Discussion: Taxing the Polls

Discussion for article #241622

Oh my would Ā®s love to bring this backā€¦in (D) districts.

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Thatā€™s an amazing piece of ephemera.

Today we have Sec. of State offices closing all across areas of the black belt in Alabama, where essentially getting a State ID will become a major setback for those that donā€™t drive and want to be a part of the franchise to vote. The underlining documents needed to get that State ID are made even more onerous because of these specifically targeted closings. The time spent traveling to other Sec. of State offices farther away to get a State ID, as well as county clerk offices to get documents or waivers, is the modern day equivalent of a poll tax and clearly its a way to disenfranchise an entire group of black people. Same old, same old.

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ā€œColorā€.

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To be technical, this is a tax on voting, which isnā€™t a poll tax. A poll tax remains legal, albeit horrifyingly bad policy: itā€™s a tax wherein the amount paid doesnā€™t vary from person to person, whatever his income is.

Just as conservatives canā€™t go around saying ā€˜ni@@ER, ni@@er, ni@@erā€™ you canā€™t say ā€˜poll tax, poll tax, poll taxā€™. You have to be more subtle, like voter IDā€™s that can only be obtained from locations that ā€˜those kind of peopleā€™ have a hard time getting to. Itā€™s making sure ā€˜those kind of peopleā€™ take a tour through our corrections system coming out the other end stripped of voting rights. This is NOT Jim Crow, itā€™s James Crowe III, Esquire. Itā€™s nascent Fascism and Nazism with a tailored suit.

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Correct. A state can impose a poll tax, but canā€™t use failure to pay it as a reason to prevent the person from voting. They have to get creative: impose an ID requirement, then close the offices that issue IDs.

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Iā€™m surprised at you. You are being very unfair! There will be a mobile DMV in every county for a few hours once a month. See? They are really there to help.

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"disenfranchising African Americans and poor whites across the region. "

Iā€™m sure what you meant was ā€œdisenfranchising poor people across the region. The poll tax fell disproportionately heavily on African Americans.ā€

Right now your sentence reads as if: A. All African Americans were disenfranchised because of this, because B. no African Americans could pay the tax. It basically assumes all African Americans were poor. They were not, and some could pay the tax. The tax was, of course, designed to limit voting by blacks. But the end of the poll tax re-enfranchised far more whites than blacks if only because there were more whites (in total not as a percentage) than blacks who could not pay the tax.

My father-in-law recently passed away. While visiting his home in Georgia, I looked through a box of his World War II memorabilia. I was shocked to find an Alabama poll tax exemption certificate issued to him, I assume, for serving in the military. He had grown up in Alabama and moved to Georgia after the war.

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I doubt that driverā€™s licenses are free anywhere, so requiring one before you can vote is a poll tax, and should be challenged in court. I know the defense will be that there are free ID cards available, at the same offices where driverā€™s licenses are available. But, if it requires a transportation expense to get to an office where the ā€œfreeā€ ID cards are issued, it is still a poll tax. A non-political US Supreme Court would rule that to be the case. But, we have a right wing Republican Supreme Court, so a court challenge would be turned down.

Incidentally, the 24th amendment ends by stating:
ā€œSection 2.
The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.ā€ Unfortunately that means there is no other enforcement power, so if Congress chooses not to pass appropriate legislation, the 24th amendment is just a piece of paper.

Letā€™s start asking Republican candidates questions this way: ā€œLiberals think a poll tax is a bad thing. Do you agree?ā€ You can substitute ā€œpoll taxā€ for any discriminatory, currently illegal policy. I just want to hear them try to rationalize it out loud.

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Here is one version of a joke that made the rounds in the South in the pre Voting Rights Act era.

A Black foreign language professor at a small college wanted to vote in the town where his college was located. To vote, he first had to pass the very difficult literacy test, then read from a newspaper and explain what it meant. He read and explained first the local English language newspaper, then when handed Spanish, German, and French, he translated and explained those. Finally he was handed a Chinese language newspaper, and asked triumphantly by the official what it meant. Unable to read Chinese, he threw it done, and declared, ā€œWhat it means is that this is one Negro who will not be voting in this town.ā€

Yeah, they could leave it blank because no one would expect it any other way.

I went to the statistics and that $1.50 probably represented half a days pay. The average weekly wage was $18-$25, if they could find work.

In 1932, the average cost of a loaf of bread nationally was seven cents. In other words, Alabamaā€™s poll tax was equivalent to 21 loaves of bread.

Wow thatā€™s a lot of dough! I donā€™t think one vote is hardly worth that now. I bet that actually bought a lot more than one vote for those buyers.

In 1989 I was doing news for a Dallas area community radio station, and one day accompanying some activists who were trying to get people registered to vote in poorer neighborhoods. I always remember an elderly gentleman who, even then, said he didnā€™t want to vote because he couldnā€™t afford to pay the poll tax.