How a party spent decades making itself white.

By Clare Malone Published Jun. 24, 2020

Editor’s note: This story includes a historical quote that uses a racial slur.

Election Day 1981 was ugly in some largely Black and Hispanic districts of Trenton, New Jersey. Ominous signs hung outside several polling places:

WARNING

THIS AREA IS BEING PATROLLED BY THE
NATIONAL BALLOT
SECURITY TASK FORCE.

IT IS A CRIME TO FALSIFY A BALLOT OR
TO VIOLATE ELECTION LAWS.

That National Ballot Security Task Force was made up of county deputy sheriffs and local police who patrolled the polling sites with guns in full view. A court complaint later lodged by the Democratic Party described the members of the task force “harassing poll workers, stopping and questioning prospective voters … and forcibly restraining poll workers from assisting, as permitted by state law, voters to cast their ballots.”

The National Ballot Security Task Force was not some rogue enterprise, or an ill-conceived product of a few extremist thinkers. It was funded by the Republican Party.

Read the entire article HERE.