Speech #890085279

Again. I am not suggesting that there are any practices in North Carolina that discriminately disenfranchise voters. North Carolina. however. does have a literacy test for prospective voters. Yet. in the presidential election of 1964. 51.8 percent of its voters cast ballots. according to the Congressional Quarterly. Therefore. the socalled automatic provisions of H.R. 6400 will not apply to that State as a whole. only to counties in which less than the minimum voted. Any county in which 50.1 percent of the voters cast ballots can discriminate and the heavy hand of the Federal Government cannot interfere. In the State of New York. we also find a literacy test. Statistics indicate that. in the State as a whole. 63.2 percent of the voters actually cast their ballots in the last election. However. in New York City alone. thousands of persons of Puerto Rican descent are prohibited from voting because they cannot read and write in the English language.