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[83]
“Have not the coloured people a majority of votes in the whole State-ninety thousand against seventy-six thousand? ”
“ On the present lists, they have,” replies the Governor; “ but the lists are drawn in fraud.
How can the coloured people have more votes than we have?
In numbers we are nearly equal-three hundred and sixty-two thousand Whites to three hundred and sixty-four thousand Blacks.
These figures are not ours.
The census was taken under Warmoth's government.
We know that some of the returns are false-and false in favour of the coloured men. But take the figures as they stand.
How can a difference of two thousand in the population, yield a difference of fourteen thousand in the voting lists?”
“That is not easy to make out.”
“Except by fraud; by manifest and unblushing fraud.
The fact is, Negroes are registered in different names and different parishes.
Dead Negroes are kept on the lists; Negroes under age are put on the lists.
Women are inscribed as men. Wherever you have Black officials, supported by a Black police, you have abuse.”
1875.
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