Last week I noted that the black community in Ferguson had gained more than 3,000 voter registrations in response to the shooting of Michael Brown.
Today I find out that never actually happened.
Last week, numerous news outlets, national and local, reported on a huge increase in registered voters in Ferguson, Mo., following the Aug. 9 shooting of Michael Brown. But it apparently didn't actually happen.
The St. Louis County elections board reported that 3,287 Ferguson residents had registered to vote. That is a huge surge for a city of 21,000, particularly as controversy swelled about the racial make-up of the city government after the shooting. Ferguson is two-thirds African-American, but its mayor and all but one member of the six-person city council are white.
But apparently that first report was in error. There was no voter registration spike. The county elections board reversed course on Tuesday and said that, actually, only 128 people had registered to vote since the shooting.
That sucks. I mean, I'm glad that the 128 people registered. It's a start. But it's heartbreaking to see that the news was too good to be true, especially when it comes to voting.
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