One lesson from Milwaukee: efforts to suppress the vote backfired

From Barbara Miner’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel blog: View from the Heartland Nov. 7, 2012

One lesson from the City of Milwaukee results: people don’t like efforts to suppress the right to vote; it only makes them more determined.

Or, to put it another way, the Republican game-plan backfired.

In the 2008 presidential election, 275,042 ballots were cast in the City of Milwaukee, for an 80.33 percent voter turnout. Obama/Biden won 77.82 percent of the vote, McCain/Palin won 21.03 percent.

In 2012, 288,459 ballots were cast in the City of Milwaukee, for an 87.24 percent turnout. Obama/Biden won 79.27 percent, Romney/Ryan won 19.72 percent.

U.S. Postage Stamp commemorating the historic 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prohibited Jim Crow-era attempts to suppress the black vote