Thanks for that. Note the commentary under the map:
The preliminary analysis suggests that the license office closures are largely concentrated in and around the “black belt,” the portion of the state where the proportion of the population that is African American is highest.
Here are some facts about the closure of the license offices …
Those facts corroborate what I said in #87, such as the black belt being predominantly affected, 11 counties there being majority black, and 8 of those having their DMVs closed. Plus a lot more detail.
Drill down far enough, you hit voter fraud. Whether this problem is exaggerated or no, its all about the Republican Party’s glorious campaign against voter fraud. As well as exposing the dangers of sexual diseases transmitted from unicorns.
If the Republican Party’s dominant concern were the dread threat of voter fraud, there are any number of solutions. If they were committed to ensuring the identity of every voter as well as ensuring that all legitimate citizens have equal opportunity to exercise their rights, it could be done. Not that hard.
Why not a voter registration drive and id outreach? All manner of civic institutions, churches, do-gooders, the like…would volunteer to help out. The horror of voter fraud is nullified, and democracy is expanded!
Or registration by affidavit. Have the citizen swear out his affidavit, countersigned by a registered voter who also attests under penalty of perjury. The State can surely check the facts if it chooses to do so, and if they are bogus, the prosecutor has signed confessions. Given the statistics on unicorn gonorrhea…sorry, voter fraud…we can safely assume no avalanche of prosecutions will ensue.
If they had wanted to get their voter security banky, they could have found a way without negative repercussions, or even negative implications. Hell, could have been downright positive, ensure a doubtful public of their commitment to equality before the law.
Does it? Has that question been definitely answered? If so I can’t find it and would love to see it.
Ignoring the piece about poor versus comfortable which would take an even more detailed analysis,here’s a look just a touch deeper by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law.
8 of the 31 closures (26% of the total) impact counties that are majority black. That’s 8 of 11 majority black counties (including 6 of 6 that are over 70%).
That leaves 23 of the closures (74% fo the total) happening in majority white counties. Still of the 55 white majority counties only 15 are left without service.
Majority white counties seem to have a bigger raw impact. There may well be more whites disenfranchised via the hassle than blacks by this move. Black dominated counties are impacted at a much higher rate though. Black counties certainly bear a disproportionate chunk of the burden. Counties don’t have a race though. They also aren’t voters and can vary quite a bit in population. Looking at majority doesn’t tell us anything about the total numbers of each race impacted. Counties are a very crude measure of closeness/convenience too. Some of the people in a county now without an office may still have the office they do all/most of their business with. Some outside the counties affected may have lost the office they routinely do business with. To get more detailed we’d probably need to look at how often these satellite offices were used. To get really detailed we’d need to look at the percentage of users that actually live in the county where the office they use is located.
Overall I see hints that there might be a disparity. Given that and Alabama’s history I definitely think it’s worth looking at. I don’t see a lot of proof that there is a disparity yet. There’s a big jump between this looks like it might be a problem and we’ve confirmed there is one. It’s a bigger jump to make the case that a disparity wasn’t unintentional and is clearly racist.
But it’s a Presidential campaign and someone without elected office for at least 14+ months doesn’t need to provide detailed, factually accurate answers. The American people love there clear, simplistic answers without nuance or uncertainty. Saying that this looks like it might be fucked up and it needs to be looked at closer makes a candidate seem weak. It’s easier to rush to judgement and just slap a label on something. It’s easier if the electorate has a strong confirmation bias to not question the nuance and uncertainty. We want everything now and in a 30 second soundbite or 140 character tweet.
Were you born in a hospital, like 97% of all U.S. births? Then the issuance of a birth certificate was practically automatic. Why don’t you have yours?
Nearly everyone has a birth certificate. Why should the state of Alabama, or California, accommodate people that refuse to participate in normal society?
Could you quantify that? And before you ask, none of your business whether I have one, and while I contain multitudes, for this survey I’d only be one datapoint anyway.
The number of posters who have behaved poorly in this thread is astonishing.
I’m putting an end to it right now. The very next bit of unpleasantness toward any other poster will earn a warning. And the next after that. And the next after that.
This thread is officially a ‘cookies and cream’ ’ love thy neighbor as thyself’ zone from this point on.