Counting voters, counting votes

摘要

Skin colour and poverty kept Raymond Rutherford's parents, black South Carolinians who lived in the first half of the last century, from voting. Civil-rights legislation ended de facto racial bans in the 1960s. When South Carolina first passed its voter-identification law, Mr Rutherford feared a clerical error would keep him from voting. He lacked a photographic identity card, and needed a birth certificate to get one. Unfortunately, the name on his birth certificate was Ramon Croskey. Like many black southerners of his era, Mr Rutherford, who is 59, was born at home rather than in hospital. The midwife who delivered him happened to be a friend of his mother's, whose surname was Croskey.