[Flash Walken]

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The Center attributes these differences to two phenomena. The first is a lack of resources at polling places in minority neighborhoods. A Brennan Center study on the November 2012 election found that in three of the states with the longest wait times—Florida, South Carolina and Maryland—voters of color disproportionately had to go to polling places with fewer machines and/or fewer poll workers. There are also outdated voting machines that crash also lengthen lines. Errors in voting rolls — one in eight registration records is invalid or has serious errors — further compound these problems.

The second major factor is cuts to early voting programs, which people of color tend to take advantage of at greater rates than whites. In 2011, several states cut the number of early voting days, the Center report says. Florida, for example, reduced the number of early in-person voting days from 14 to 8. At the 2012 election, several Florida polling places with large populations of color experienced wait times of up to 7 hours.

Whatever their origin, the effects of longer poll lines are huge. The Center estimates that long lines deterred at least 730,000 Americans from voting in November 2012. That works out to about 14,000 voters deterred per state. Voting lines also cost Americans $544 million in lost productivity and wages, creating a kind of feedback loop for voters of color, who are often less able to sacrifice their wages therefore stay away from polling places.

http://fusion.net/story/335786/long-...r-suppression/