Super Tuesday is upon us, and the Republican party is wasting no time doing what it does best every election--disenfranchising minorities who consistently vote Democratic.
We turn our sights to Texas, where, since 2012 more polling places than in any other Southern state--750--have shut down.
In 2012, the state had established one polling place for every 4,000 residents; six years later, those numbers climbed to 7,700 residents.
According to the civil-rights group Leadership Conference Education Fund, the majority of polling-place closures occurred in areas with the largest African-American and Latino resident increases; specifically, the 50 counties that experienced the highest increases in those populations saw 542 polling sites close.
A report from the Leadership Conference Education Fund states:
"Closing polling places has a cascading effect, leading to long lines at other polling places, transportation hurdles, denial of language assistance and other forms of in-person help, and mass confusion about where eligible voters may cast their ballot. For many people, and particularly for voters of color, older voters, rural voters, and voters with disabilities, these burdens make it harder--and sometimes impossible--to vote."
Some counties closed enough polling stations to violate Texas state law.
Brazoria county, south of Houston, for example, closed nearly 60% between 2012 and 2018, driving it below the statutory minimum.
Progressive advocacy group MoveOn tweeted:
"This is voter suppression plain and simple."
Texas Democrat running for Congress, Julie Oliver, said her state is "now in an accelerated period of illegal racist voter suppression."
She added:
"Ever since Jim Crow, Texas has severely restricted the right to vote. Those restrictions have explicitly targeted Black and Latino communities."
The Republican party has not legitimately won the White House since Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s.
Even though November 2018's mid-term election results were historic, it does not mean the GOP has forgotten how to cheat to win.
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