Missouri GOP Outraged About Voter Registration Booths In Ferguson

Story by Daily Kos
Written by librarisingnsf

It seems that some citizens of Ferguson want to increase the extremely low voter participation rate in Ferguson, and the Missouri GOP (or, at least the leadership) is not happy about that effort at all.

From The New Civil Rights Movement:

In an interview with Breitbart News, Missouri RNC executive director Matt Wills expressed outrage about the reports of voter registration booths popping up in Ferguson, Breitbart reports.

“If that’s not fanning the political flames, I don’t know what is,” Wills said, “I think it’s not only disgusting but completely inappropriate.”

Wills explained that the shooting death of Michael Brown was a tragedy for everyone.

“This is not just a tragedy for the African American community this is a tragedy for the Missouri community as well as the community of what we call America,” he said. “Injecting race into this conversation and into this tragedy, not only is not helpful, but it doesn’t help a continued conversation of justice and peace.”

While the event(s) in Ferguson was very tragic, I'm glad that it has at least awakened the community of the importance of the political process and elections.

The (far) right wing site, "Daily Caller," is also doing a bit of fear-mongering of its own. From the same article:

Liberal activists — including from the George Soros-funded Center for Constitutional Rights — have promoted voter registration booths at multiple locations in Ferguson, including at the roadside memorial marking the spot where Brown was shot.

African-Americans are extremely under-represented in the racial makeup of elected officials and policemen in Ferguson. Salon gives us some of those statistics:

Ferguson is majority black, but the mayor is white, and five of the six city council members are white. For members of the community who feel their interests aren’t being represented, the first step towards changing that is registering to vote. Also, reportedly, only three of the 53 Ferguson police officers are Black.