Fact: That’s better than the national average, which saw the lowest turn-out in 70 years.
Fact: Only one of those election was even close. Most were won by 2x. Hard to imagine that voter suppression was 50%. Or even 25%. Do you think it was?
Just to be clear, are you talking about the entire DMV office, or just the satellite office, which is what is being complained about.
I’ll bet you a hundred dollars if you can come up with a source we can both agree on.
It appears there is an effort afoot to prove that these changes do not make it any harder for the least Republican demographic to register and vote. Are we, then, to assume that everything as it is is just fine? Because the Republican Party is all about ensuring that every citizen have every opportunity to vote? And we can dismiss any claims about Republican skulduggery because of their pristine and spotless record? When have the Republicans opposed efforts to expand the voting rolls amongst the black and poor? Outside of every single fucking time, that is…
Even if this is a small problem, why is it a problem at all? Is the issue whether or not a problem exists, or the wretched dishonesty of Hillary in exaggerating it? Well, hell, not that fond of Hillary to begin with, so if the small problem is fixed and you can score points on her at the same time, shit, knock yourselves out!
But fix it.
Did you even bother reading the webpage that you linked to? It doesn’t support your statement. Instead, it proves you wrong.
You begin by noting that Alabama closed satellite DMV offices in 31 counties, which is correct.
Then you say, “the counties in which these offices are being closed are not “mostly” dominated by black populations, they all are”. Which is false.
Then you link to a webpage which says that 8 of the satellite offices that are closing are in counties with a black majority. Only 8. Isn’t 8 less than 31? And assuming that the page you linked to is accurate, doesn’t that prove you wrong? You said all the offices being closed are in counties dominated by black populations. You put the word “all” in bold and italics. Then you linked to a page which shows that most of the offices being closed aren’t majority black.
I’m not African-American, but getting a birth certificate is a pain in the butt. I was born in California, and getting a certificate requires a hefty fee, another set of hefty shipping fees, and a pile of notarized forms that need to be sent by registered mail to California. It’s been on my “to-do” list for years.
And liberals always assume racism.
Grow up.
Slee
Already have. Waiting on you.
Any possibility that we could know exactly what statements you’re referring to?
Indeed. I was raised in Kentucky and never saw any evidence of any politician trying to restore Jim Crow laws. So you have your anonymous internet claim and I have mine.
But in accordance with Straight Dope principles, I’m trying to focus on verifiable fact. elucidator and others implied that closing the satellite offices will affect blacks and the poor more than others. I asked for verifiable evidence of this, and no one has posted any.
Instead we see numerous claims that of course Alabama is trying to prevent blacks from voting, or of course the Republicans are doing so. But no evidence. Indeed Alabama prevented blacks from voting in the Jim Crow era, when Democrats were in charge, but never in the past 45 years. Hence the anti-Alabama bigotry we’ve seen does nothing to prove that there’s racism afoot in Alabama today.
In the Jim Crow era, many southern districts had exactly zero registered black voters. Today, all races in the South register and vote in similar percentages, nor is there any difference between the South and the rest of the country in this regard. That’s a verifiable fact.
Wolfpup misspoke, I believe, or misunderstood the stats. There appear to be two different claims:
So, there is no racism in Alabama? Or it can’t be proven, therefore we must assume that there is not? You sure that’s where you want to go with this? And what, perzackly, do you mean “similar” percentages?
This is laughably false. At least as recently as 2008 Alabama was found to have been trying to suppress black voters and entered a consent decree with the federal government to revert the attempted changes.
Oh, OK, 45 months, 45 years, whats the big deal, anyway!
Oh, by the way, cite for above consent decree…
It written, of course, in High Legalese, which I understand perfectly, but am not very good at explaining. Not as good as Richard Parker, who, happily, is close to hand. I am content to leave the matter to him. No need to thank me, least I could do…
Hey, when the odds are as historically good as they are…
Has anyone else pointed out that you cannot get a Voter ID unless you are already registered to vote? Did y’all miss that detail? Getting the Voter ID and registering to vote are two separate things, apparently.
No, it doesn’t. Did you even bother reading beyond the snippet that you quoted?
No, it isn’t.
You misread it. The first part says that of the ten (10) counties in the entire state with the highest percentage black population, 8 of them (80%) are closing their satellite DMVs. The second part, further down in the article and the one that you either didn’t get down to reading or forgot to mention, states that “Every single county in which blacks make up more than 75 percent of registered voters will see their driver license office closed. Every one.” Which is what I quoted.
Wrong. According to the article, every single county affected is majority black by more than 75%.
No. According to the opinion piece (it’s not an “article” in the sense of the news story, it’s an opinion piece), every singe county which is 75% or more black was affected. That’s a different claim:
But that article is spinning, presenting the statistics in the most unfavorable light, and it’s not possible to tease out how many of the districts affected are majority white. And it links to another article to back up that claim, but I can’t find the information in the linked article.
Quibble: in 1964, when Goldwater was running for President (I don’t know in what sense one might have supported Goldwater a year later after he was so thoroughly defeated), she was about 18. I was about 16 and I supported him too. I don’t think that makes either one of us a chameleon.
Unless your position is that all counties have closed these offices everywhere, then the proportion of 30+ % white majority counties with closed offices cannot but be lower than that of 75+% black counties. Which is 100%.
ETA : that was addressed at** John Mace **obviously.