A Hacker's Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society's Rules, and How to Bend them Back

by Bruce Schneier

In Alabama, for example, a coalition of conservative Democrats calling themselves “Redeemers” seized power in an 1874 election marked by fraud and paramilitary violence. (Not a hack.) Over the next thirty years, they gradually chipped away at African Americans’ political influence through carefully targeted voting restrictions. These efforts culminated in the ratification of a new state constitution in 1901, in which the stated goal of its drafters was “to establish white supremacy in this state.” The constitution introduced or entrenched poll taxes, property ownership requirements, literacy tests, and various disqualifications that limited the number of African Americans entitled to vote. (That’s the hack.) It worked; in the early 1870s, over 140,000 African Americans were eligible to vote. In 1903, fewer than 3,000 were able to register. “Literacy test” is a misnomer. Literacy tests in this context were not tests of reading ability, they were complex tests designed so that people would inevitably fail them. We can argue about their constitutionality, but the hack part was giving local election officials substantial leeway to determine which prospective voters were required to pass this impossible test.