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Burn The Playbook
1 in 5 Polling Places Are Gone. That Is Not an Accident.
Polling places closed. Voter rolls purged. New restrictions passed in 17 states last year. And the Voting Rights Act is still in pieces.
WASHINGTON: One in five Election Day polling places have closed across the United States over the last decade, with closures disproportionately hitting communities of color, particularly in states previously covered by the Voting Rights Act's preclearance requirement, struck down by Shelby County v. Holder in 2013.
▶ Watch the 60-second version of this story on my YouTube Shorts.
In 2025 alone, at least 17 states enacted 32 laws making it harder to vote, tying the highest total since the Brennan Center started tracking in 2011: stricter voter ID requirements, limits on mail voting, restrictions on registration drives, curbs on early voting. The trend continued into 2026.
Voter purge rates remain elevated. The Campaign Legal Center documented aggressive purge efforts ahead of the 2026 midterms, with Texas and Ohio running citizenship-based roll purges on faulty data that disproportionately remove eligible naturalized citizens. Nationwide, more than 17 million voters had their registrations canceled between 2016 and 2018 alone, per the Brennan Center's analysis of EAC data, and the median purge rate in formerly covered jurisdictions ran 40% higher than elsewhere. And in June 2026 the Supreme Court agreed to hear a Republican bid to reinterpret the NVRA's 90-day quiet period so purges can run closer to Election Day.
Look at the federal election data yourself, the survey behind the one-in-five number.
Quick break before the Receipts, and this one is about the money side of your life, not the ballot box.
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The Receipts
1. 1 in 5 closed: More than 27,000 Election Day polling places, over one in five, closed between 2012 and 2022, with closures accelerating after Shelby County. Source: ABC News analysis of EAC Election Administration and Voting Survey data, October 2024.
2. 17 states, 32 laws in 2025: At least 17 states enacted 32 laws making it harder to vote in 2025, tying the highest total since tracking began in 2011: stricter ID, mail vote limits, registration restrictions, early voting curbs. Source: Brennan Center, "State Voting Laws Roundup: 2025 in Review," January 2026.
3. 17 million purged (2016-2018): Voter registrations canceled nationwide in that two-year window, per Brennan Center analysis of EAC data; the median purge rate in formerly covered jurisdictions was 40% higher. In June 2026 the Supreme Court took up RNC v. Mi Familia Vota, the Republican push to narrow the NVRA's late-purge ban. Source: Brennan Center, August 2019; Campaign Legal Center, April 2026; NPR, July 1, 2026.
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The Dispatch
You do not have to ban voting to suppress it. You just have to make it harder for the right people.
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights documented that in the eight years since Shelby County, formerly covered jurisdictions closed polling places, purged voter rolls, and enacted strict ID laws at rates significantly higher than non-covered jurisdictions. That is exactly the outcome the Voting Rights Act was designed to prevent.
Close the polling place. Purge the roll. Require the ID. Shorten the hours. Restrict the mail ballot. Each one is small enough to defend in isolation. Together, they are an architecture of exclusion built one ordinance at a time.
Sources
U.S. Election Assistance Commission: Election Administration and Voting Survey comprehensive reports, the underlying dataset for the polling-place and purge figures, 2024 report published June 2025. source
ABC News: "1 in 5 Election Day polling places have closed over last decade," 27,000 closures 2012 to 2022, from EAVS and Center for Public Integrity data, October 2024. source
Brennan Center for Justice: "State Voting Laws Roundup: 2025 in Review," 32 restrictive laws in at least 17 states, January 2026. source
Brennan Center for Justice: "Voter Purge Rates Remain High," 17 million purged 2016 to 2018 per EAC EAVS data, 40% higher median purge rate in formerly covered jurisdictions, August 2019. source
Campaign Legal Center: "Inside the Effort to Purge Eligible Voters Ahead of the 2026 Midterms," Texas and Ohio purges, April 2026. source
NPR: Supreme Court agrees to hear RNC v. Mi Familia Vota on the NVRA 90-day purge ban, July 2026. source
— Michael Starr Hopkins · Washington, D.C.
Burn Notice
They did not ban your vote. They closed your polling place. They purged your registration. They changed the ID rules. They shortened the hours. They restricted the mail ballot.
Each step is small. Each step is legal. Each step is aimed.
Voter suppression does not look like a locked door. It looks like a longer line, a missing name, and a rule that changed since last time.
The right to vote means nothing if the polling place is closed, your name is purged, and the rules changed since the last time you showed up.
— MSH
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