Cross posted to the MRC's NewsBusters blog
Several times on Saturday, CNN demonstrated its fixation on racial issues that strains for a reason to discuss slavery within topics you wouldn't expect it. Previewing the upcoming Georgia runoff between Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and Republican nominee Herschel Walker, correspondent Nadia Romero tried to tie the runoff system to slavery.
She first raised the topic at 8:03 a.m. Eastern during an appearance on CNN This Morning Weekend:
So let's talk about the runoff elections in Georgia as a whole. Usually, you see these runoff elections happening in the South -- in the Bible Belt -- in states that were formerly slave-owning states. And that is why so many people, including the Georgia NAACP, say that there is a racist element to why we have runoff elections as a total.
She added:
So when you look at the voting that would happen in the 1870s -- in the Reconstruction after slavery when black men were allowed to vote -- you have to think about the mindset of those land-owning, powerful white men who were in the South at that time -- they're used to owning people that look like me. And so now, some of those people with brown skin are able to vote. How can you continue to control them?
She then explained that Georgia's runoff system requires the top two candidates to run against one another if neither receives more than 50 percent of the vote, and recalled that such a system in the past helped prevent members of the black minority from being elected in white-majority Georgia and other Southern states.
But her tracing of the system back to the Reconstruction era of the late 1800s was contradicted two years ago by NBC News correspondent Priscilla Thompson, who recalled that the system was devised in the 1960s after the Supreme Court ruled against previous tactics in limiting black power.
Romero's negative spin against a system that arguably promotes democracy by preventing a candidate from winning with less than 50 percent of the vote surprisingly goes against recent complaints by liberals about Donald Trump getting elected President with just 46 percent of the popular vote. Additionally, liberals have recently tended to support similar runoffs in California and Washington, as well as the ranked choice systems in Maine and Alaska which also utilize a runoff mechanism.
Romero's analysis was so popular with her colleagues that she repeated it three additional times that day when prodded by anchors Amara Walker and Fredricka Whitfield.
As NewsBusters pointed out two years ago, it would have been more relevant to recount that, a few decades ago, after Democratic Senator Wyche Fowler was forced into a runoff and lost in 1992, Democrats lowered the runoff threshold from 50 to 45 percent, helping Democrat Max Cleland get elected in 1996.
After Republicans took the state legislature in 2005, they restored the 50 percent threshold, fearing that the state's Libertarian party would siphon away enough votes to help Democrats come in first place with more than 45 percent.
This lame attempt by CNN to make slavery relevant to a U.S. Senate election in the year 2022 was sponsored in part by Fidelity. Their contact information is linked.
Transcript follow:
CNN This Morning Weekend
November 12, 2022
8:03 a.m. Eastern
NADIA ROMERO: So let's talk about the runoff elections in Georgia as a whole. Usually, you see these runoff elections happening in the South -- in the Bible Belt -- in states that were formerly slave-owning states. And that is why so many people, including the Georgia NAACP, say that there is a racist element to why we have runoff elections as a total. So when you look at the voting that would happen in the 1870s -- in the Reconstruction after slavery when black men were allowed to vote -- you have to think about the mindset of those land-owning, powerful white men who were in the South at that time -- they're used to owning people that look like me. And so now, some of those people with brown skin are able to vote. How can you continue to control them?
Well, some would argue by a runoff system. So if you have four or five people running for an election, if you didn't get 50 percent of the vote plus one, then you had to go to a runoff. So the top two candidates will face off again weeks later. So you dilute that black power -- if you have one black candidate, and then you had three or four other white candidates, now all those white candidates can throw their power behind that white person, the white population can now throw their power behind that candidate and ensure that a black person could never win.
And that is why, if you look at the fact that Raphael Warnock was the first black person elected to the Senate from the state of Georgia. How could that be, knowing that at times in this state, the black population was up to some 40 percent? There's always been black people in this state -- always voting -- always a prominent force -- but still it took to 2021 before Raphael Warnock was able to make that achievement, that accomplishment.
(...)
CNN Newsroom
10:43 a.m. Eastern
AMARA WALKER: Yeah, and, Nadia, I got to ask you, you know, this idea of a runoff election especially here in the South, in Georgia, it has a troubling history, especially when it came to the purpose with the rules. Can you explain that?
ROMERO: Yeah, and if you really sit down and talk with someone over at the Georgia NAACP or other civil rights leaders, they'll explain to you that this all began in the Reconstruction era after the Civil War. It was a way to limit the power of black voters.
(...)
CNN Newsroom
1:33 p.m. Eastern
PROFESSOR DAVID SCHWEIDEL, EMORY UNIVERSITY: I think it was two percent that went for the third party candidate in the election. That two percent, do they have a reason to come out and vote in this special election?
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD: Right, because, Nadia, often that turnout in midterm -- I mean, in runoff elections is usually very low. But, at the same time, what we're finding out about this runoff, people are learning a lot more about, I guess, the history of midterms and runoff elections. What are they learning?
ROMERO: Well, we would normally have nine weeks -- like I mentioned -- it's down to four weeks -- so you have even fewer weeks now to make that decision and to remind people that you've got to do this all over again by December 6th if you're going to vote in person. But if you look at how this runoff election was started, mostly you're going to see this in the Bible Belt and formerly slave-owning states like Georgia. And after Reconstruction, when black men were able to vote, those white former slave owners said to themselves, "How can we still hold on to power? We have to take that voting block and eliminate their power to vote."
And so, if you talk to the Georgia NAACP and other civil rights leaders, they'll tell you, runoff elections are really instilled in racism to limit black power -- limit black voters. And that's why you have all those candidates who may show up at the election, but if you don't have 50 percent plus one vote, you can't win. You have to now go to the runoff election. So that means that all of the white voters can now get behind the white candidate -- and just to make sure that that one black candidate who perhaps was part of that top two doesn't have a chance to become that congressperson. And that's why back in 2021 Raphael Warnock was the first black person to be elected to the Senate from this state despite the fact that we've had a very large black population in Georgia since its inception because people were stolen and brought here to work for free.
(...)
CNN Newsroom
2:11 p.m. Eastern
WHITFIELD: And then, you know, this race, you know, the changes that you talked about from nine weeks to four weeks -- it's also sparking other conversations about its history.
ROMERO: The history, and was this built on voter suppression? Specifically on suppressing the black vote. If you look at runoff elections, you'll largely see them in formerly slave-owning states like Georgia. After the Civil War, the South lost, black men were able to vote, and so those former slave owners are now standing toe to toe with the people they used to own -- with the black men that they used to own. And their thought was: "How can I limit their voting power?" This is coming from the Georgia NAACP and from civil rights leaders who will tell you that this all comes from limiting the power of the black vote. That's why you have to have 50 percent plus one vote in order to win an election -- a statewide election here in Georgia.