NO ONE should have been surprised when Terry McAuliffe, head of the Democratic National Committee, released a statement yesterday afternoon suggesting Republicans set out to intimidate minority voters. (For an excellent dissection of that statement, see Jonathan Last’s analysis here.) McAuliffe made similar charges after the 2000 election cycle, and left-leaning analysts have lately made similar predictions about GOP efforts this year.

The New Republic’s John Judis developed this thesis in a recent article that seeks to answer this question: “Can the GOP convince blacks not to vote?” Judis, a serious and knowledgeable analyst, suggests a national GOP “depress the vote” strategy best seen “in conjunction with the GOP’s ongoing efforts to subtly intimidate black voters with dubious charges of election fraud.”