During the question and answer session following the Brennan Center's 2010 election briefing on potential voting problems, someone -- I didn't hear who because I was sitting in the back -- asked the panelists whether they were paying attention to voter-intimidation problems like the New Black Panther Case in Philadelphia. The panelists responded to the effect of, naturally we're concerned about voter intimidation no matter where it happens.
At a briefing where voting-rights experts are discussing problems with the system that are estimated to have disenfranchised millions in the past, and could affect millions more going forward, someone with a grudge decided to ask a silly question intended to embarrass the panelists about an incident in which no voters were actually intimidated. The whole exchange struck me as representative of the controversy, whereby problems that actually affect people's ability to cast a ballot are sublimated to symbolic culture-war-type controversies that allow conservatives to claim the mantle of racial grievance.
