Stingy Papercut of Voter Suppression Ruins GOPer's Day
Today, I had half a conversation with an angry and surprised Republican. He was trying to express his anguish by repeating to me a bit he had heard on the radio that morning, about how to Republicans the election was a little bit like Monday Night Football is for many viewers.
They stay up as late as they can and feel they have a good idea where the game is headed, then they wake up the next morning and find it all changed in the fourth quarter.
"That's how I feel about this election. I go to bed, Romney's ahead, everything is going to be okay. I wake up, everyplace where Romney was ahead has gone to Obama. What the hell happened?"
I took that rhetorical question as my chance to supply an unwelcome answer:
"Voter suppression."
"The hell are you talking about?" asked the fellow.
"Well," I said, "it's against the law in most states to shut the polls down when people are still in line waiting to vote. The places with the longest lines are minority precincts, because they are given the fewest and worst machines.
"So the polls couldn't close on time in the minority districts in Ohio and Virginia. Those districts reported their results the latest, in larger than expected numbers, and overwhelmingly for the President. Because someone tried to keep them waiting in line instead of voting."
But most of that landed in an empty room because the fellow was already on his way out the door, to someplace where the truth doesn't sting like cold rain on a dark election night.
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