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6 Startling Ways Voter Disenfranchisement Against Black People From the Reconstruction Era Still Exists Today

There have been ploys to suppress the Black vote since the Reconstruction Era of 1865-1877. And even since the Voting Rights Act of 1965, many of the same tactics from the 19th century are used today to prevent or make it difficult for African-Americans to vote.

 

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Electoral fraud by ballot box stuffing, throwing out non-Democratic votes or counting them for the Democrats even when cast for the opposition, was the norm in the Southern states before legal means of disenfranchisement were entrenched. Between 1880 and 1901, Congress seated 26 Republican or Populist congressional candidates who had been “defeated” through electoral fraud, according to the book “Shaping of Southern Politics.” Who does not remember the uneasy feeling that came in 2000 when there were “hanging chads” on ballots in Florida, causing a recount. The Florida vote was ultimately settled in favor of then-presidential candidate George W. Bush by just 537 votes out of nearly 6 million cast. The Florida Supreme Court ordered a recount, but the U.S. Supreme Court stopped it, giving Bush the most votes in the Electoral College — and the presidency.

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