The Banality of Disenfranchisement

More general observations from the 6th Ward in Toledo to come, but my first impression upon arrival this morning was this-African-American and poor disenfranchisement is, more often than not, more banal than anything. No intimidation here, just poll workers who don't know when to give a provisional ballot or not. No police road blocks, just 3 precincts voting in the same location with long lines-result: people arrive 30 minutes before work, get in line, wait 20 minutes and find out they are at the wrong "precinct" the correct one being 10 feet and 30 minutes of waiting away. I don't know about you, but when I''ve voted in a polling place with more than one precinct (tend to be more wealthy than where I was today), the marking of which line was incredibly obvious. In Toledo today, the marking was virtually inexistent. This is the definition of disenfranchisement-one class of people being given different and harder circumstances to vote-nothing illegal-remember, for at least 70 years there was nothing illegal about a grandfather clause or a poll tax.