"Too poor to vote: how Alabama's 'new poll tax' bars thousands of people from voting" - a caller awakened me to this story in The Guardian from Wednesday October 4th and it's pretty shocking.

Yes, poll tax might have originated in Alabama. The poll taxes came out of the South during Reconstruction as a way of keeping poor people - particularly poor black people - from voting.

So Connor Sheets writing in The Guardian:

"Randi Lynn Williams assumes she will never be able to afford to vote again."

Opening sentence. Well, why should anybody have to afford to vote? The 24th amendment says no more poll taxes - it is specifically outlawed in the Constitution. But Randi Lynn Williams, she got in trouble with the law and she lives in Alabama which is one of eight states which includes Nevada, Tennessee and a few others where you may not vote if you owe the government money.

You haven't paid a fine? Haven't paid a fee? Haven't paid a traffic ticket? Haven't paid restitution to the victim of a crime? Haven't paid a fee to the state? You may not vote.

-Thom


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