Home
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2013/06/12-very-real-voter-suppression-tactics-experts-now-worry-will-come-back/6057/
1. Changing polling locations. An election official can make this call just days before an election.
2. Changing polling hours or eliminating early voting days. This may be particularly problematic in urban counties where long polling lines are most likely, as Henry Grabar reported last fall.
3. Reducing the number of polling places. This raises the same problem as above, particularly when the eliminated polling places had disproportionately served minority communities.
4. At-large elections. At-large elections for school-board members or city councils often dilute the voting power of minorities who have greater influence in single-candidate district elections. In an at-large election, a cohesive voting block with 51 percent of the vote can elect 100 percent of the officials.
5. Packing majority-minority districts. Election maps drawn to push all of a community's minorities in one or a handful of districts can dilute their voting power.
6. Dividing minority districts. Similarly, election maps can slice minority communities into multiple districts so that they have no cumulative influence in any one place. The line between these two tactics is a fine one (and also illustrates why the VRA was useful for assessing facts on the ground).
7. Voter ID laws: This increasingly popular tactic, sometimes likened to a modern-day poll tax, has the potential to disenfranchise voters who don't have a driver's license, or who don't have the money or ability to obtain one (a disproportionate share of these people are minorities). Such laws can also have a disproportionate impact in cities, where many people don't own cars.
8. Onerous candidate qualifications. In 2007, a Texas provision tried to limit those people eligible to become water district supervisors to landowners who were registered to vote.
9. Changing multi-lingual voter assistance. Making it harder for non-English language speakers to vote is a good way to dilute their power.
10. Changing election dates. Another trick that may not require legislative approval.
11. Creating new elections. In 2006, the DOJ objected to a plan in the Houston area that would have eliminated some joint elections and required voters to travel to multiple polling places.
12. Canceling elections. We're not even really sure how Kilmichael, Mississippi, thought they could get away with this.
--------------------------
These don't even take into account electronic voter fraud, insufficient voting machines, inaccurate mailers, voter intimidation at the polls, or people/signage at the polls on election day that violate statutes...
I did leave one thing out...the pathetic fraud on ACORN...and the latest ruling by the Supremes on easing former restrictions on those states that have a history of Jim Crow violations on the basis that our country no longer has a problem with racial prejudice. Hallelujah...just when I thought it was worse than ever.
