A Texas bill drew ire for saying it would preserve ‘purity of the ballot box.’ Here’s the phrase’s history.

Cantrell said a key part of the pitch to poor White voters was, in essence: “We’ll make sure that you are never considered the equal of a Black man again.” Politicians invoked fraud, too — criticizing Black voters as easy to manipulate, subject to the will of their ex-slaveholder landlords. The promise, he said, was: “We will purify the ballot, making sure that they never are able to buy or steal Black votes again.”