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If you are saying the Republican Party has spent decades trying to stop black people from voting, that is simply incorrect. It is what the other party’s propaga

If you are saying the Republican Party has spent decades trying to stop black people from voting, that is simply incorrect. It is what the other party’s propaganda would like you to believe. Same with voter suppression.

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seanmcdirmid 5y ago
Southern conservative as Democrats or Republicans like Jesse Helms and Trent Lott were very much in favor of not letting African Americans vote. Who they caucused with later is unrelated. But yes, to say it was Democrats or Republicans would be very technically inaccurate. It isn’t a coincidence that the states that were practicing Jim Crow before are the same states trying to discourage voting today.
- mrkstu 5y ago
  What is the reality on the ground though? For instance: "Texas ranks number 10 overall when it comes to engagement among African American voters, including being first overall in proportional representation of blacks in state legislature and national party conventions." https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/african-americans-in-texas-are-among-the-most-political-engaged-in-the-us-report-finds https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/african-americans-in-texas-...
  - adventured 5y ago
    > What is the reality on the ground though? The reality on the ground is that all Western European nations have stricter voting laws / requirements than the US does and almost nobody on HN will dare to talk about that fact because it's inconvenient to the propaganda game. It's the sick joke of eg Major League Baseball moving the All-Star game from Georgia to protest new voting laws, shifting it to Colorado which already had similar voting laws to those that Georgia wanted to implement. It's all bullshit propaganda. The same is true of immigration restrictions. You're not supposed to talk about how strict most other affluent nations are when it comes to who they let into their countries to become citizens. Can you imagine the global uproar if the US began a cultural genocide program against Muslims like Denmark is aggressively doing? Forcibly taking children away from their parents to be re-educated via nationalist propaganda and forced value systems. How about something less sinister - a national ban on full face veils like France, with punishment by forced re-education. The US would be called draconian, Islamophobic and racist for such treatment. Meanwhile over there's Macron one step away from calling for a cultural crusade. When the US does it, it's bad. When everybody else does it, it's logical and good and progressive.
    - dane-pgp 5y ago
      > all Western European nations have stricter voting laws / requirements than the US does The UK* has never required voting ID for elections, and it is possible to walk into a local polling station and be given a ballot paper after just stating your name and address. Sadly that may no longer be the case for future elections, because the UK Conservative party has decided to introduce a voter ID requirement, modelled on the success that the Republicans have had with it at decreasing turnout especially among the poor and minorities. The fact that other Western European nations have voter ID laws is likely because they generally have mandatory national ID cards already, and it makes to use those to record who voted (how many times). If Republicans were first pushing for mandatory state ID, then later requiring those IDs at polling time would not be seen as so suspicious. > The same is true of immigration restrictions. I'm sure it's possible to find examples of policies in some European countries which are worse than the equivalent US policy, but to provide some factual comparison for how welcoming the US is of (poor) immigrants, let me point out that Sweden hosts 8.52 refugees per 1,000 people while the US hosts 0.92, ranking 13th and 68th respectively on the global league table for this.[0] But you're right, the US would receive criticism for adopting more bigoted policies, just as France was condemned for its bigoted face veil policy.[1] If you live in the US, it shouldn't be surprising that you hear (and are more sensitivity to) criticism of the US more than criticism of countries like France. * Technically voter ID was trialled in some English constituencies recently, and it has long been standard in Northern Ireland, so perhaps "Scotland" is a better example of a "Western European nation" here. On the other hand, not every US state requires voter ID, so I hope it's still fair for me to say "the US does" require it. [0] https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/People/Migration/Refugee-population-by-country-or-territory-of-asylum/Per-capita https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/People/Migra... [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-niqab-ban-burqa-human-rights-united-nations-islam-veil-a8599131.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-niqab...
      - mbg721 5y ago
        So the first person in line to mumble "Johnson, Boris, 10 Downing St." gets his ballot? That can't be true in practice.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    Just because they've been trying doesn't mean they've been successful yet. But just pile up more voting restrictions and let's see what happens...its not like Texas has very high voter engagement over all (which is on par with other poor southern states and...Hawaii).
    - mrkstu 5y ago
      And yet black Texans are in the top 10...
      - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        Of black voter engagement (via some metric). Overall they are in the bottom 10 of voter engagement. I guess it should be ok to be compared to Mississippi.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    Yeah, that's the problem that the new voting restrictions aim to fix. Likely also the redistricting; both because the Voting Rights Act, by which the federal government prevented Texas (among other states) from wholesale disenfranchisement, is out of the way.
- wrycoder 5y ago
  The Democrats say that voting is being discouraged. What is being discouraged is invalid votes, to diminish fraud. Republicans would love to encourage an authentic black vote.
  - yonaguska 5y ago
    I'm not sure this is true, even as a black republican with several black republican voting family members. My experience is that most black voters are more conservative, but almost always vote based on race rather than policy. This is obviously changing, to skew towards black voters being less conservative- but calling candidates racist will usually trump all other values that go into the voting decision.
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      Black and Hispanic voters are more socially conservative on average, but they vote for the people that don’t actively work against their interests, as anyone who isn’t a push over should. I’ll gladly vote for a Republican if I feel like the other side is working against my interests, ideology isn’t a determining factor.
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- wrycoder 5y ago
  The segregationists who set up the Jim Crow laws were Democrats. Gov. George Wallace was a Democrat.
rossjudson 5y ago
So why do Black people say that Republicans are trying to stop them from voting? I can't tell if you're completely comfortable with the fact that no evidence exists supporting fraudulent voting, or if you just think it's A-OK to break a few black eggs in order to make the omelette of your desires.

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seanmcdirmid 5y ago

Southern conservative as Democrats or Republicans like Jesse Helms and Trent Lott were very much in favor of not letting African Americans vote. Who they caucused with later is unrelated. But yes, to say it was Democrats or Republicans would be very technically inaccurate. It isn’t a coincidence that the states that were practicing Jim Crow before are the same states trying to discourage voting today.

mrkstu 5y ago
What is the reality on the ground though? For instance: "Texas ranks number 10 overall when it comes to engagement among African American voters, including being first overall in proportional representation of blacks in state legislature and national party conventions." https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/african-americans-in-texas-are-among-the-most-political-engaged-in-the-us-report-finds https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/african-americans-in-texas-...
- adventured 5y ago
  > What is the reality on the ground though? The reality on the ground is that all Western European nations have stricter voting laws / requirements than the US does and almost nobody on HN will dare to talk about that fact because it's inconvenient to the propaganda game. It's the sick joke of eg Major League Baseball moving the All-Star game from Georgia to protest new voting laws, shifting it to Colorado which already had similar voting laws to those that Georgia wanted to implement. It's all bullshit propaganda. The same is true of immigration restrictions. You're not supposed to talk about how strict most other affluent nations are when it comes to who they let into their countries to become citizens. Can you imagine the global uproar if the US began a cultural genocide program against Muslims like Denmark is aggressively doing? Forcibly taking children away from their parents to be re-educated via nationalist propaganda and forced value systems. How about something less sinister - a national ban on full face veils like France, with punishment by forced re-education. The US would be called draconian, Islamophobic and racist for such treatment. Meanwhile over there's Macron one step away from calling for a cultural crusade. When the US does it, it's bad. When everybody else does it, it's logical and good and progressive.
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    > all Western European nations have stricter voting laws / requirements than the US does The UK* has never required voting ID for elections, and it is possible to walk into a local polling station and be given a ballot paper after just stating your name and address. Sadly that may no longer be the case for future elections, because the UK Conservative party has decided to introduce a voter ID requirement, modelled on the success that the Republicans have had with it at decreasing turnout especially among the poor and minorities. The fact that other Western European nations have voter ID laws is likely because they generally have mandatory national ID cards already, and it makes to use those to record who voted (how many times). If Republicans were first pushing for mandatory state ID, then later requiring those IDs at polling time would not be seen as so suspicious. > The same is true of immigration restrictions. I'm sure it's possible to find examples of policies in some European countries which are worse than the equivalent US policy, but to provide some factual comparison for how welcoming the US is of (poor) immigrants, let me point out that Sweden hosts 8.52 refugees per 1,000 people while the US hosts 0.92, ranking 13th and 68th respectively on the global league table for this.[0] But you're right, the US would receive criticism for adopting more bigoted policies, just as France was condemned for its bigoted face veil policy.[1] If you live in the US, it shouldn't be surprising that you hear (and are more sensitivity to) criticism of the US more than criticism of countries like France. * Technically voter ID was trialled in some English constituencies recently, and it has long been standard in Northern Ireland, so perhaps "Scotland" is a better example of a "Western European nation" here. On the other hand, not every US state requires voter ID, so I hope it's still fair for me to say "the US does" require it. [0] https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/People/Migration/Refugee-population-by-country-or-territory-of-asylum/Per-capita https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/People/Migra... [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-niqab-ban-burqa-human-rights-united-nations-islam-veil-a8599131.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-niqab...
    - mbg721 5y ago
      So the first person in line to mumble "Johnson, Boris, 10 Downing St." gets his ballot? That can't be true in practice.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Just because they've been trying doesn't mean they've been successful yet. But just pile up more voting restrictions and let's see what happens...its not like Texas has very high voter engagement over all (which is on par with other poor southern states and...Hawaii).
  - mrkstu 5y ago
    And yet black Texans are in the top 10...
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      Of black voter engagement (via some metric). Overall they are in the bottom 10 of voter engagement. I guess it should be ok to be compared to Mississippi.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  Yeah, that's the problem that the new voting restrictions aim to fix. Likely also the redistricting; both because the Voting Rights Act, by which the federal government prevented Texas (among other states) from wholesale disenfranchisement, is out of the way.
wrycoder 5y ago
The Democrats say that voting is being discouraged. What is being discouraged is invalid votes, to diminish fraud. Republicans would love to encourage an authentic black vote.
- yonaguska 5y ago
  I'm not sure this is true, even as a black republican with several black republican voting family members. My experience is that most black voters are more conservative, but almost always vote based on race rather than policy. This is obviously changing, to skew towards black voters being less conservative- but calling candidates racist will usually trump all other values that go into the voting decision.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    Black and Hispanic voters are more socially conservative on average, but they vote for the people that don’t actively work against their interests, as anyone who isn’t a push over should. I’ll gladly vote for a Republican if I feel like the other side is working against my interests, ideology isn’t a determining factor.
- deleted 5y ago
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wrycoder 5y ago
The segregationists who set up the Jim Crow laws were Democrats. Gov. George Wallace was a Democrat.

rossjudson 5y ago

So why do Black people say that Republicans are trying to stop them from voting? I can't tell if you're completely comfortable with the fact that no evidence exists supporting fraudulent voting, or if you just think it's A-OK to break a few black eggs in order to make the omelette of your desires.