Waiting in line on voting day

[USA Today photo]

Richard Wolf, writing in USA Today, says that on Nov. 4 "African-American voters waiting more than twice as long as others to vote ... and Hispanics were asked to show identification more often, this as per a survey conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the AARP and the Pew Center on the States."

The survey also discovered that Hispanics were required to show ID more often than other voters in states where a photo ID was required.


Why are we not surprised?

One question not addressed by this survey is how many people simply gave up and went home after waiting in line for hours. In south Florida, in some communities, in took hours of waiting to finally reach a voting booth.

If anything needs an overhaul in this country, it is our failed system of voting. Is a democracy still a democracy when large segments of our population are denied the right to vote by systemic breakdowns in the voting apparatus?