There are many questions about what role race will play in this November, but one way in which race always figures in elections is in the context of access at the polls. In the September 25 issue of The New York Review of Books, Andrew Hacker offers a comprehensive look at the legal decisions and the statistics that affect and describe black voters, from identification requirements to disenfranchisement due to incarceration.

For many years, the momentum was toward making the franchise universal. Property qualifications were ended; the poll tax was nullified; the voting age was lowered to eighteen. But now strong forces are at work to downsize the electorate, ostensibly to combat fraud and strip the rolls of voters who are ineligible for one reason or another. But the real effect is to make it harder for many black Americans to vote, largely because they are more vulnerable to challenges than other parts of the population.

It’s an interesting read, well above the noise of lipstick politics. Take a look.