Professional solutions for increasing underrepresented voter turnout

While the right to vote is one of the pillars of American democracy, Texas has systematically established barriers that leave certain groups, specifically racial and socioeconomic minorities, underrepresented in the voting pool. 

Voter turnout in Texas continues to fall below the national average. In the 2022 midterm election, Texas ranked 42nd in overall turnout, according to a 2024 Texas Civic Vitality Report on Voting from the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life. During the 2020 presidential election, Texas was ranked 46th.  

Turnout data also shows a strong correlation with educational attainment, particularly in Texas. In 2022, voters without college education underperformed their voting-eligible population share by 30% nationwide, compared to 35% in Texas. In 2020, this group underperformed by 28% nationally and 30% in Texas. Systemic racial and socioeconomic issues inherently mirror these educational inequities. 

The state of Texas has some of the strictest voting laws in the country. Limitations such as an in-person voter registration deadline of 30 days prior to Election Day, lack of online voter registration, and restrictions on mail-in voting tend to disproportionately affect marginalized groups.

This is reflected in the turnout data. While white people represented 50% of those eligible to vote in 2022, they made up 59% of all people who voted. Conversely, Black people represented 13% of those eligible, but only 12% of all voters, and Hispanic people represented 32% of those eligible, but only 23% of all voters. Similar trends are observed among groups with lower income levels. People with an annual income of $50,000 or less represented 34% of those eligible, but only 22% of all voters. This indicates that eligible voters in marginalized groups turn out to vote at lower rates than that of their white and higher-income counterparts. 

Although there have been attempts at mitigating these discrepancies, there hasn’t been an absolute solution. Experts in politics and citizen participation have shared a variety of solutions to help mitigate these issues following the 2024 presidential election.

Chloe Robinson: 

Education, accessibility and policy 

Mark Strama, a former Texas House member and the director of the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life, said that education levels heavily drive the disparities among underrepresented voters. Strama, who also founded the first company to enable Americans to fill out a voter registration form on the internet, said there isn’t an absolute solution to the issues of voting barriers in underrepresented communities but that accessibility, education and inclusivity could help pave the way to a more equitable and representative voting base. 

“If we gave everybody the day off on Election Day, and if we made everybody able to register on the day of the election, we had same-day registration, or if we mailed everybody a ballot instead of making them come to a polling place, or if we had voting over the internet on your phone, would that dramatically improve participation?” Strama said. “It would help, and I think it would be necessary, but it would not be sufficient to make those disparities go away.”

He said that the roots of these disparities are as multifaceted as their potential solutions. While the government can work to promote more accessibility within voting, there are countless attitudinal, motivational and informational causes that the government has less control over. 

“If there was an easy answer, somebody would have done it,” Strama said. “Those are hard things to fix, but it would take all of that to really reach our full potential as a democracy.”

These disparities are more pronounced in Texas than in the rest of the country, Strama said. Things like Texas’ strict voting requirements, like 30-day pre-registration and photo ID requirements, have a more pronounced impact on lower-income, lower-education voters than on other voters, he said. 

In his time in the House of Representatives, Strama also tried to get rid of gerrymandering, or the manipulation of the boundaries of an electoral subdivision intended to favor one party or class, by spearheading an independent redistricting commission as a mechanism of mitigating these gaps. 

“I think more competitive elections would make voters feel much more empowered, and make their votes feel much more important,” Strama said. 

Strama said that there may be an opportunity for Democrats and Republicans to agree on policy that makes it easier for underrepresented communities to vote.

“I would not be surprised over the next five years if Republicans start to support policies that make it easier for those voters to participate, because those are their voters now,” Strama said. 

Emily DeMotte:

Gerrymandering, privately-financed campaigns and strict election laws create discrepancy

As the president of Clean Elections Texas, a grassroots nonprofit organization that advocates for transparency and accountability in government, David Jones has worked firsthand on a number of initiatives that seek to combat the disparity in voter turnout in Texas. Jones said he thinks racial gerrymandering, privately-financed campaigns and the changes that Senate Bill 1 brought to election laws in 2021 are each significant contributors to the pattern. 

Gerrymandering has long been a controversial topic in the Republican-dominated state of Texas. Jones, a former lawyer, has been a leader in the redistricting litigation efforts of Fair Maps Texas, a nonpartisan redistricting reform effort under which Clean Elections Texas operates. 

“The gerrymandering of political districts makes it so that there are huge parts of the minority population in Texas who are just essentially disenfranchised there,” Jones said. “Their districts have been either cracked or packed, so that their influence overall is minimized. And people are not stupid. They figure that out.”

This can discourage voters in affected groups, leading to lower turnout rates, Jones said.

“It makes it so people begin to understand that no matter how they vote, because of where they are geographically, their vote is not going to have much of an impact,” he said.
SB 1, which was signed by Gov. Greg Abbott in 2021, created new voting restrictions including a ban on drive-thru voting, reduced voting hours and new ID requirements for voting by mail. 

“All (of) these laws that they've passed that have made it harder to vote suppress minority turnout more than anyone else,” Jones said.  

Additionally, Jones faults Texas for not having laws to limit financial contributions to political candidates in statewide races. This allows a small number of wealthy donors to exercise power as the primary contributors to campaigns, he said, an issue that has been a primary focus of Clean Elections Texas. 

“A lot of people look at that, and they see, ‘This is just something that rich folks have a lot of influence over, and my vote is not going to have any impact. So why should I try?’” Jones said. 

Lindsey Gagne:

Registration deadlines and a lack of education limit voter turnout

In Hidalgo, only 48.81% of voters showed up to the polls, according to information from the county. Maria Salazar, advocacy field organizer of Texas Rising’s University of Texas Rio Grande Valley chapter, said a change in education and a shift in how voting is structured would increase the voter turnout of the RGV. 

Salazar spent the days leading up to the election educating people at her campus about voting, as well as taking the time to register students who needed the help.

“I think better education surrounding how to vote would greatly increase voter turnout,” Salazar said. “A lot of people don't know about these laws and these deadlines, so just educating people, like, ‘Hey, you only have until this day,’ or ‘You can only do it this way,’ so that they are ready to go vote would help.”

Texas is one of only 15 states that do not have same-day registration. Salazar said that the early deadline for registration and the lack of online registration hold people in the RGV back from “doing their part.”

For the first time since 1972, Hidalgo County flipped red in the presidential race, according to election data, showing a change in the region’s political landscape.

“It's been interesting seeing a shift towards more conservative ideals,” Salazar said. “Hidalgo and the other counties in the RGV have been historically more left-leaning, more blue, more democratic, but this election, it wasn't the case.” 

In her work on a college campus, Salazar said she has seen the contrast in political engagement between generations.

“There's a difference in the political leanings of the generations, but I think that they're both very active politically,” Salazar said. “Older generations typically show out more in the polls. They have a greater voter turnout, but younger people are a lot more active politically in terms of being outspoken or being more involved in activist campaigns.”

Leiah Bodden:

Long lines at Texas polling sites deter voters

Long lines at polling locations can discourage voters, which disproportionately affects underrepresented racial and socioeconomic groups. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute, Latino and Black voters nationwide are more likely to report the longest wait times. Polling places in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods have 30% fewer voting machines than predominantly white areas. People in lower-income areas also may not have the flexibility to spend hours waiting in line.

The Black Student Alliance at the University of Texas at Austin advocates for more polling locations on and around campus to ease crowding and make voting more accessible. 

Arianna Jenkins, community engagement chair, said the wait times at polling locations on campus have increased this election because The Texas Union has fewer machines than the Peter T. Flawn Academic Center, which previously also was a polling site.

“The only two (polling locations) that we do have now are the Union and LBJ,” Jenkins said. “Nobody really wants to walk all the way to LBJ because it is pretty far off campus, and just a lot of ways away. So the Union was honestly the biggest place to vote.”

Jenkins said that the Black Student Alliance spent the fall semester encouraging its members and the overall Black community to vote. She said a lot of the students she talked to were turned away from voting because they could not schedule enough time to travel to polling locations and wait in the lines. 

During this election season, the organization took direct action by distributing snacks at polling locations to motivate people to stay in line. 

“We know how tiring it can be waiting in those long lines when you're thirsty and hungry,” Jenkins said. “A lot of people get out of line just because they're ready to go home. So we wanted to encourage voters to stay in line and make sure that their votes were counted.”