Digby last night cited reports that Republicans in at least two states are now calling for creating special police forces within their states for the purpose of enforcing election laws.
Barrett Holmes Pitner of Daily Beast reminds readers that back in the day, politicians and law enforcement partnered with the Klan to prevent Black people from voting. Of actions in Florida and Georgia, Pitner writes:
They aren’t breaking new ground, but joining a long tradition of dressing up efforts to suppress and intimidate Black voters as somehow protecting the integrity of our American democracy.
One does not have to time-travel back to Reconstruction to find such activities. Or even to 1965’s “Bloody Sunday” and police violence led by Alabama’s “Bull” Connor that led, finally, to passage of the Voting Rights Act.
Let’s travel back to 1981. New Jersey. There was a governor’s race that November. In the aftermath, the state and national Democratic Parties filed suit against their state and national Republican counterparts. The February 11, 1982 scanned filing is not in OCR format, so I’ve reconstructed some illustrative parts below. In addition to engaging in voter caging efforts using out-of-date voter lists to identify over 45,000 “black and Hispanic” voters whose votes Republicans wanted to challenge….
21. The defendants did not resort to the carefully prescribed procedures described in paragraphs 13-20 above for ensuring that only qualified voters cast a ballot in the November 3rd 1981 general election in New Jersey. Instead they engaged in an extra-legal activity which has been employed by defendant Republican National Committee for a number of years, under the guise of ballot security, to harass and intimidate duly qualified black and Hispanic voters for the purpose and with the effect of discouraging these voters from casting their ballots in federal and state elections. In the November, 1981 general election in new jersey, the operation was conducted under the name “National Ballot Security Task Force.”
22. As part of their activities described in paragraph 21, the defendant selected predominantly black and Hispanic precincts in New Jersey for the activities of the National Ballot Security Task Force.
26. To assist in their efforts to disenfranchise duly registered black and Hispanic voters, the defendants then hired county deputy sheriffs and local policemen to patrol the targeted predominantly black and Hispanic polling places. Defendant Kelly himself was deputized as a deputy sheriff to further defendants efforts. Officials of local police agencies assisted in recruiting county deputy sheriffs and local policeman for this purpose.27. On Tuesday, November 3, 1981, defendants representatives placed posters in and around polling places for predominantly black and Hispanic precincts in New Jersey. These posters measured approximately 20″ x 30″. The print was in bright red ink with some letters 5″ tall. The poster was headed:
It offered a reward of $1,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone violating the New Jersey election laws, and contained a toll-free long-distance number to be called. Now where did the poster indicate that it was a partisan political document of the defendants. The posters were displayed within the targeted polling places and within 100 ft of the exterior entrance to said pulling places in violation of state law, N. J. S. A. 19:34-15.
28. The defendants then fielded an army of workers on election day, including the deputy sheriffs and local policemen described in paragraph 26 above, to appear at the targeted polling places predominantly displaying revolvers, two-way radios, and armbands with the words National Ballot Security Task Force printed thereon.
29. Through the actions of the National Ballot Security Task Force including the police officers described in paragraph 26 above, which operated under defendants direction and control and pursuant to policies and procedures which they had established, defendants obstructed and interfered with the operations of the targeted polling places in predominantly black and Hispanic precincts in a number of ways, including, but not limited to, disrupting the operations of polling places, harassing poll workers, stopping and questioning perspective voters, refusing to permit perspective voters to enter the polling places, ripping down signs of one of the candidates, and forcibly restraining poll workers from assisting, as permitted by state law, voters to cast their ballots.
That 1982 lawsuit resulted in a consent decree that prohibited Republicans from engaging in such practices for decades. Until 2018.
As Pitner observes, Republicans’ actions in Florida and Georgia are not breaking new ground.
