17-2 Why Voting Matters: Renters Have a Voice and Voting Helps Make It Heard

By Tia Turner, NLIHC

Voting is one of the most direct ways renters can have a voice in decisions affecting their homes, families, and communities. Elections determine who will make decisions about affordable housing, rental assistance, public housing, tenant protections, transportation, community development, and other policies that shape everyday life. 

Yet renters continue to vote at lower rates than homeowners. According to National Low Income Housing Coalition’s Turning Renters into Voters: Lessons in Engaging Low-Income Communities (https://tr.ee/FAbdPP) report, only 52.1% of eligible renters voted in the 2024 general election, compared with 70.3% of eligible homeowners. The gap is even larger by income: only 46.1% of eligible voters in households earning less than $20,000 voted, compared with 78.4% of eligible voters in households earning more than $100,000. 

Voting is therefore not simply an individual act. It can be a way for renters to build collective power. 

When more residents in a building, neighborhood, or community participate in elections, they demonstrate that renters are an organized and engaged constituency. Higher participation can help ensure that candidates and elected officials recognize renters as an important part of the electorate and understand the issues affecting them.

Voting is one of the most direct ways renters can have a voice in decisions affecting their homes, families, and communities.

Voting Rights Are the Foundation of Participation 

The right to vote was not extended equally to all Americans from the beginning of the nation’s history. Expanding voting rights has required generations of organizing, advocacy, and legal action. 

The “Voting Rights Act of 1965” (VRA) was a landmark achievement of the Civil Rights Movement. The law was designed to address racial discrimination that prevented Black Americans and other communities of color from fully participating in elections. Section 2 of the VRA prohibits voting practices and procedures that discriminate on the basis of race or color and has been used to challenge discriminatory voting practices, including redistricting plans that weaken the voting power of communities of color. 

The VRA remains an important protection, because voting access is closely connected to political representation. When communities are unable to participate equally in elections, their ability to influence the policies affecting their lives is also weakened. 

Recent developments demonstrate why these protections continue to matter.