clipped from: tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com   

It looks like one of the numerous tricks pulled by Republicans to make it harder for black people to vote isn't going to work.

A judge in Lake County, Indiana ruled today against a GOP effort to shut down early voting centers set up in predominantly low-income African-American areas of the county.

As we reported earlier this month, county Republicans had sued to have the centers shut down, on the grounds that the law required a unanimous vote of the county election board to set up early voting centers. (The Lake County board had voted 3-2 to open them.)

Without the early voting centers, which were set up in the northern Lake County cities of Hammond, Gary, and East Chicago, residents of those cities would have had to travel over an hour to vote early in the county seat of Crown Point, which is in the southern part of the county

The centers have already been open for several weeks, and the court ruled that valid votes already cast will count.