Ohio senator: 'Jim Crow has been resurrected'

An Ohio Democratic senator slammed her state's Republican party and accused them of racially-motivated voter-suppresion tactics during an interview with CNN's Deborah Feyerick Tuesday.

"It's tragic that in the 21st century, 2012, we have voter suppression going on," Sen. Nina Turner (D-OH) said. "Jim Crow has been resurrected, making repeat performances in the south and has packed his bags and moved north, in Ohio, in particular."

Last month, the state Democratic Party, along with President Barack Obama's re-election campaign and the Democratic National Committee, sued Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted in an effort to extend early voting rights for people besides military personnel and their dependents to the weekend before Election Day.

A past analysis of voter tendencies in 2008 by the Dayton Daily News indicated that Democratic voters voted earlier than Republicans. While not citing that study, Turner did point at what she called efforts to stifle voting hours in urban and Democratic-leaning areas while extending them for Republican-dominated precincts, echoing a report by MSNBC's Rachel Maddow last week.

"Even Ray Charles could see what is going on here: flat-out voter suppression in democratic areas and also areas that are predominantly African-American," Turner said.

Watch Turner's interview with Feyerick, aired Tuesday on CNN, below:

[h/t Mediaite]