Indiana Republicans Making Voting Harder for Blacks

Zachary Roth, TPM Muckraker

- Indiana is one of the key red states that Barack Obama has unexpectedly put in play this year. So it’s not surprising that the GOP is pulling out all the stops to keep it in their column — including, predictably, launching an effort to make it much harder for African-Americans to vote.

In a nutshell, here’s what’s happened so far. The details get a little intricate, but stay with us here:

To win Indiana, Obama would likely need a big turnout from three low-income, heavily African-American cities, in the northern part of Lake County, near Chicago. Those three cities — Gary, Hammond, and East Chicago — together comprise more than 40 percent of the county’s population. But under Indiana law, early voting can take place only in the county clerk’s main office, which for Lake County is in Crown Point, more than an hour’s drive from those cities.

Click here for more…