Some Things Never Change

Maybe I went a bit overboard on Headstomp Guy being a message of voter intimidation and oppression, but this story is plain old flat out going after the minority vote in Houston.

Misleading fliers are showing up on the windshields of vehicles at a predominately African-American polling place in Houston that claim to come from a non-existent group called the "Black Democratic Trust of Texas."
The fliers were placed on the windshields of vehicles at and near the Sunnyside Early Voting location and tell voters not to voter straight Democrat, according to Texas Democrats and local news reports.

"Republicans are trying to trick us!" the flier reads. "When you vote straight ticket Democrat, it is actually voting for Republicans and your vote doesn't count. We are urging everyone to VOTE for BILL WHITE. A VOTE for BILL WHITE is a VOTE for the ENTIRE DEMOCRATIC ticket. We have fought too hard to let Republicans use voting machines to deny us our basic rights. We must guard the change and NOT VOTE STRAIGHT TICKET DEMOCRAT!"

"YES WE CAN," the flier reads.

Yes we can...mislead African-American voters not to vote for anything other than the Governor's race and not vote for anyone in House races. Bill White is the Democrat running for Texas Governor against Rick Perry, but there are a number of close House races in Texas too, especially around Houston and Dallas.

Pretty slimy stuff, and we saw this two years ago too in some places.

This is what real voter oppression looks like, folks.  How much more out there is not being caught?  And please note that this has been going on for years now among minority communities:

Results from the survey can be used to estimate roughly how many votes were "lost" in 2008 due to administrative problems, such as registration problems and long lines. Approximately 3 million registered voters appear to have been excluded from voting because of registration problems, 2 million could not find where to vote, 2 million did not have proper identification, and between 2 and 3 million encountered lines that were too long. Perhaps 3 million potential absentee votes were lost because requested ballots never arrived. While these are ballpark figures, and there may be some double counting due to people reporting multiple problems, they suggest that a significant fraction of non-voters might be brought into the electorate through administrative improvements to elections.

And the vast majority of these problems in 2008 were in minority precincts.