Mr. Trump has frequently maligned Black leaders and cities. He applauded Black voters who chose not to vote in 2016 even as he has claimed to have done more for Black Americans than any president since Abraham Lincoln. And he has not flinched in pursuing what Vanita Gupta, the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, called a return to very blatant Jim Crow tactics to just try to throw out validly cast ballots and targeting certain cities that are Black-majority.
Ms. Gupta, who was the chief of the Justice Departments civil rights division under President Barack Obama, added: People will say this isnt the intent, the intent is more partisan. But I think what we are seeing through this election cycle is that in many instances it can appear motivated by partisan politics, but in the end the victims are Black voters.
Over the weekend, Mr. Trump shared on Twitter his hope that the courts or state lawmakers would throw out the popular vote entirely in states he lost, effectively allowing legislatures to submit their own, pro-Trump slates of electors to the Electoral College.
His lawsuits trying to scuttle the state-by-state certification process that will cement Mr. Bidens presidency at the Electoral College have failed miserably including in a stinging dismissal on Saturday by a federal judge in Pennsylvania and he has put more pressure on local officials to intervene on his behalf.
His effort faces two tests on Monday. Pennsylvania counties are set to submit their certified vote totals. And Michigans four-member state canvassing board has its deadline to certify the states election results. At least one of its two Republican members has indicated he may not do so because of minor irregularities in Wayne County, which includes Detroit.
State officials and election lawyers say it is highly unlikely that even a failure by the canvassing board to certify would ultimately cost Mr. Biden the state in the Electoral College. But the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the nations oldest civil rights law firm, is not taking any chances with the votes from Detroit, with a population that is 79 percent Black.
In a lawsuit it filed against Mr. Trump and his campaign over the weekend, the firm said, Defendants are openly seeking to disenfranchise Black voters, adding, Defendants tactics repeat the worst abuses in our nations history, as Black Americans were denied a voice in American democracy for most of the first two centuries of the republic.read more
Republicans Rewrite an Old Playbook on Disenfranchising Black Americans
