A GOP-aligned group is using Klan imagery to target Black voters

Nearly everyone in the sanctuary at Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Temple raised a hand when Gaylene Kanoyton asked who had seen “the mailers.”

The primarily Black audience at a town hall this week knew what she was referring to — ads using images of Klansmen in white hoods to warn against voting for Virginia’s redistricting amendment and others falsely suggesting that former president Barack Obama and Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) want them to vote “no” on redrawing the state’s political map to favor Democrats.

“It’s a lot of confusion,” Kanoyton, president of the Hampton branch of the NAACP, said in an interview. “It’s no different than when I was coming up and they tried to scare people out of voting.”

Democrats, redistricting advocates and the NAACP are working to dispel what they call a disinformation campaign targeting African American and elderly voters ahead of Virginia’s April 21 referendum. Polling and early voting so far suggest a close contest — prompting both sides of the redistricting campaign to pour in tens of millions of dollars.

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