If you’ve ever read the comment threads on stories about voter ID laws, you may have noticed an interesting argument made by supporters of such laws: That those who oppose requiring voters to have IDs are the real racists, since they must believe minorities aren’t capable of getting the identification they need to vote. Lately, that line of thinking has gone mainstream. It appeared in stark form in a brief filed last week by the state of North Carolina asking the Supreme Court to reinstate two provisions of its voting law that had been blocked by an appeals court: the elimination of same-day voter registration, and a ban on counting ballots cast in the wrong precinct. Both provisions disproportionately affect minority voters. The challengers’ case, the state argued, rests in part on “assumptions that minority voters are somehow ‘less sophisticated’ than white voters and therefore will not be able to discern the multiple opportunities that North Carolina law continues to provide for them to register and vote … Plaintiffs claim that ‘less sophisticated’ people, who according to Plaintiffs’ evidence are disproportionately African-American, are less able than non-minorities to understand rules regarding registration and voting opportunities.” “These assertions amount to a ‘racial classification’ that is ’odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality,’” the brief continued, quoting several past court decisions that condemned racial discrimination, “and ‘threaten to stigmatize individuals by reason of their membership in a racial group and to incite racial hostility.’” The implication is clear: Arguing that minorities will be disproportionately affected by restrictions on voting is insulting and perhaps even racist. The Supreme Court ultimately reinstated the provisions, and they’ll be in effect for next month’s midterm elections. ...In essence, voting rights advocates think about voting restrictions on a system-wide level. It’s not a question of the individual competence, or lack thereof, of individual voters, or even of groups of voters. What matters is how the laws are likely to play out in the aggregate. To be sure, there’s still the legal question of whether the burdens are so great as to be illegal. But, given the evidence, it’s hard to dispute that those burdens aren’t felt equally across the racial spectrum. Of course, the idea that it’s those looking to expand opportunities for minorities who are actually guilty of racial bias isn’t limited to the voting rights sphere. After all, it was the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Roberts, who wrote in 2007, striking down a Seattle school desegregation plan: ”The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” msnbc/msnbc/voter-id-backers-claim-opponents-are-the-real-racists
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 05:28:09 +0000
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