Tuesday, December 06, 2011

New Light on the GOP Suppression of the Black Vote

Forget for the moment the NC GOP's attempted suppression of the black vote (and the youth vote) through a proposed photo ID law (which Gov. Perdue vetoed --veto upheld in the NC House -- but which Republican Speaker Thom Tillis is all itchy to bring back up for another veto over-ride attempt, once a couple of Dems are out sick with the flu) ... forget all that for the moment, and consider what's going on in South Carolina.

The Republican-dominated South Carolina legislature passed a similar voter photo ID law which the Republican governor dutifully signed. According to analysis by the Associated Press, there are 10 South Carolina precincts (among the state’s 2,134 precincts) "where nearly all of the law’s affect falls on nonwhite voters who don’t have a state-issued driver’s license or ID card, a total of 1,977 voters."

The South Carolina law also recognizes only state-issued photo identification, so college students from out of state or those who have not acquired SC photo identification will be SOL.

The AP article which revealed these problems and the way it falls disproportionately on the black population got favorably tweeted by a South Carolina Republican Party operative: "Nice ... proves EXACTLY why we need voter ID in SC."

That "nice" exclamation comes only at the expense of black voters. There's no imputation of voter fraud in the AP report, just a by-the-numbers accounting of how the law will fall disproportionately on one non-Republican segment of the population.

ADDENDUM
Last night in Matthews at another of his townhalls, Speaker Thom Tillis spoke cryptically about the possibility that the Republican majority in the NC General Assembly "could try to pass a compromise voter ID bill next year" that "could be fashioned on an earlier version of the bill, which would have allowed voters to use IDs without a photo."

We're quite familiar with Mr. Tillis's "greenwashing" of the Republican agenda when he's holding his townhalls, so we won't hold our breath about this latest offer of compromise.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

jim crow alive and well

That Teahadist again said...

The article says:
1977 Blacks in 10 precincts
1831 Whites in 44 precincts
The 150 difference is .003% of the population, by the way, and the article calls refers to it as:
"This is electoral genocide"

With overblown hyperbole like that, I can see why you like the article, JW.

Anonymous said...

About a month ago the Watauga Democrat published an article headlined,.(paraphrasing) "Voter Turnout 9%,.." In the article it stated that this would be the last election held until the Voter ID Bill went into effect. There was even a quote from the Board of Elections director Jane Hodges saying that she did not forsee any problems complying with the new Voter ID Law.
This was a completely false story,.Hodges was either wrong or the quote was contrived. I know many of you read this story. I emailed the paper and asked them about their "story". This was the response I received:

You are 100 percent correct. This statement is an error on our part and we will issue a printed correction. Please note that we have revisited our policies on vetting facts with all staff involved.


Thank you for your close reading. It is very much appreciated.


Tom


Tom Mayer
Executive Editor, Mountain Times Publications
474 Industrial Park Drive
Boone, N.C. 28607

Does anybody else find it a little disturbing to know "staff reporters" write completely uninformed stories about our voting rights?

Brushfire said...

anonymous, I stopped my subscription to the Watauga Democrat for that reason. There are too many purveyors of right-wing trash already and I refuse to give them more of my money.