Christians Should Resist Single-Issue Voting

ON TUESDAY, NOV. 8, control of federal spending and legislation will be at stake with every seat in the House of Representatives up for election along with a third of the U.S. Senate, not to mention countless offices at the state and local level. Many of these races are critical for determining what the next few years will look like in the United States and beyond.

Christians should resist single-issue voting and instead apply our faith across a broad range of issues that impact human dignity and human flourishing. Our faith should inform and shape how we evaluate candidates and cast our ballots. While many important issues will be on the ballot this midterm—from inflation and the state of our economy to reproductive health, climate justice, our continued response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and a range of racial justice issues, to name just a few—increasingly the fate of democracy itself will be on the ballot. The challenge is that democracy is not often treated as a top-tier issue and can be easily taken for granted. As the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection has illuminated with sobering and chilling clarity, our democracy is not a given. A criminal conspiracy by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election and the ongoing efforts to erect new barriers to the right to vote have damaged and continue to imperil our democracy. In the face of these threats, it is important that the midterm election becomes a referendum on whether candidates are committed to protecting and strengthening a more inclusive and just multiracial democracy.

Many state legislatures have recently passed laws making it easier to interfere with and subvert election results, which alongside voter suppression directly threatens the health of U.S. democracy. Fueled by Trump’s big lie that the 2020 election was stolen, six states (Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and Oklahoma) have enacted laws that “permit partisan actors to interfere with elections operations or overturn election results,” per the Brennan Center’s analysis. More broadly, lawmakers in 27 states introduced at least 148 election interference bills this year alone. It’s both alarming and bitterly ironic that false claims of a stolen election continue to be used to make a truly stolen election increasingly possible.

The right to vote remains under assault in the wake of Supreme Court decisions that gutted sections of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, making it much more difficult to stop all but the most blatantly racially discriminatory voting restrictions. According to the Brennan Center, since the beginning of 2021, 18 states have passed laws that restrict voting rights, while only four states have passed laws that make it easier to vote. Our faith teaches us that the right to vote is tied to the inherent worth that all human beings possess as image-bearers of God. We must actively push candidates from all political parties to earn our support by taking concrete actions to protect the democratic process and the right to vote. Through Faiths United to Save Democracy, clergy can volunteer to serve as poll chaplains to prevent voter intimidation and suppression efforts, and congregations can engage in voter education and mobilization activities.

As we enter into the final stretch of this midterm election season, let’s send a clear message to Washington that we value leaders who protect democracy and the right to vote for all Americans.