Voting Barriers Quotes
The President was asking for passage of his Voting Rights Bill.
At that time a number of state legislatures all changed their state voting laws to require citizens who try to register to vote to have documentation of various kinds and or obtain special documentation. These were generally possessed by upper class and educated people but not in as large proportions by lower and working class people. To obtain the documents and register if things like original birth certificates were not possessed, the citizen had to lose much of a day’s work and travel some distance. The burden existed on most lower class people and especially the minorities. The courts nullified some of these discriminatory requirements for voter registration, but many were allowed. The rationale was to prevent voter fraud and yet there were almost no cases of voter fraud in the entire country. While the requirements were racially discriminatory, they were also socioeconomically discriminatory. By coincidence, or perhaps not, every state that added these requirements had a Republican controlled state legislature AND a Republican Governor. Despite the effort to suppress Obama and Democratic voters, the effort backfired. Minorities and especially Blacks were so outraged that Jim Crow voting suppression had returned that they made a huge effort to register and get out the vote and Blacks voted in a much larger proportion than historical and well over 90 percent voted for Obama who won the election handily.
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.
Preclearance was a requirement that any change in the voting or registration laws, rules or procedures needed to be approved by the Federal Justice Department. He was testifying about why preclearance was important and why it was placed in the Voting Rights Act every time it was reauthorized. See {635271} for what happens without preclearance.
He was explaining why preclearance was necessary. Preclearance was a requirement that any change in the voting or registration laws, rules or procedures needed to be approved by the Federal Justice Department.
