From Jim Crow GOP by Steve Rosenfeld TomPaine.com 06/22/06:
What’s a bigger problem with American elections: disenfranchisment of minority voters or new electronic voting machines stealing votes?
Most people on the political left will answer electronic machines. But on Wednesday, House Republicans showed America exactly why old-school election thuggery is a far more pressing problem. In fact, it was Jim Crow tactics, not computer hacking, which gave George W. Bush his Ohio victory in 2004. And such tactics are exactly what a handful of southern GOP congressmen defended on Wednesday when they derailed renewing the National Voting Rights Act, complaining it does not end federal oversight of elections in their states and requires multilingual ballots.
These Republicans want elections in their states to return to the good old days, when mostly white people voted - just substitute registered Republicans in 2006 - and ballots were only in English - no Español, por favor. Their grassroots rebellion reveals a dirty secret about elections that liberals and Democrats still haven’t learned from the 2004 presidential race: The GOP wins elections by targeting likely Democrats, especially minorities and new voters, by creating barriers in voter registration and obstacles to voting itself and ballot counting. (my emphasis)
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