The Republican leadership under McConnell is too savvy to return to the pre-Voting Rights Act of 1965 era and to actually prevent Blacks from voting with ham-fisted means like poll taxes and literacy tests. What they've effected instead is to use voting / registration restrictions shave off enough votes from those groups who tend to vote Democratic, and to structure race-based gerrymandering to effectively disenfranchise Democratic-leaning voters so that Republicans SEEM to win in open elections. What we end up with is government by minority, financed by the plutocracy.