Voter Suppression Laws Backfired on Republicans

Ari Berman is the leading analyst of voter suppression efforts nationwide, and he's written a very interesting piece, post-election, about how those voter photo ID laws, reduced Early Voting hours, and what-have-you attempts to keep CERTAIN PEOPLE from voting backfired on Republicans last Tuesday. More African-Americans voted, more young people voted, more Latinos voted in those famous swing states than in 2008, and Obama won all of them (except for North Carolina, whose Republican-engineered voter photo ID law is still pending).

Apparently, American blacks, young people, and Latinos don't much like their access to the ballot monkeyed with and are prepared now to stand in line for days, if necessary, to cast their votes, and those votes won't be going to the political party that tried to stop them from voting.

Berman writes:

...voter suppression efforts have become the “new normal” in the GOP. Unless or until Republicans get serious about courting an increasingly diverse and younger electorate, they’ll continue to pass laws to undermine the political power of this growing constituency.

How the GOP might "court" these racially diverse and young constituencies is fairly murky, since Republicans, and especially Tea Party Republicans, are well established in the public mind as the "get off my lawn" party.