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Feb. 11, 2000 | NEW YORK -- "In one part of South Carolina, they've practically shut down an entire county," said Rep. Todd Rutherford, a Democratic legislator from Columbia. "Williamburg County -- it just happens to be majority black." As a result, Rutherford has filed a lawsuit, challenging the practice as a violation of the Voting Rights Act. The two sides are scheduled for a hearing before a three-judge federal panel Monday, five days before the primary Feb. 19. In the meantime, the Republicans have taken their plan before the Justice Department to get a "pre-clearance" opinion, which may pre-empt any judicial consideration.
"The Republicans have come up with a new plan today," Rutherford said on the telephone Thursday night, explaining the latest maneuvering, "They announced they would shut down 24 percent of black precincts but in a conciliatory effort would also shut down 24 percent of white precincts." This negotiating position, he said, only exposes that the original plan was to shut down mostly black-majority districts. "That's why they offered that deal today," he said, "to make it look good. This is Jim Crow once again." Republicans contend that closing down polls is practiced by both camps and that the lawsuit is nothing more than a nuisance filing meant to force the GOP into wasting its state-party money on staffing normally empty precincts. But it's more complicated than that. The ability to pick and choose which precincts to open is, in fact, a Jim Crow legacy that survives only in presidential primaries in South Carolina. No other state election or primary has this kind of establishment control over the act of voting itself. And this year in particular, it seems critical. The usually tight control kept on the primary by party officials has gotten away from them. The primary is open, and since Democrats are not holding a primary this year, they are free to crossover and vote in the Republican race. And the primary is on a Saturday instead of the usual Tuesday workday. All these volatile elements have made it easier for McCain's surge to end in victory and, consequently, have made any standard political fix look like an extraordinary one. In many ways, this is precisely what happened in New York. The old establishment system of wiring the process for the its hand-picked boy suddenly looked especially corrupt when the other contender ran on the charge that the old establishment system was wiring the process. "But it is even more curious this year," said a highly placed figure in the state Democratic Party, referring to the blatant racial slant to the closings, "because they have an African-American candidate, Alan Keyes, running in their primary." Rutherford also charges that there are other -- shall we say, "antique" -- tactics hidden in the Republican poll-closing plan. Even if one wanted to defend consolidating so many precincts, Rutherford said, "the party doesn't let voters go to the nearest polling place but only the one that the Republican Party decides you should go to." (Rutherford's suit draws upon "the data we gathered in the last two primary elections," he said.) "For instance, some of the voting districts are large," he explained. "In my area, district 32 is extremely large. And the Republicans were instructing black voters to go to another black-majority district three districts away when there was a white-majority district right next door. You had to drive through two white-majority precincts to get there."
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