Repertoires of Vote Repression: Race and Disenfranchisement in American Political Development

Abstract How do dominant political actors suppress minority votes amid institutional constraints? I argue that “repertoires of vote repression”—the set of repressive tactics that political actors can choose from—expand or contract over time amid institutional and structural constraints, and that political actors who seek to repress votes prefer the most efficient tactic available to them amid these constraints. Examining historical case studies of vote repression in the American South following Reconstruction and the Civil Rights era, I show how subnational political actors reconfigured suppression strategies in response to changing institutional constraints. During Reconstruction, federal oversight of local politics and reliance on agrarian labor limited institutional repression, leading to widespread violence. After the Voting Rights Act of 1965, federal constraints on legal vote restrictions led to the rise of administrative and carceral workarounds. My findings suggest that a historically grounded examination of institutional constraints is essential for understanding both past and present struggles over voting rights in America.