Maddow: Good luck voting today if you aren’t white

[Playinghardball]

On Monday night’s edition of “The Rachel Maddow Show,” host Rachel Maddow had a look at the various ways in which Republicans are trying to keep people from voting on this Election Day, particularly people who belong to typically Democratic constituencies like African-Americans and students.

In Texas, for example, Maddow explained, in the last few elections whites have voted overwhelmingly Republican, whereas African-Americans and Latinos have voted overwhelmingly Democrat. Similarly, party votes broke down among income groups. People making $50,000 per year or more tended to vote Republican and poorer people have voted Democrat.

The Republican-dominated state legislature has enacted a series of stringent voter ID laws as well as other measures designed to disproportionately impact minority voters and poor people.

Texas Republicans are thinking, ‘There’s got to be a way to keep these folks from voting,’” Maddow said. “There’s got to be a way to keep them away.”

Similar efforts are underway in other states having elections today like New Jersey and Virginia.

“That dynamic that is at work in Texas, that is about ‘Who’s going to be allowed to vote?’” said Maddow. “That dynamic is happening all over the country.”

Maddow welcomed Texas Democratic Rep. Marc Veasey, who agreed that the ID laws in Texas are specifically designed by Republicans to keep Democratic voters from the polls.

Watch the video, embedded below via MSNBC:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/11/05/maddow-good-luck-voting-today-if-you-arent-white/

[redstatebluegirl]

1. Well they made a mistake with a friend of mine today.

She is a registered Republican in VA. They challenged her today, she said she had to produce more than 1 iD, asked her how long he had lived in the state (she has been there for 30 years). Once she got to vote she was so mad she claims to have voted against "her party".

She s not a teabagger, we have had some heated exchanges over the years for sure. She said what I hear other mainstream republicans say "I do not recognize my party".

This may backfire on them.

[frazzled]

2. I learned recently how old this kind of suppression is

I was reading Emile Zola's L'Assommoir (I've been reading my way through the Zola novels of the Rougon-Macquart, and finding the Second Empire had many similarities to our own social and economic times).

At any rate, we are at the wedding dinner of Gervaise and Coupeau, the main characters, and a guest makes a political comment: "Their law of May 31st is an absolute disgrace. Now, you have to have two years' residence. Three million citizens have been struck off the roll!"

I was intrigued enough to read the note to that passage:

law of May 31st: an attack on radicalism, the electoral law of 31 May 1850 required three years' residence (not two, as Madiner states) in one place in order to be eligible to vote, to be attested by a tax receipt or employer's affidavit. This effectively disenfranchised a very large number of workers forced to move in order to find a job.

Indeed, a large part of the proletariat (who formed the revolutionary republican movement) moved frequently because of work. They were effectively disenfranchised, leading to the coup d'état of 1851 by Louis-Napoléon, and the start of the Second Empire.

[Bandit]

3. When are we EVER going to wise up and establish "Vote By Mail"?

The states that have it LOVE IT.......Everyone gets to vote in those states...