Alito used "misleading claims about voter turnout" to gut the Voting Rights Act. But...but...he SEEMS so HONEST! [View all]
The U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision that gutted racial protections for voting rights under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act rests on misleading claims about voter turnout, according to a new analysis.
Justice Samuel Alito claimed in his majority opinion that Black voter turnout had exceeded white voter turnout in two of the previous presidential elections, both nationally and in Louisiana, and The Guardian reported the conservative jurist's assertion was copied almost word-for-word from a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Department of Justice.
“Vast social change has occurred throughout the country and particularly in the South, where many Section 2 suits arise,” Alito wrote in the majority opinion. “Black voters now participate in elections at similar rates as the rest of the electorate, even turning out at higher rates than white voters in two of the five most recent Presidential elections nationwide and in Louisiana.”
However, a review of turnout and racial data in Louisiana reveals the DOJ relied on unusual methodology to calculate racial voter turnout as a proportion of the total population of each racial group over the age of 18, because experts prefer to calculate statewide turnout because the general over-18 population may include non-citizens, people with felony convictions and others who are not legally permitted to vote.
https://www.rawstory.com/supreme-court-voting-rights-2676868472/
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