Political observers and elections officials have piled criticism upon Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) after he downplayed the need for voting rights reform with the words, “African-American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans,” suggesting to many that the Senator considers Black Americans to be somehow separate from the American electorate as a whole. Senator McConnell’s words were part of his efforts to justify the defeat of legislation advanced by Democrats and voting rights advocates to expand voter access in the face of a wave of restrictive voting legislation recently passed at the state level.