If you’re a
wealthy parent and you have an unexpected errand, the nanny will watch the
kids. If you’re poor, it’s leave the
kids home alone or don’t run the errand. If you’re wealthy, you can take a few hours of
unpaid leave and it’s no problem. If
you’re poor, it could get you fired.
But what if
the “errand” is voting?
We all know
about the long lines at some polling places on election day – and sometimes
well into election night. But the burden
was not spread equally.
According
to a
poll for the AFL-CIO by Hart Research Associates, only nine percent of
white voters had to wait for more than 30 minutes to vote. But 22 percent of African American voters had
to wait that long. And the figure rose
to 24 percent for Hispanic voters.
Since
African American and Hispanic voters are more likely to be low income voters,
the burden of waiting fell heaviest on those least likely to be able to afford
it. So if time is money, are those long
lines a form of poll tax?
The lines
were only one example of voter suppression efforts aimed at the poor and
minorities. The best known are Voter ID laws.
But there were others, as AFJ’s Isaiah Castilla noted on our Bolder Advocacy blog this week. And it’s not over yet. There are questions about whether Latino
votes are
being properly counted in key races in Arizona.
It’s widely
expected that, during this term, the Supreme Court will hear a challenge to a
key provision of one of the most important protections for minority voters –
the Voting Rights Act of 1965. [UPDATE: 4:17PM: The Supreme Court just announced it will, in fact, hear such a challenge]. Opponents
of the Act say that nearly 50 years after its passage it’s no longer
needed. But those long lines at the
polls, and all the other problems, are important reminders that while all of us
are created equal, at the polling station some still are more equal than
others.
No comments:
Post a Comment