Justice Dept Says Without Party Labels on Ballots, Blacks Won’t Know Who to Vote For

President Obama's DOJ "Yes-Man," Attorney General Eric Holder

Justice may be blind to race, but the U.S. Justice Department is not. Eric Holder’s DOJ recently issued a decision that delivers an unmistakably racist message – skin color determines voter turnout, and voter intelligence.

The facts of the scenario playing out in the small city of Kinston, North Carolina – and the inner circles of the Obama White House – depict an administration willing to place a partisan agenda over the will of voters, and twist the intent of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, employing the legislation as no more than a means to a partisan end.

Last year, the city of Kinston – with a population of 23,000 – voted to lessen the partisanship of local elections by removing the party labels (Democrat, Republican and so forth) of local candidates from election ballots. The measure won by a majority vote in seven of the city’s nine black-majority voting precincts and both of its white-majority precincts.

In accordance with the Voting Rights Act, the city submitted the measure for final approval by the Justice Department. The DOJ denied the city’s measure, suggesting that the removal of party labels would limit blacks’ ability to elect the candidates they favor.

Specifically, the DOJ’s Aug. 17 letter to the city said the results of the city’s proposed measure “will be strictly racial.”

“Removing the partisan cue in municipal elections will, in all likelihood, eliminate the single factor that allows black candidates to be elected to office,” wrote Loretta King, acting head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division.

That single factor of a black candidate’s success, according to Ms. King, is the label “Democrat.”

The Justice Department’s decision is blatant in its racist, condescending assumptions that:

• Black candidates are always Democrats;
• If black candidates are not labeled as Democrats on the ballot, whites will not vote for them;
• If black candidates are not labeled as Democrats on the ballot, they stand little chance of being elected on their own merit;
• Black voters always vote for Democrats; and,
• If candidates are not labeled as Democrat or Republican, blacks won’t know who to vote for.

A recent editorial issued by the News-Record, in Greensboro, NC, said the following of the decision and the value of non-partisan elections in the State –

Most North Carolina municipalities have abandoned partisan elections over the years. The change makes it easier for unaffiliated candidates to get on the ballot, includes all voters in primaries and — maybe — produces better government by breaking down the party lines that always seem to divide Democrats and Republicans in Raleigh and Washington.

Charlotte is the most notable exception. The state’s largest city still elects its mayor and council members in partisan contests.

So does the Lenoir County town of Kinston, even though 64 percent of voters supported an initiative last November to switch to nonpartisan elections.

Incredibly, the U.S. Department of Justice denied the change, citing provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

The Justice Department’s decision – a perversion of the intent of the Voting Rights Act – is also their misguided attempt to guarantee votes for Democrat candidates among a black voter population it views as too ignorant to elect a candidate on a basis other than party.

Under the false umbrella of the VRA, the Obama Administration has employed a new tool in electoral control; a follow-on to the practice of gerrymandering. Let’s call it Holderizing. Yet, despite the national political implications, few media outlets are covering the Justice Department’s August decision to deny Kinston the non-partisan elections it wants.

Even though it’s been more than a month since the decision was issued by the DOJ, the story is just starting to receive deserved attention from only a handful of news outlets and blogs, all conservative-leaning, proving that political labels do indeed account for some choices – like those made in the world of political news and opinion coverage.