[lbo-talk] Does it make a difference?

[Wojtek S]

[WS:] But this would apply to many states north of the Mason-Dixon
line, no?  Disfranchisement of the Black voters, who overwhelmingly
vote Democratic, is one of the key strategies (in addition to
gerrymandering) of swinging the elections in the GOP favor.  Bear in
mind that we have a rather evenly split electorate, and elections are
decided by the "swing votes" that account for what, 3-5% of the
electorate.  Therefore, having those votes swing the "right" way by
hook or crook is a rational electoral strategy and is only
tangentially (or perhaps opportunistically) related to the racist
history of the South.  GOP strategists are very skilled at exploiting
any possible divisive factor, race, culture, religion, urban/suburban
divide, homosexuality, immigration etc. to swing enough votes (an does
not take that many) in their favor.

Wojtek

On Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 11:05 AM, Jordan Hayes <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> wrote:
> What I thought was kind of interesting about that story is that South
> Carolina is considering trying to get the constitutionality of the Voting
> Act oversight in question.
>
> The fact that they wanted to pass this law means they still need the
> oversight.
>
> /jordan
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