Carol Anderson on Voter Suppression

CounterSpin

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This week on CounterSpin: When Florida passed an amendment to return the right to vote to people who had served time for felony convictions, that was part of a history in this country of expanding the franchise, to ensure that those who are affected by government have a say in shaping it. When some Republicans then insisted that, before any of those ex-felons could exercise their right to vote, they had to pay off any and all "court fines, fees and restitution," that too partook of a tradition — of switching up brutal for bureaucratic means to bar the inclusion of marginalized populations in the polity.

(cc photo: Democracy Chronicles)

A circuit court just denied that GOP effort in Florida, just as folks aren't buying that Georgia Republicans want to cut Sunday voting over concerns about separating church and state; or that Republicans in Texas are really torn up over the integrity of identification, given they accept gun licenses but not college student IDs.

Corporate media may report shenanigans when they occur; but when it comes to voter suppression, the pattern is the point—and maybe some recognition that the fight is less between parties than between democracy and its demonstrated opponents? We'll speak with Carol Anderson, professor of African-American Studies at Emory University, and author of, among other titles, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide and One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy.

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Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent coverage of Bernie Sanders and Julian Assange.

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