Major papers report today that the Democratic Party — asleep at the switch while the Republicans cooked up ways to block voter access to polls — is now going to fight back. Several studies show that laws passed by Republican-dominated state legislatures succeeded in keeping hundreds of thousands of voters, mostly elderly and minorities who tend to vote Democratic, away from the polls. Lines created by the Republican “reforms” caused delays in urban areas lasting several hours. MIT researchers have determined that blacks and Hispanics waited nearly twice as long in line to vote on average than whites. An Ohio State University professor and The Orlando Sentinel, concluded that more than 200,000 voters in Florida (surprise!!!!) “gave up in frustration” without voting.
Democrats in the House and Senate have already introduced bills that would require states to provide online voter registration and allow at least 15 days of early voting, among other things. We’ll see, won’t we?