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Comment by nneonneo | Hacker News Reader

The original Slate article: https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/06/voting-rights-and-t...

The follow-up, in which the author chronicles their (unsuccessful) search for an original: https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/07/louisiana-literacy-....

The follow-up explicitly notes that the word-processed version shown in the original article is a modern update; a typewritten version that is supposedly closer to the original is shown at the bottom of that article (and available at https://web.archive.org/web/20160615084237/http://msmcdushis...), although the provenance of this version is also unclear ("McDonald reports that she received the test, along with another literacy test from Alabama, from a fellow teacher, who had been using them in the classroom for years but didn’t remember where they came from.")

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Right, and you'd assume that if it was widely delivered in Louisiana, there'd be contemporaneous records; what that test is doing is pretty obvious.

since what that test was doing was trying to illegally deprive black people of their right to vote I'd think they'd try to keep it as hidden as possible, which is what I would recommend one do when breaking the law.

How hidden can you keep a test that many thousands of voters take?

You don't. You'd find contemporaneous accounts from people who'd taken the test and complained about it. That's how the social science of history works. I think the consensus here is that the brain-teaser test is either not real, or was not widely used (nobody has been able to find an instance where it was).

A clarifying bit of context: there were extensive complaints about the multiple-choice constitutional interpretation tests that were given at the time.

> How hidden can you keep a test that many thousands of voters take?

After its taken, and presuming active measures were taken to prevent distribution other than for people taking it who would then return it, pretty easily. Paper is biodegradable, burns easily, can be shredded (and recycled into new paper), etc.

how do you know how many people took the test? They don't need to use the super-secret fallback test to keep every black person from voting, the test was if all the other methods to keep them from voting didn't work, and then you didn't necessarily use all the test, you used some of the test, just enough to say they failed, and then what? Do you register the test somewhere?

Since the literacy test was used at the discretion of the authorities in charge of the vote they could choose who to give it to based on how likely they were to get away with using it.

I mean if you know the black people in your district will vote for a particular party you probably don't actually want to keep the black people in your district from voting, you want that party not to win because otherwise the party might help the black people living in your district.

If there are 1800 black people and 1100 white people that can vote in your district, then maybe you only need to keep 900 people from voting to be safe.

So then you announce you will be checking outstanding warrants at the polls, 600 people don't show up. You only need to keep 300 people from voting! So you start giving literacy tests to black voters but letting the white voters through - how many black people you think you will actually need to give that literacy test to before the rest of them wise up that you aren't going to be letting them vote?

I'd say maybe 20.

Now how many of them going to get copies of that test to do something about? What if you don't want to give them a copy of the test? How they going to get that copy of the test?

I'm sorry but I think this kind of thing would be pretty under-documented, just like most crime. I'm agreeing you can't keep it thoroughly hidden but hidden enough that it is difficult to say with any specificity this was the actual test used in that district on that day to fail these people.

on edit: removed something that was probably a bit rude, sorry, was going through some problems with kid at the moment and frustration transferred to my writing.

If there is a credible threat of retaliation (violence, employment, housing) for even trying to vote, then this is very effective. Why take a big risk if you won’t get to vote anyway? This way you don’t actually have to give the test very often, everyone quickly figures out the “rules” and falls into line.

right, the test exists as the last unbeatable line of defense, not the first.

> I certainly hope you're not so naive

There is absolutely no need to take this tone, especially seeing as the person you are replying to is clearly in good faith.

There is an actual SCOTUS case on these tests, confirming that they indeed actually exited, see Louisiana vs. U.S. (1965).

Also this sample test (https://lasc.libguides.com/c.php?g=940581&p=6830148) is from the Law Library of Louisiana, aka, the State Bar of Louisiana. Are you accusing the State Bar of Louisiana and the Louisiana Supreme Court of lying about the history of their state?

And this article (https://www.nola.com/news/politics/civil-rights-victory-50-y...) by NOLA actually goes through the history of the tests, citing contemporaneous reporting of the tests over several decades, though you would probably need physical access to the microfiche archives to confirm them yourself.

Unless you are suggesting that SCOTUS, SCLA, and the biggest newspaper in Louisiana are all conspiring together to make up these tests, the historical record for these tests existing is very well established.

The question is whether the test in the article is a real example of a literacy test, not whether literacy tests existed.

You think it is unlikely that a famously problematic-in-terms-of-race state issued a problematic-in-terms-of-race literacy test?

Or are that just the typical high standards of proof that coincidentally pop up whenever rightwing opinions receives legitimate criticism? Standards that they themselves never even remotely hold themselves to ("my sisters aunts dog heard on facebook")?

No, they don't think that. The previous commenter simply misread my comment.

You might be right

It's rare but it does happen.

What do you think a right wing position is? These were democrats writing literacy tests. Democrats were pro slavery, then pro jim crow. I imagine the right winge position is to support highlighting every real literacy test as a history the legacy of the democrat party.

The example literacy test you link to is dramatically more level headed than the one in the article. It's what you would expect a fifth grade level assessment to be.

In fact the site you link to even calls out the test mention in the article, stating that it seems it was used in one parish for one summer.

Quick: how is the President of the Senate selected?

It's a trick question. It's the Vice President, who is elected by the people (a)... but not for the role of president of the senate. But it could also be the President pro tempoire, who is elected by the senate (b).

Also the first question presupposes we all go to church. What about synagogues or temples?

Question #5 is entirely discretionary depending on the context of what power you are discussing.

And that's the point: these literacy tests were filled with questions like these that let the test giver choose the right answer based on whether they wanted the test taker to pass.

Yes. Which is why, even in the 1960s, even in Louisiana, state courts struck these tests down. I agree with you about them. The only disputed fact here is whether the "write backwards forwards" test was ever administered.

> Yes. Which is why, even in the 1960s, even in Louisiana, state courts struck these tests down.

I'm pretty sure the reason why, "even in the 1960s, even in Louisiana", state courts struck the tests down is that such tests categorically were ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in 1949, not because of the particular unfairness of particular tests as viewed by the state courts in the 1960s.

> It's the Vice President, who is elected by the people

No he’s not: the Vice President is elected by the Electoral College, or if they do not do so then by the Senate (see the Twelfth Amendment).

Neither is the President elected by the people: he’s also elected by the Electoral College, or if they fail to do so then by the House of Representatives, voting by state.

Fortunately, you only had to answer 4 of 6 correctly. https://www.crmvet.org/info/la-littest2.pdf

These sorts of 'tests' are not unique to the south. The record keeping and newspapers of the day would just sort of hint that they were necessary to maintain status quo.

Australian immigration had a similar literacy/dictation test for migrants under the 'White Australia' policy up until the 1940's. If the migration officer didnt like the look of you, you'd be given a test to dictate welsh instead english, as it was a 'prescribed english language'.

That's kind of a weird paradox in general and it's how we lose a lot of information. Things that were ubiquitous didn't necessarily become recorded. Because it's just the way things were.

Why would you assume that?

Because the test we're talking about is comically unfair, and people were complaining in the press about multiple-choice constitutional knowledge tests that were only subtly unfair.

You... You realize that they could just have two tests in a drawer, and they give one to black people, and one to white people, including reporters and federal officials? Why are you dying on this hill??

Do you really think Black people would have been covered fairly in the press in the 1960's?

Fairly? No. At all? Obviously yes, because the unfairness of the tests we know to have been administered was widely covered.

Nonsense, of course they were in some press.

There were many white Americans fighting for equality for all. Heck, look at the recent BLM movement, the woke discussions, #metoo and more.

All of these things were possible because of the 60s, because of white legislators, white judges, white supreme court judges, pushing for change, enacting change, creating the US today which, while imperfect, is quite supportive of equality, both legally and culturally.

So yes, there was all sorts of main stream media pushing for equality.

Heck, the first interracial kiss on US primetime was in the 60s on Star Trek ToS.

Some examples of racism were documented in some progressive outlets, therefore all examples of racism would have made it into the public record?

Maybe there was concern, when progressives were fighting this sort of thing, that if they picked the most unbelievable example, the naive public (those not familiar with the residents of a typical Klan-era backwater Louisiana parish) would question its veracity… as we see today…

Imagine you were going to forge a such a test? I don’t think I could make up something this ridiculous if I tried. I’d have to be practiced in generating trick questions, and motivated by malice to come close. Realistically, I’d give up and pick one of the readily-available real examples of poll tests to use.

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