02 Feb “The MEGA Act and the Long Shadow of Jim Crow Voting Laws
Alabama’s Secretary of State, Wes Allen, recently announced his support for a federal bill called the Make Elections Great Again Act, or the MEGA Act, sponsored by Bryan Steil. The bill is being promoted as a sweeping package of “election integrity” reforms designed to increase voter confidence. But history teaches us to be skeptical when politicians use that phrase. In the United States, “election integrity” has often been the language used to justify exclusion, not protection. The MEGA Act follows that same pattern. While it claims to secure elections, its real impact would be to restrict voting access, weaken representation, and concentrate political power away from Black, Brown, immigrant, and working-class communities.
Election Integrity Has a History
After the Civil War, the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed Black men the right to vote. In response, Southern states did not openly reject democracy. Instead, they passed laws framed as neutral safeguards for elections. Poll taxes were justified as a way to ensure voters were “invested” citizens. Literacy tests were sold as measures to guarantee an “informed electorate.” Grandfather clauses protected white voters while excluding Black ones. These laws were not accidents. They were intentional tools of control. They worked by creating barriers that seemed race-neutral on paper but were devastatingly effective in practice. Black voter participation across the South collapsed for decades.
The language changed. The outcome did not.
The MEGA Act Repeats the Pattern
The MEGA Act revives this same strategy using modern terminology. It claims to protect elections while advancing policies that would shrink the electorate and distort representation. One of the most alarming provisions would require the Census to count only citizens when determining congressional representation. The Constitution requires the Census to count all people. Children, immigrants, and mixed-status families are part of our communities, our workforce, and our economy. Erasing them from the count would strip political power from entire regions and shift representation toward whiter, more rural states. This is not about accuracy. It is about power.
The bill also requires proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections, despite the fact that non-citizen voting is already illegal and extremely rare. Like poll taxes and literacy tests before it, this requirement creates unnecessary obstacles for eligible voters, including elders, rural residents, married women whose names have changed, people born at home, and low-income voters who may not have easy access to documents. These barriers do not affect all voters equally. They disproportionately impact communities that have already been marginalized by decades of policy decisions.
Exporting Voter Suppression Nationwide
The MEGA Act would force every state to adopt some of the most restrictive voting policies already used in states like Alabama. Rather than allowing states to modernize elections or expand access, the bill bans innovations such as ranked choice voting and universal vote by mail. It also adds criminal penalties that could intimidate election workers, volunteers, and community organizations that help people navigate the voting process. Fear has always been a tool of voter suppression. This bill codifies it.
Census Manipulation Is Resource Theft
Undercounting people does not just affect elections. Census data determines funding for schools, hospitals, infrastructure, disaster relief, and public services. When communities are undercounted, they lose resources. This is a quiet but devastating form of harm that lasts for years. Historically, communities of color have already been undercounted by the Census. The MEGA Act would make that undercount intentional.
Jim Crow Did Not Disappear. It Adapted.
Jim Crow voting laws did not rely solely on violence. They relied on bureaucracy, paperwork, and the appearance of neutrality. Today’s voter suppression efforts work the same way. When politicians talk about “election integrity” while advancing policies that reduce participation and representation, we have seen this before. The names change. The mechanisms evolve. The goal remains the same. Control who votes. Control who counts. Control who governs.
Congress Must Vote No. Contact your Rep Today.
The MEGA Act is not about protecting democracy. It is about reshaping it to serve a narrower and more exclusionary vision of who belongs.
Congress must vote NO on this bill.
At Alabama Values Progress, we believe democracy is strongest when everyone is counted, everyone can participate, and everyone has a voice. Any policy that moves us in the opposite direction deserves to be challenged, named, and stopped. Because if we do not learn from history, we risk repeating it in plain sight.
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