Bob Herbert (NY Times): Days of Shame. Overseas, our troops are being mauled in the long dark night of Iraq – a war with no end in sight that has already claimed the lives of more than 1,100 American troops and thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of innocent Iraqis. At home, the party of the sitting president is systematically stomping on the right of black Americans to vote, a vile and racist practice that makes a mockery of the president’s claim to favor real democracy anywhere.
We’re seeing a raft of stories now, full of journalistic “balance,” showing problems on both sides of the aisle.
There certainly are some cases of fraudulent registration. But this is hardly likely to be a more Democratic phenomenon than a Republican one; it’s just as easy (or difficult) to do it on either side.
Naturally, I didn’t hear any Republican complaints about the phony Ralph Nader petition signatures that caused a Pennsylvania judge to proclaim the activities “the most deceitful and fraudulent exercise ever perpetrated upon this court” before tossing Nader off the ballot. A Nader vote would surely have been one less vote for Kerry in most cases.
But there is abundant evidence surfacing that people — presumably who want Bush to win — are trying to suppress the vote, especially in minority communities, through various kinds of trickery or outright bullying. Herbert’s column talks about Pennysylvania, but there have been cases documented around the country.
Several of my friends, including two high-powered lawyers, have flown to Ohio and Florida, to be poll monitors. They want to help ensure that people who are registered to vote don’t get bullied out of voting.
The people attempting to illegally suppress the minority vote deserve more than condemnation. They deserve jail time.
Posted by: Robert Worstell on November 1, 2004 12:16 PM
Balance is the key word.
New York Times is hardly accurate or balanced these days, proven over and over and over.
Racism is using “race” (other than the human one) for personal profit or benefit. Same way with sexism – those claims of “homophobia” that surfaced during the last debate.
It’s been proven over and over and over that there was no problem during the last election. Practically, half the country doesn’t have a problem, only the metro areas – who have problems with everything (IMHO).
The news only cover metro areas and think their money comes from readership which depends on controversy. Bogus.
Those parties and papers who use the race or sex card to get their ratings and circulation up are the lowest of the gutter snipes.
What we need is to let the states work it out, which they have for over 200 years now. Keep the feds out. Ignore the old media, get your news from news.google.com, where you can get all the data from both sides and can compare to get the actual facts, as opposed to slanted opinion. I find the most accurate views of the American election actually come from Australian papers.
Luck to us all – and another point, all the polls are wrong. Check out what they said about Missouri’s marriage amendment – they were way off, and are in this election, too.
Posted by: Al on November 1, 2004 11:32 AM
When the term “machine” is used to talk about elections, the word “Democratic” is always understood to be in front of it. And the reason is the “machine” manufactures votes. Absentee ballots and this provisional balloting in different precincts are some of the tools of the trade. The expansion of same day registration is an interesting advancement in fraud: why not vote in multiple precincts? How are they going to check? As we saw a few weeks ago in a few news sources, the Dem’s playbook is to complain about problems, bring some “disenfranchised” person (preferably a minority) and get it on the news…
From the Rocky Mountain News describing the Dem’s playbook…
“If no signs of intimidation techniques have emerged yet, launch a pre-emptive strike,” rule No. 2 says.
Then, the manual says the operatives should issue a press release “reviewing Republican tactics used in your area or state.” They should also quote “party/minority/civil rights leadership as denouncing tactics that discourage people from voting.”
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So, Dan, you and the Dem’s then get to complain about poll watchers catching some of this stuff. The Dem’s raise such a ruckus that even when the law is broken and someone is allowed to vote when they have no right to, a big deal is made.
I have nothing but contempt for these practices. And yes, the Republicans play games, but I live in Chicago and the games played by the Democrats are huge. Who was JFK’s first guest in the White House in 1961? Richard J Daley? Who did Gore get to spearhead the 2000 recount fiasco? Daley’s son. Why? Because they brought in the vote manipulation experts.
The games played by Republicans pale against what the Democrats are pulling. It’s one thing to get out the vote. I whole heartedly agree. It’s another to attack and overwhelm the system with fraud. And they do it where they have the most control – the heavily democratic areas where the Dem’s control the apparatus. When I hear people talk about Republican thugs in these urban areas, I laugh. Then they complain about Republicans who may run a Secretary of State’s office. These elections are highly local and the shenannigans happen at the precinct level. Who do you think works the precincts? Many are former or current party people or were on the city’s payroll? (I’m thinking of how Chicago works.)
I suspect the same tricks happen at most major urban areas.
We need some type of real voter registartion system to fight this crap. We also need an honest media to report. SO when you or I see the complaining going on over the next few weeks, we should all take the Dem’s playbook into account.