One of the headlines to come out of Super Tuesday was the long voting lines in certain places in Texas, which provided the Wednesday afternoon edition of MSNBC Live an opportunity to float yet another round of voter suppression conspiracy theories.
Reporting on the ground in Houston, Garrett Haake told guest host Chris Jansing that the "feeling" that the long lines were a tool of voter suppression was "pervasive." Referring to his reporting on Tuesday night, Haake declared, "This is the polling place on the campus of a historically black college. There was a feeling that perhaps this was done in some way intentionally to make it harder for these folks to vote."
Jansing then decried the long lines, but seemed unwilling to attribute the long lines to racism, "I was at, you know, another college where it was largely white, but there’s students trying to like hold their computer laptop in one hand and trying to do their homework and, you know, there was a guy there with a board and he was playing hangman to keep people engaged."
She then asked MSNBC legal analyst Maya Wiley, "why are people waiting two, three, six and a half hours?"
Willey was willing to accuse Texas of voter suppression, "You know, this is such a shocking story, except it's not. And what I mean by that, of course we should be shocked by what we're seeing. People want to vote. People died in this country to vote. We just commemorated the March in Selma, marching for voting rights."
She suggested that this is part of, "a long history of making it hard, particularly for people of color to vote and in the last decade, very intentionally setting up many barriers to vote. Let me just give you one example. They have closed 750 polling sites across the state. And over 500 of those are in places with large black and Latino populations."
Local news reports had a more balanced analysis, citing "a mixture of technical failures, higher turnout and fewer voting locations." Furthermore, why would a primary, held in this specific example, in Harris County, which Hillary Clinton won by over 150,000 votes try to suppress Democratic turnout?
Here is a transcript for the March 4 show:
MSNBC
MSNBC Live with Velshi and Ruhle
1:21 PM ET
GARRETT HAAKE: Chris, that feeling was pervasive. This is the polling place on the campus of a historically black college. There was a feeling that perhaps this was done in some way intentionally to make it harder for these folks to vote. The people I spoke to said, “hell, no, we're not going anywhere, we're going to stick it out,” but it’s impossible to know how many people didn't and that’s really frustrating here in the most populous county in the state.
CHRIS JANSING: Yeah Maya, have to say, I mean, I was at, you know, another college where it was largely white, but there’s students trying to like hold their computer laptop in one hand and trying to do their homework and, you know, there was a guy there with a board and he was playing hangman to keep people engaged. I didn't see people leaving, but why are people waiting two, three, six and a half hours?
MAYA WILEY: You know, this is such a shocking story, except it's not. And what I mean by that, of course we should be shocked by what we're seeing. People want to vote. People died in this country to vote. We just commemorated the March in Selma, marching for voting rights. The thing about Texas in particular, it has a long history of making it hard, particularly for people of color to vote and in the last decade, very intentionally setting up many barriers to vote. Let me just give you one example. They have closed 750 polling sites across the state. And over 500 of those are in places with large black and Latino populations. If you close polling sites, you put more pressure on other polling sites. The other thing that we've seen in Texas is purging the rolls. We had that -- you know, last year, remember that scandal –JANSING: Yeah
WILEY: of 95,000 people, most of whom were citizen being told, we don't believe you're a citizen, and even referring those cases for criminal prosecution. Total egg on the face of the state government for that, rightly so, because that's not a real problem. And I think one of the things we've seen in this country as a whole is rather than parties fighting to gain the support of voters, making it harder for voters, parties think won't vote for them—
JANSING: Yeah
WILEY: --to vote and that’s not democracy.
