How to suppress black votes ? Very simple :
1) Require people to get a photo ID to vote
2) Close voter ID office in overwhelmingly black populated counties
This is ho GOP plans to win future elections despite having the democratics against them : deny the right to vote from people who most probably won't vote Republican...
1) Require people to get a photo ID to vote
2) Close voter ID office in overwhelmingly black populated counties
http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/09/voter_id_and_drivers_license_o.htmlVoter ID and driver's license office closures black-out Alabama's Black Belt
I still remember when the lady in the uniform giving me my driver's test asked me to do a three-point turn.
Instead, I gave her a blank stare. I had no idea what a three-point turn was. It was a couple of days after my sixteenth birthday, and I knew right then that I wouldn't be getting a license that day, but the lady was nice about it. Politely, she explained what I was supposed to do. Next we drove back to the Clarke County courthouse, and she failed me.
A couple weeks later, I took the test again. That time, I passed, but my parents weren't all that happy that we had to make a second trip.
And that trip was only 10 miles, each way. When you live in a rural area, 10 miles seems a lot farther there.
However, today a lot of folks will have to drive a lot farther just to be able to drive.
The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency's website says their office at the Clarke County Courthouse is still open, but soon a lot of others nearby won't be. On Wednesday, the agency announced that it would close 31 offices throughout the state, leaving 28 counties without a place where 16-year-olds can take a driver's test, whether they pass on the first try or not.
That's an inconvenience.
But there's something bigger happening here.
In 2011, Alabama lawmakers approved the state's voter ID law, making it illegal to vote in Alabama without a government-issued photo ID.
For most folks, that's a driver's license.
In those 28 counties you might be able to register at the courthouse, but you won't be able to cast a ballot there unless you have that ID.
That's not just an inconvenience. That's a problem.
But it gets worse.
Look at the list of counties now where you can't get a driver's license. There's Choctaw, Sumter, Hale, Greene, Perry, Wilcox, Lowndes, Butler, Crenshaw, Macon, Bullock ...
If you had to memorize all the Alabama Counties in 9th grade, like I did -- and even if you forgot most of them, like I have -- you can probably guess where we're going with this.
Depending on which counties you count as being in Alabama's Black Belt, either twelve or fifteen Black Belt counties soon won't have a place to get a driver's license.
Counties where some of the state's poorest live.
Counties that are majority African-American.
Combine that with the federally mandated Star ID taking effect next year, and we're looking at a nightmare.
Or a trial lawyer's dream.
When the state passed Voter ID, Republican lawmakers argued that it was supposed to prevent voter fraud. Democrats said the law was written to disenfranchise black voters and suppress the voice of the poor.
Maybe, maybe not.
But put these two things together -- Voter ID and 28 counties without a place where you can get a driver's license -- and Voter ID becomes what the Democrats always said it was.
A civil rights lawsuit isn't a probability. It's a certainty.
You don't have to know what a three-point turn is to see where this truck is going.
It's only a matter of time before some lawyer takes the state where that test administrator took me -- back to the courthouse.
This is ho GOP plans to win future elections despite having the democratics against them : deny the right to vote from people who most probably won't vote Republican...
