The GOP (Grand Old Propaganda) is working to keep eligible African-Americans from voting in several states. To get an idea of how many African-Americans nationwide lack driver’s licenses, recall Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when thousands were stranded without transportation. “Crawford Republicans” could make the old “Jim Crow Democrats” look like pikers when it comes to voter suppression.

Writes: Jonathan Alter

It was a mainstay of Jim Crow segregation: for 100 years after the Civil War, Southern white Democrats kept eligible blacks from voting with poll taxes, literacy tests and property requirements. Starting in the 1960s, the U.S. Supreme Court declared these assaults on the heart of American democracy unconstitutional.

Now, with the help of a 2008 Supreme Court decision, Crawford vs. Marion County (Indiana) Election Board, white Republicans in some areas will keep eligible blacks from voting by requiring driver’s licenses. Not only is this new-fangled discrimination constitutional, it’s spreading.

GOP proponents of the move say they are merely trying to reduce voter fraud. But while occasional efforts to stuff ballot boxes through phony absentee voting still surface, the incidence of individual vote fraud–voting when you aren’t eligible–is virtually non-existent, as “The Truth About Vote Fraud,” a study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, clearly shows. In other words, the problem Republicans claim they want to combat with increased ID requirements doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, those ID hurdles facing individuals do nothing to stop the organized insiders who still try to game the system…..[ more ]

‘Jim Crow’ America

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References:

1. Jim Crow Laws
2. Ohio Republicans Use Lawsuit — To Fight for State’s Crucial Votes