Our Time Is Now: Key Insights & Takeaways from Stacey Abrams

American democracy faces a quiet crisis. While overt voter suppression of the past—literacy tests, poll taxes, violent intimidation—has been outlawed, Stacey Abrams argues in Our Time Is Now that modern disenfranchisement operates through subtler but equally effective mechanisms. The result is the same: millions of eligible citizens systematically excluded from political participation.

This guide breaks down Abrams' comprehensive analysis of how voter suppression works today and what citizens can do to fight back. Drawing from her experience in Georgia politics and civil rights organizing, Abrams provides both a diagnostic framework for understanding the problem and a practical toolkit for building more inclusive democracy. Whether you're an activist looking to sharpen your strategies or a citizen trying to understand why voting has become so difficult in certain communities, these insights reveal the architecture of modern disenfranchisement—and how to dismantle it.

Start practicing Our Time Is Now for free ▸

How does modern voter suppression actually work?

Modern voter suppression operates as a three-pronged system that creates compounding obstacles at every stage of the voting process. The first prong targets registration, making it harder to get on the voter rolls through strict documentation requirements, purges of inactive voters, and rejection of applications for minor errors. The second prong restricts ballot access by reducing polling places, limiting early voting hours, and requiring specific forms of identification. The third prong creates obstacles to having your vote counted through provisional ballot requirements, signature matching rejections, and equipment failures that invalidate ballots.

What makes this system so effective is how each obstacle compounds the effects of the others. A voter who struggles to register may finally succeed, only to find their polling place closed. If they travel to a new location and wait hours in line, their ballot may be rejected because their signature doesn't match exactly. Fighting any single tactic in isolation leaves the other barriers intact. This interconnected web means that advocates must address all three prongs simultaneously rather than achieving isolated victories that leave the broader system functioning.

Understanding this architecture is essential for anyone who wants to protect voting rights. The suppression isn't random—it's designed to create maximum friction for specific communities while appearing neutral on its face. Once you see the pattern, you can anticipate where barriers will emerge and organize to overcome them.

Why do voter ID laws disenfranchise so many eligible voters?

Voter ID laws exploit what Abrams calls the documentation gap: approximately 21 million American citizens lack government-issued photo identification. While requiring ID sounds reasonable in the abstract, the specific forms of identification accepted—and rejected—reveal the discriminatory design. Laws that accept gun permits but reject student IDs, or demand birth certificates from elderly citizens born in home deliveries before hospital births were common, create barriers that fall disproportionately on specific communities.

The burden isn't just about having an ID—it's about the cost and difficulty of obtaining one. Getting a birth certificate requires knowing which county to contact, paying fees, and often traveling to government offices with limited hours. For elderly Black voters born in the rural South under Jim Crow, birth records may not exist at all. For Native Americans on reservations, standard addresses don't exist in the format IDs require. For urban residents who've never needed a driver's license, the process can require multiple trips to DMV offices and documentation they don't possess.

These laws function as a modern poll tax, imposing costs in money and time that correlate with race, class, and age. Courts have struck down some of the most extreme versions, but legislators continue crafting new requirements that achieve discriminatory outcomes through facially neutral language. The pattern repeats: strict ID requirements pass, disenfranchise thousands, face legal challenge, and eventually get modified—but not before multiple elections have been affected.

Practice these concepts in Loxie ▸

What happened after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act?

The Shelby County v. Holder decision in 2013 eliminated the preclearance requirement that had forced states with histories of discrimination to get federal approval before changing voting laws. Within hours of the ruling, states that had been blocked from implementing restrictive measures announced they would proceed. Texas implemented a strict voter ID law that had been rejected under preclearance. North Carolina passed what a federal court later described as targeting African Americans "with almost surgical precision." The immediate wave of restrictions proved that discriminatory impulses hadn't disappeared—they had simply been restrained by federal oversight.

The preclearance provision had worked precisely because it required states to prove changes wouldn't discriminate before implementation. Without it, the burden shifted: harmful laws take effect immediately, and victims must spend years in court proving discrimination after the damage is done. By the time courts strike down a law, several election cycles have passed with suppressed turnout. Legislators then craft slightly modified versions, and the litigation cycle begins again.

This pattern demonstrates why federal protection remains essential. The argument that preclearance was no longer needed because discrimination had declined ignored that discrimination had declined precisely because preclearance existed. Progress on voting rights, Abrams shows, reverses rapidly without active constraint on states that have demonstrated willingness to suppress votes whenever oversight lapses.

How do polling place closures function as voter suppression?

Polling place allocation has become demographic warfare. When election officials reduce voting locations in growing minority neighborhoods while maintaining them in declining white areas, the result is predictable: hours-long lines in some precincts while voting takes minutes in others. This disparity isn't accidental—it's resource allocation that imposes a time tax on voting in targeted communities.

The consequences cascade through working-class voters' lives. An hourly worker who can't afford to lose wages faces an impossible choice between voting and income. A parent without childcare can't wait four hours in line. Someone with health conditions requiring bathroom access or seating can't endure outdoor queues that stretch around blocks. In each case, the barrier appears neutral—everyone faces the same line—but the ability to overcome it correlates with resources and flexibility that track with race and class.

Equipment failures compound these effects. When voting machines break down primarily in low-income precincts while wealthy districts receive regular upgrades, technical problems become predictable suppression with plausible deniability. Underfunding creates systematic breakdowns that invalidate ballots and extend wait times precisely where margins matter most. Communities that need more resources to handle growing populations receive less, while areas with declining turnout maintain full services.

What is gerrymandering and why does it undermine democracy?

Gerrymandering manipulates district boundaries to predetermine election outcomes through two complementary tactics. "Packing" concentrates minority voters into as few districts as possible, allowing them to elect representatives in those districts but limiting their influence everywhere else. "Cracking" splits minority communities across multiple districts, diluting their collective power so they can't form a majority anywhere. Both tactics destroy authentic representation by making politicians choose their voters rather than voters choosing politicians.

The mathematical precision of modern gerrymandering has reached levels impossible before sophisticated mapping software. Districts now snake through neighborhoods, sometimes connected by strips only meters wide, to achieve exact partisan or racial outcomes. The result is elections where outcomes are foregone conclusions regardless of public sentiment, candidate quality, or turnout. When districts are drawn to guarantee results, voting becomes performative rather than consequential.

This matters beyond individual elections. When representatives face no genuine competition, they have no incentive to respond to constituent concerns. Safe districts enable extremism because the only electoral threat comes from primary challengers, not general election opponents. Communities experiencing the consequences of policy decisions—environmental pollution, school underfunding, inadequate infrastructure—lose the ability to hold decision-makers accountable when those decision-makers have drawn themselves into impregnable districts.

Understanding suppression tactics is just the first step
Knowing how voter ID laws, gerrymandering, and polling place closures work means nothing if you forget the details when you need to explain them or organize against them. Loxie helps you internalize these concepts through spaced repetition, so the frameworks are available when you're advocating for change.

Try Loxie for free ▸

Why does protecting voting rights require both defense and offense?

Fighting voter suppression defensively—blocking harmful laws, challenging discriminatory practices, protecting existing access—is essential but insufficient. Abrams argues that playing defense alone condemns advocates to perpetual crisis management, reacting to the latest restriction while millions remain excluded by barriers that were never addressed. Genuine progress requires offensive strategies that expand democracy proactively.

Offensive approaches include automatic voter registration that enrolls citizens when they interact with government agencies, eliminating the registration barrier entirely. Early voting periods and vote-by-mail options remove the time tax that Election Day imposes on working families. Restoration of voting rights to formerly incarcerated citizens who've served their sentences ends permanent disenfranchisement. Each expansion creates structural change that benefits all citizens while making future suppression harder to implement.

The dual approach recognizes different levels of political access. Some citizens face active barriers—ID requirements, closed polling places, purged registrations. Others face passive exclusion through systems that were never designed to include them. Stopping suppression helps the first group but leaves the second untouched. Only by combining defensive protections with proactive expansions can democracy become genuinely inclusive rather than merely less exclusionary than before.

How can communities build lasting political power?

Sustainable political power requires year-round civic infrastructure, not just election-season mobilization. Abrams emphasizes that campaigns that appear only before elections and disappear afterward fail to build the relationships, knowledge, and organizational capacity needed to overcome suppression tactics. When the only contact voters have with democracy is someone asking for their vote, they have no reason to trust that their participation matters.

Effective organizing connects voting rights to daily lived experiences through sustained community engagement. Programs that help people navigate bureaucratic systems, access services, and address local concerns build relationships that make political participation feel relevant. When an organization that helped someone get healthcare also explains how voting affects healthcare policy, the connection becomes tangible. These relationships can't be manufactured in the weeks before an election—they require consistent presence over years.

This approach also means meeting voters where they are rather than expecting them to come to traditional political spaces. Barbershops, churches, community centers, and other gathering places become sites for civic education and voter assistance. Trust flows through existing relationships, not campaign offices staffed by strangers. Marginalized communities have legitimate reasons to distrust political institutions, so effective organizing embeds itself in spaces where people already gather and leverages messengers they already trust.

Download Loxie for free ▸

What makes effective anti-suppression organizing?

Effective anti-suppression organizing requires three pillars working simultaneously: litigation to challenge discriminatory laws, registration drives to expand the electorate, and election protection programs that deploy volunteers as poll monitors and operate voter assistance hotlines. Each component addresses different aspects of the suppression system, and none alone is sufficient.

Litigation can strike down the most egregious laws but operates on timelines that span years while elections happen every cycle. Registration drives bring new voters into the system but don't protect them from purges, ID requirements, or polling place closures on Election Day. Election protection deploys immediate assistance but can't help voters who were never registered or whose ballots are challenged after they leave the polls. Only the combination creates comprehensive defense.

The coordination between these efforts matters as much as the efforts themselves. Legal teams need data from on-the-ground organizers to prove discriminatory impact. Voter registration workers need election protection volunteers to ensure their newly registered voters can actually cast ballots. Election protection hotlines need legal expertise to advise voters facing challenges. Building these connections before crises emerge allows rapid response when suppression tactics appear.

Why does census participation matter as much as voting?

Census participation determines political power and resource allocation for an entire decade. Congressional representation, Electoral College votes, and federal funding for schools, hospitals, and infrastructure all flow from census counts. An undercount of just 1% costs communities billions in funding and potentially congressional seats that won't be restored until the next count ten years later.

The census creates the political map that can't be corrected mid-decade. If a community is undercounted in 2020, it lives with the consequences until 2030 regardless of population growth. This makes census participation as consequential as voting—arguably more so, since voting affects individual elections while census data shapes every election and policy decision for a decade.

Achieving accurate counts faces its own suppression dynamics. Communities with high concentrations of immigrants, distrust of government, or unstable housing are hardest to count and most likely to be undercounted. Fear of data being used for immigration enforcement suppresses participation. Digital divides compound these challenges as online-first enumeration disadvantages areas without broadband access. Organizing for census participation requires the same community-based infrastructure needed for voter engagement, reinforcing why year-round civic organizing matters beyond election cycles.

How do felony disenfranchisement laws suppress the vote?

Felony disenfranchisement creates a permanent underclass of approximately 6 million Americans banned from voting, with restoration processes so complex and expensive that they function as lifetime sentences even after prison terms end. In some states, people who've served their time, completed probation, and paid all fines still cannot vote without petitioning the governor or a board that rarely grants restoration.

These laws disproportionately affect Black men—roughly 1 in 13 are disenfranchised nationally, compared to 1 in 56 of all adults. This disparity isn't coincidental: many felony disenfranchisement laws were explicitly designed during the post-Reconstruction era to target crimes associated with Black communities while exempting offenses associated with white communities. The racial targeting that was explicit then continues through laws that were never reformed.

The political consequences compound the injustice. Communities most affected by criminal justice policies—mass incarceration, over-policing, mandatory minimum sentences—lose the political voice to advocate for reform. When those experiencing the system's consequences firsthand can't vote, policies operate without electoral accountability from those who understand them most intimately. This creates a feedback loop where high arrest rates strip voting rights, preventing communities from electing officials who might address the criminal justice policies driving those arrest rates.

Start retaining what you learn ▸

How does modern suppression use neutral language to achieve discriminatory outcomes?

Contemporary voter suppression deliberately mimics race-neutral language while achieving racially discriminatory outcomes. Terms like "election integrity" and "voter fraud prevention" justify tactics that surgically target minority communities with precision that rivals Jim Crow laws—but without the explicit racial language that courts would immediately strike down.

This linguistic camouflage makes modern suppression harder to challenge legally and publicly. When a law requires voter ID to "prevent fraud" in elections where fraud is virtually nonexistent, advocates must prove both that the law has disparate racial impact and that the stated justification is pretextual. Courts often defer to legislative judgment about election administration, accepting facially neutral rationales even when discriminatory impact is documented.

The historical continuity matters for understanding this pattern. Abrams traces how each generation of suppression adapted to legal constraints on its predecessor. When literacy tests were banned, "voter fraud" concerns emerged. When explicit racial targeting became legally untenable, "neutral" criteria that correlated with race replaced it. Recognizing this evolution helps advocates anticipate how suppression will adapt to future legal victories and organize accordingly.

What role does identity politics play in building coalitions?

Identity politics becomes a weapon when used to divide, but recognizing distinct experiences while building toward shared goals creates stronger coalitions. Abrams distinguishes between identity politics that says "only we matter" and identity politics that says "we matter too." The first fragments movements; the second multiplies power by allowing different communities to articulate their unique stakes while coordinating action.

Effective coalition building doesn't ask anyone to abandon their specific cause or pretend differences don't exist. Labor unions, racial justice organizations, LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, and faith communities each bring distinct constituencies and concerns. Rather than diluting messages into generic appeals, successful coalitions let each group explain why voting rights matter to their specific constituency while coordinating tactics, sharing resources, and supporting each other's voter engagement efforts.

The "intersectional majority" represents people experiencing overlapping marginalizations across race, class, gender, and sexuality. Most people don't experience oppression in neat categories but at intersections—a Black woman facing barriers related to both race and gender, a working-class immigrant navigating class and citizenship status. Movements that address complex realities rather than demanding single-issue loyalty mobilize larger coalitions because they speak to how people actually experience the world.

What does it mean to be a democratic shareholder rather than a customer?

Sustainable democracy requires citizens to act as shareholders rather than customers—engaging continuously in governance through school boards, city councils, and state legislatures rather than appearing only during presidential elections. Customer-citizens show up expecting service, evaluate whether they got what they wanted, and leave. Shareholder-citizens invest in outcomes, participate in decision-making, and accept responsibility for results.

This shift matters practically because local and state governments make most of the decisions affecting daily life. Voting laws, school funding, police practices, environmental regulations—these are primarily determined at levels below federal politics. Presidential elections capture attention, but state legislators draw congressional districts, county officials allocate polling places, and local election boards implement voter ID requirements. Without engagement at these levels, national victories can be undermined locally.

Building shareholder citizenship requires the same year-round infrastructure discussed earlier. When communities engage with governance between elections—attending school board meetings, monitoring budget decisions, tracking how representatives vote—they develop the civic muscle memory needed to resist suppression attempts. They also create bottom-up change that federal politics alone cannot achieve, transforming local institutions that then become models for broader reform.

The real challenge with Our Time Is Now

Understanding how voter suppression works and what to do about it is genuinely important—but knowledge that fades doesn't translate into sustained action. How many concepts from this guide will you remember in three months? The mechanisms of the three-pronged suppression system? The specific tactics for building effective coalitions? The distinction between defensive and offensive strategies?

Research on memory shows that we forget roughly 70% of new information within 24 hours without reinforcement. That's not a personal failing—it's how human memory works. The forgetting curve means that reading about these ideas once, no matter how engaging, leaves most of them inaccessible when you actually need to explain them to others, recognize them in news coverage, or apply them in organizing work.

This is the gap between understanding ideas intellectually and having them available when they matter. Abrams wrote this book because she believes informed citizens can protect democracy—but information that's forgotten can't inform action.

How Loxie helps you actually remember what you learn

Loxie uses spaced repetition and active recall—the two most scientifically validated learning techniques—to help you retain what you read. Instead of passively reviewing notes, you actively retrieve information through questions that resurface at precisely timed intervals, right before you'd naturally forget.

The practice takes about 2 minutes a day. You're not re-reading the book or watching summaries—you're strengthening your memory through the effort of recall. Each time you successfully retrieve a concept, the interval before you see it again extends. Ideas you struggle with appear more frequently until they stick. Over time, the key frameworks become permanently accessible rather than vaguely familiar.

Our Time Is Now is available in Loxie's free topic library, along with hundreds of other books across categories. You can start reinforcing these concepts today and build the knowledge foundation that sustained civic engagement requires.

Sign up free and start retaining ▸