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Sharon Grimes, W A M M
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Preventing eligible voters from voting contradicts the very principles of a democracy. As we know, there were many voting irregularities four years ago in Florida. For example, election officials removed more than 52,000 voters from the rolls, claiming they were felons. More than 90 percent of those removed were not criminals and 54 percent were African Americans. Because of this, thousands of voters were not allowed to vote in an election decided by just over 500 votes.
Unfortunately, according to recent reports, this year’s election may not be any better. Bob Herbert of the New York Times wrote in an August 16 column that armed, plainclothes police officers in Florida went to the homes of elderly black voters and interrogated them, claiming to be investigating voter fraud. The visits were supposedly random, but several of the people questioned were members of the Orlando League of Voters, a group that has been successfully mobilizing the city’s black voters. Herbert says the “investigation” has made organizers afraid to work and voters afraid of contact with League of Voters workers.
Examples of recent attempts to suppress African American and minority voting were also cited in a joint report from the People for the American Way Foundation and the NAACP, “The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America Today.” They include the following:
Armed private guards, off-duty law enforcement officers, local creditors, fake poll monitors, and poll workers and managers challenged and threatened individual voters at the polls.
• Signs at a polling place warned of penalties for “voter fraud” or “noncitizen” voting, or illegally urged support for a candidate.
• Poll workers “helped” voters fill out their ballots and told them how to vote.
• Voter registration rolls and records were tampered with.
• Fliers and radio ads contained false information about where, when, and how to vote, voter eligibility, and the false threat of penalties.
• Internal memos from party officials outlined the explicit goal of suppressing black voter turnout. Other specific incidents have also been reported.
In 2002 in Louisiana, fliers distributed in African American communities stated that if the weather was bad on Election Day (December 7), people could wait and vote on December 10. African American youths were paid $75 to stand on street corners holding signs that appeared to discourage voting by African Americans.
In a special election for the U.S. House in June, Native American voters in South Dakota were sent to the wrong polling places and given misleading information about the identification they needed to vote (according to testimony by Ralph G. Neas, president of People for the American Way Foundation, before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, July 15, 2004).
It is outrageous that any political party or group would condone activities that disenfranchise voters. In Minnesota, many election officials have expressed concern at the rush to implement new computerized voting without allowing enough time for testing and debugging. Vigilance at polling places on Election Day will be extremely critical.
To help in Minnesota, contact Javier Morillo-Alicea, state director, Minnesota AFL-CIO’s Voting Rights Protection Program at 651-203-0401, ext. 4; 612-581-1790 (cell); or jmorillo@seiumn.org.
Here are some of the things you can do to help ensure honest elections:
• Serve as an election judge.
• Serve as a party challenger in a precinct. Challengers will act as an extra pair of eyes and ears
in key precincts so that if anything troublesome happens, someone will be there to call for help.
• Work in a call center, fielding questions from poll workers and directing calls, if necessary, to attorneys.
At the national level, Working Assets is collaborating with the People for the American Way Foundation and others, including the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, the NAACP National Voter Fund, and the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund. They suggest that people vote by absentee ballot in their own state and then travel to a state that is at high risk for voting violations to help protect voting rights. Go to www.ElectionProtection.org for more information.
Both of these efforts are nonpartisan. |
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© 2004 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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Complete October 2004 Index - click here
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