You may no longer vote

Maybe the tea party doesn't represent blatant racism but they have a long way to go to explain their current behaviors.

This is how voter intimidation worked in 1966: White teenagers in Americus, Ga., harassed black citizens in line to vote, and the police refused to intervene. Black plantation workers in Mississippi had to vote in plantation stores, overseen by their bosses. Black voters in Choctaw County, Ala., had to hand their ballots directly to white election officials for inspection.

This is how it works today: In an ostensible hunt for voter fraud, a Tea Party group, True the Vote, descends on a largely minority precinct and combs the registration records for the slightest misspelling or address error. It uses this information to challenge voters at the polls, and though almost every challenge is baseless, the arguments and delays frustrate those in line and reduce turnout.

The thing that’s different from the days of overt discrimination is the phony pretext of combating voter fraud. ...New York Times 

True The Vote began here in Texas where voting can be notoriously, um, shall we say, "old fashioned."  As the Times editorial points out, they turned their attention to the district that Houston Congresswoman, Sheila Jackson Lee, represents and, during the 2010 elections, did what they could to keep "those people" from voting.  Then they moved on to Wisconsin where they may well have skewed the outcome of the Governor Walker recall vote.

The group used inaccurate lists to slow down student voting at Lawrence University in Appleton with intrusive identity checks. Three election “observers,” including one from True the Vote, were so disruptive that a clerk gave them two warnings, but the ploy was effective: many students gave up waiting in line and didn’t vote. ..NYT

Don't forget.  This isn't a group of honorable American citizens doing their duty out of concern for our voting procedures.  They began as a group funded by the Koch brothers, created to elect conservatives.

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By the way, I want to remind you that the Constitution was written by and for white people.  White men, in fact.  You can't expect Real Americans to just forget that.

Comments

[john andres]

The federal Government has to begin the the eventual takeover of all elections.States can no longer be allowed to manipulate the process.

[PW]

You're right. For someone who's spent a lot of time in countries that issue national ID cards, the opposition of what I call "The Expanded Klan" in this country is antediluvian. Paranoia is an excuse...