Al Gore: Florida voting problems reminiscent of Jim Crow days

Al Gore said Tuesday that hours-long voting lines in Florida — where his disputed loss in 2000 cost him the presidency — is part of a wider, conservative-backed voter suppression effort that recalls Jim Crow discrimination laws.

“At some point after this election, I hope there will be a reckoning for these governors and state legislatures that have intentionally tried to prevent people from voting,” Gore said on Current TV, the cable network he co-founded.

{mosads}Gore said the huge waits in South Florida are “un-American” and a “disgrace,” and linked them to conservative-fueled efforts he called aimed at voter suppression.

“It is a strategy and it is a strategy that is a direct descendent of the racist Jim Crow tactics that were used in the wake of the Civil War to prevent black people from voting,” Gore said.

“It is more sophisticated now. It is dressed up in different kinds of language, but it is un-American, it is wrong, it is a disgrace to this country and there ought to be a bipartisan movement to say enough of this,” he said.

Republicans in a number of states have passed laws in recent years that impose new requirements on voters, such as requiring government identification and curtailing early voting.

Advocates of the measures call them efforts to prevent voter fraud.

Civil liberties groups and other critics say it’s an attempt to suppress the votes of minority and poor voters, and argue that instances of voter fraud are scant.