My latest at Mother Jones is on Democrats efforts to get out the black vote in North Carolina. Heres an excerpt. -Erika The first question I ask my customers is: Are you registered? Jolanda Smith says. Smith runs a hair salon on the outskirts of Fayetteville, North Carolina. Her hair is dyed lavender and her arms are covered in heart and shooting-star tattoos. In the lead-up to the midterms, shes lending her storefront to Democratic Sen. Kay Hagans reelection campaign. Smith passes out sample ballots and flyers and tells customers how to register and where their polling location is. Last Saturday morning, she was talking God and voting as she straightened a customers hair. Its: Are you gonna vote, yes or no? she says, sectioning off a lock of hair and pulling it through the iron. God gave us a choice, and the choices are always yes or no. Its not maybe. Its not, Let me think about it, cause those are excuses…on down from choosing Christ to voting. You gonna vote? Yes or no? In 2013, North Carolina Republicans, led by Hagans opponent, state house speaker Thom Tillis, passed a far-reaching voting law that curtails early voting and eliminates same-day registration. The Justice Department sued North Carolina over the law, charging it was discriminatory and would depress minority turnout. Hagans campaign knows that black voter turnout could decide her fate—and, by extension, determine which party controls the Senate for the final two years of President Barack Obamas term. If African-Americans manage to turn out at presidential-year levels—if theyre at least 21 percent of the electorate—Hagan will probably win, says Tom Jensen, director of the North Carolina-based polling firm Public Policy Polling. Thats why the Hagan campaign, and its coordinated get-out-the-vote organization Forward North Carolina—along with the NAACP, state Democrats, and get-out-the-vote outfits—launched unprecedented efforts this year to mobilize black voters. Those efforts are paying off. On the first day of early voting last week, 76-year-old Ruben Betts was sitting on the curb in a shopping center parking lot wearing an I just voted sticker on his sweater. The president reminded him to vote this year, he says: Obama sent me a letter. As of Thursday, 24 percent of early voters in North Carolina were African-American, according to records from the state board of elections. Thats up from just 17 percent at the same point during the last midterm elections in 2010.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 18:26:21 +0000
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