the political development that will come to the region. In the past,
allowance has been made for underparticipation by using the
redistricting process to draw black_districts with extraordinary
majorities. This practice has been effective in the short-run but has
serious drawbacks as a long-run tactic. Such compensatory districting
may encourage packing, a new wrinkle in racial gerrymandering which
could be a threat remaining long after the classic vote dilution
techniques--including at large voting--have been swept away.
          One danger is that ostensibly black-controlled districts may be
intentionally drawn where powerful white factions continue to control
political office. For example, by putting most of the 30 percent black
population of a given county in a single almost exclusively black
district, blacks might elect one of five commissioners, who would
consistently be on the losing end of 4-1 commission decisions. The
remaining blacks in the county might be split among several majority
white districts where they compete with a dominant voting bloc and
have no ability to influence decisions. A perception of representation
might develop, among both blacks and whites, which reduces the
minority community to its "own" elected_officials. This result would
lead to disillusionment as surely as the failure of blacks to win
offices in districts with only slight black majorities.
          Recent reforms have been based on a pessimistic assumption about
the prospects of cross-racial voter coalitions. The reality of white
racial bloc voting, particularly when combined with the differential
rates of participation, is a strong factor in assessing the racial
impact of election mechanics. But voter coalitions are critical to
future advances. The building of such coalitions will depend, in large
measure, on racial attitudes of white voters, but a key ingredient
will be maximization of the voting potential of the minority
population.
          Furthermore, single-member redistricting reforms do not reach
certain levels. They have brought mixed results in Congressional
races; they are ineffective in single executive and state-wide
offices. Except for the special case of judges, only one black holds a
state-wide elected office in the South.
          The significance of voter_registration and education are clear. Yet
there is growing doubt that current efforts and organizations will be
capable of meeting the challenge. The Voter Education Project (VEP),
historically responsible for increasing black voter participation in
the region is facing major problems.  For several years now it has
been in serious financial, organizational and structural
disarray. Even before its current troubles, the political dynamics in
the region were presenting an increasingly difficult challenge to
voter_registration efforts.
          The crisis at VEP was not entirely caused by internal factors. It
grew out of two things. First there was the overall shift in voting
rights efforts from community organizing to formal litigation, a shift
that came to dominate voting_rights strategy in VEP's Deep South
territory. Second, there was a shift in the object of organizing from
support for overall consensus candidates (often at the presidential
level) to mobilization in the context of highly partisan local
campaigns. Key elections sometimes feature competition among black
candidates in majority-black single-member districts; at other times
they consist of black incumbents unopposed for reelection.
          In 1985, when the national philanthropic foundations issued the
report criticizing VEP, the focus was on over allocation of money to
administration as opposed to field work. But VEP, or any other
organization doing effective voter participation work, will have to
come to grips with the changing conditions of Southern politics and of
the role of minority voters therein. Some dramatic efforts to address
the issue have had little impact. In 1984 lawsuits were filed in
several southern states seeking to compel state officials to
affirmatively register voters. VEP itself shifted tactics and went to
court over registration practices in Georgia.
          But this overall
effort has stalled and cannot be expected to bring results in the near
future.
          The Jackson Campaign and its Rainbow Coalition proposed a seductive
way out of the voter participation dilemma--charismatic leadership
based in black church organization. Whether that will have a long-run
impact on minority voter participation is doubtful (there is some
reason to believe that black church politics is an extension of the
partisan pattern now emerging). In the short run the Jackson
mobilization has not significantly expanded black voting and, indeed,
Rainbow candidates have become one more element competing for support
within the same restrictive franchise.
          The Jackson method also places heavy emphasis on race in its
mobilization drives. But conditions in the South today require an
active voter to exercise the franchise in circumstances where such
cues are not dependable guides because election choices are more
matter-of-fact calculations. Powerful white factions seeking to
realign Southern politics, and restrict bi-racial governance,
encourage racial cueing by blacks as a strategy for
delegitimation. Emphasis on the racial cue also invites counter
mobilization by elevating this visible aspect of the candidate (or
proposition) among Southern white voters a group not unaccustomed to
making its election choices by such a standard. Depressed voter
participation in the Southern black_population remains despite the
Rainbow Coalition suggesting the challenge for groups seeking an open
and responsive political process.
          Counting VEP, about fifteen organizations now conduct 

voter
participation work in low-income and minority communities. Only two of
these are based in the South, although half of them have operations
somewhere in the region. The proliferation of voter_registration
groups has intensified competition over scarce dollars, local
constituencies, and skilled organizers, without providing local
capacity to respond to basic participation problems. In local
communities, groups historically constituted for voter participation
work now struggle without much assistance and are actively solicited
by partisan factions.
          Partisanship is a fact of life in the new Southern politics, posing
difficult problems for traditional tactics. Partisanship will be
exaggerated by the increase in black elected_officials. Conclusions
about the precise impact of partisanship are difficult given the rapid
pace of change. However, certain features are clear. The new
mobilization is not a strategy for empowerment. It is primarily
effective in influencing the direction of the vote rather than the
quality of participation or input beyond election day. It is
beneficial insofar as such mobilization helps sustain some voter
turnout. Partisan mobilization tends to be episodic and
personality-driven. It seems to increase the role of money in
elections. It is of limited impact in low-profile elections even when
the issues being decided are vitally important to minorities.
          Current levels of registration and turnout suggest that partisan
mobilization is not a viable substitute for traditional voter
registration work. It does not seem capable of addressing the legacy
of discrimination or the sense of uncertainty about the efficacy of
the vote that is behind minority under-participation. To leave the
exercise of voting_rights to partisan mobilization will mean that the
historic struggle to enfranchise black Southerners will lose its
potential as a democratizing force and become reduced to mere
politics-as-usual.
          What can be done? Nothing easily. Because philanthropy gives its
funds to non-political groups, its predisposition favors litigation
strategies which are safe from charges of partisan involvement. As we
have seen, however, the benefits to be expected from litigation are
diminishing and low voter participation among minorities may actually
have begun to undercut the benefits of redistricting. Proponents of
voter_registration should avoid putting so many eggs in the litigation
basket and return to providing support for organizational
community-based work designed to register and vote the
population. This is no simple matter. Persisting underparticipation
and partisan domination of the electoral agenda raise difficult
strategic problems for groups working to expand minority
participation.
          Improvements in official voting policies are still needed at both
the state and federal levels. But formal changes in state policies are
not a substitute for community-based organizational work. Any overall
strategy will necessarily develop out of experiences in local
communities--rather than top down. Targets of opportunity must be
pursued by placing resources in places where there are realistic
chances of making gains. A regional organization, in the tradition of
VEP, could be pivotal in the process.
          Above all some organization needs to plunge in to systematically
collect and analyze information on what is happening in the aftermath
of the recent reforms. Research associated with voting_rights
litigation provides some interesting illustrations about how to answer
these questions. But the case-by-case nature of this work does not
facilitate the systematic generalization needed now.
          The Voting_Rights_Act, the federal_courts, and an experienced bar
remain in place to protect against wrongdoing by state officials, but
the main line of defense against vote dilution is increasingly
becoming that of informed citizens taking action in local
communities. Strategies to promote full participation in Southern
politics have varied over time as activists have struggled to overcome
voting practices that were among the nation's most restrictive and
discriminatory. Successful adjustments have resulted in significant
change yielding a more open political process today. Another shift is
necessary now if the historically disfranchised are to consolidate
past gains and continue the march towards a just political system.
          
            Political scientist Alex Willingham is research director
of the Southern_Regional_Council.
          
        
