Voter Suppression Tactics Quotes
In the beginning of the 21st century, many republican state legislatures attempted to change the voting laws to eliminate the possibility of voter fraud which was not a serious practical problem in America. However, a consequence—some argue indented and some argue unintended—was that it was harder for certain groups of people to meet the new requirements and therefore was a de facto voter suppression for some people such as the very elderly, the homeless, and the poor. Many of these efforts were declared unconstitutional by the courts.
A counter ethical argument says that voter suppression is ethically no different from gerrymandering, or having too few locations for voting, or voting on a Tuesday where poor people cannot often get to the polls with work and/or child obligations. For Republicans to suppress Black voting is only logical since such a high percentage of Blacks vote Democratic. It would be the same if Democratic legislatures could make it difficult for business executives to vote. It part of the rough and tumble reality of American politics.
The Republican party in the beginning of the 21st century had veered sharply to the right. Since the party controlled a many of Governor’s and state legislatures, some overly partisan people started passing laws and election rules that would inhibit the poor and minorities—who tended to vote Democratic—from voting. This was opposed by many of the traditional Republicans who had been national leaders over the years in expanding and facilitating voting.
This quotation from Judge Posner was particularly meaningful because previously the judge had ruled that Voter ID was constitutional. Subsequently, Voter ID laws were passed by a number of states where many of the sponsors were found to intend voter suppression. Also, it was the case that there were so few voter fraud cases in the entire country that it was highly unlikely that for the prevention of a handful of improper votes all the money would be spent by the states to implement the Voter ID laws. The real motivation was most experts concluded was voter suppression. Posner had come to that conclusion also as this quotation demonstrates.
