Al Gore Calls Long Voting Lines In Florida A ‘Direct Descendant Of Racist Jim Crow Tactics’
On Current TV’s live election coverage Tuesday night, a fired-up former Vice President Al Gore blasted long lines at polling places in Florida as the manifestation of a “strategy” that is “a direct descendant of the racist Jim Crow tactics that were used in the wake of the Civil War to prevent black people from voting,” and called for “a reckoning for these governors and state legislators” who have made efforts to suppress the vote using a variety of measures. It is a comparison that has been made frequently this election season, and an apt one.
“I wanted to say one thing if we have a moment here,” Gore began. “Michael, you’ve referred to the long lines in Dade County and Broward County. At some point after this election, I hope there will be a reckoning for these governors and state legislators that have intentionally tried to prevent people from voting.”
“It is un-American,” Vice President Gore continued. “We’ve all talked about it throughout this election year but now the campaign is over with. This is a disgrace. And we heard Paul Weyrich, years ago, one of the founders of the new ultra right wing movements saying ‘We don’t want everyone to vote, we want to suppress some of the votes.'”
“It is a strategy, and it is a strategy that is a direct descendant of the racist Jim Crow tactics that were used in the wake of the Civil War to prevent black people from voting, It’s more sophisticated now, it’s dressed up in different types of language – but it is un-American, it is wrong, it is a disgrace to this country, and there ought to be a bipartisan movement to say enough of this. We have the ability to let everyone who is eligible to vote, vote without standing in line for eight hours, without having their names stricken wrongly from the voting rolls and this is something that ought to be a bipartisan agenda after this election.”
In Florida, Republicans enacted a raft of rules restricting early voting and voter registration, and tried to purge thousands of eligible voters from the rolls, but like voter suppression measures in other states, most of them failed or were overturned. Gore, who “lost” the 2000 election by 537 votes in Florida (when the Supreme Court stopped the recount and appointed George W. Bush), later tweeted that, despite the long lines, “I am confident in saying that President Obama is going to carry the state of Florida tonight.”
Here’s the video, from Current TV:
Follow Tommy Christopher (@TommyXtopher) on Twitter.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
