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GOP Continues Voter Suppression Campaign While Accusing ACORN of Irregularity
DETROIT - With only days to go before the presidential election, Senator Barack Obama has increased his lead over Sen. McCain, according to most polls and pundits. Subsequently, the GOP has again turned to suppressing the minority vote.
By questioning the registration practices of community organizations, like the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), much of the national debate has focused, critically, on voter registration applications accepted in Black and Latino neighborhoods across America.
Gross mischaracterizations and factual omissions characterize the assault, pushing ACORN into overtime to set the record straight about the registration process and its historic effort to increase voter participation.
Over the past year, ACORN has registered over 1.3 million voters whom are mostly Black and from urban regions.
"Not every application will be valid. In almost every case, ACORN has already identified those cards as suspicious," David Lagstein, head organizer for Michigan ACORN, told the Michigan Citizen. "We actually flag and tag any card that is incomplete or suspicious."
The major media has spent ample air time describing the fraudulent applications received by ACORN representatives without mentioning critical information regarding those few cases. At the same time, the Republicans have launched a national campaign to purge registration records in battleground states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania.
The now infamous Mickey Mouse, Jimmy Johns and Tony Romo registration examples being flaunted on the airwaves were all actually first brought to light by ACORN workers themselves.
Also, ACORN, like any third party voter registration drive, cannot legally throw away any voter registration cards. It flags suspicious cards and submits them to the appropriate state election authorities who make the final judgment.
Charles D. Jackson, national communications director for ACORN, explained to the Michigan Citizen that ACORN personnel call all voter registration applicants to confirm information and if persons can't be reached, separate stacks are labeled questionable or incomplete.
"We do due diligence - we turn in cards and they have a process to verify individuals," Jackson says. "The possibility of Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck being able to vote is nil."
"This has been a coordinated strategy to attack ACORN as a way to discredit and rid of new and minority voters from the campaign," Lagstein continues. "Anyone who looks at the facts will see that it doesn't make sense.
But the tide is slowly turning as ACORN and voting rights advocates attempt to squeeze into the debate.
Former New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, a Republican who was appointed by President George W. Bush, has spoken recently about the directions he received from the U.S. Justice Department during the legislative elections of 2006 - to go after ACORN for voter registration fraud. He and other U.S Attorneys were summarily dismissed after finding no evidence of fraud and refusing to prosecute trumped up charges.
In addition, strong statements supporting ACORN by members of the Congressional Black Caucus, the AFL-CIO, and national voting rights advocates like Robert Kennedy, Jr., have brought some balance to the debate.
A delegation of U.S. Congressmen and women, including Rep. John Conyers, have sponsored a written plea, dated Oct. 20, to Attorney General Michael Mukasky and F.B.I. Director Robert M. Mueller reprimanding the, "escalation of attacks on ACORN and others seeking to register and turn out voters."
The letter details recent evidence of intimidation against ACORN staffers that may amount to "possible federal crimes such as criminal civil rights crimes including conspiracy to deprive the victims (and others) of federally protected constitutional rights, mail and wire offenses, and other more basic offenses such as assault and battery."
"Our message is getting out there and is resounding," says Jackson.
Here in Michigan, Attorney Mike Cox has levied six forgery charges against a former ACORN employee, Antonio Johnson of Jackson, Michigan, who is currently incarcerated on an unrelated parole violation.
David Lagstein says the Attorney General's action may be appropriate and that ACORN has attempted to cooperate with the Attorney General's office. But Lagstein adds that the timing is what is troubling. The forged cards in question were submitted to the City of Jackson Clerk's Office in May and June. Cox requested the forgery information in September, according to a press release. But the Attorney General's announcement describing the charges occurred in October, on the same day Sen. John McCain held a press conference admonishing ACORN.
Unclear is if those forged applications were already flagged by ACORN and if City of Jackson Clerk, Lynn Fessel, has requested the assistance of the Jackson Police Department on any other investigations involving registration applications. Johnson, 23, has been charged with six counts of forgery and faces up to 14 years for each count.
Attorney General media contact, John Sellek, was unavailable for comment.
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11 Comments so far
Show AllYa know, when it comes to violent crime by poor people, we are told that we must have deterence in the form of long prison sentences.
When it comes to crimes like voter supression, the guilty might get a fine from some election commission years after the election was tilted by the crime. The guilty would stay in office how ever.
So, why not a system where there are real and serious penalties for doing anything that in any way interferes with a persons right to vote. After all, that is one of the most important rights we have, and the entire system of a legitimate democracy would depend on it being protected. Shouldn't there be serious criminal penalties attached to interfering with this?
So, if people are seen to illegally engage in a conspiracy that removes even one legitimate voter from the voting roles, shouldn't they face say 20 years in prison?
Or, if a campaign is seen to have benefited from such an illegal operation, would the first thing to do be to immediately remove that candidate from power. Surely it should be basic that no candidate should ever be allowed to benefit from this.
Or, maybe the people who lead campaigns that conspire to reduce voter choices by keeping other candidates off the ballots or out of debates whould face say 10 years in prison. And again, the candidates from such campaigns should be immediately removed from office.
Put something like this into place, and you'd see campaigns that wouldn't even think about engaging in activities like this.
If we start to see bills like this, then we'd know the politicians are serious about protecting our very basic right to vote in a free and fair election. And such laws should be a priority for any alternative candidates who get elected.
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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
I like your ideas about real substantive jail time for perpertrators (sp?). I also just want to say once again that they probably aren't worrying about the Presidential election, but are trying to steal Governorships and Senate seats, and lower the margin in the house. However, we do have to remember that are elections are allready rigged by excluding all the candidates who do not have millions of dollars to buy votes.
Yes! Election tampering must be viewed as a "high crime" constituting treason, with the harshest available penalties.
And such tampering that is shown to have affected the outcome should produce a mandatory new election.
I totally agree with you on this. I take my right to vote very personally, and this whole election-stealing thing makes me really MAD!
I keep picturing third world countries and banana republics where revolutions get started because of rigged elections.
Why do we continue to let the swine pull these atrocious acts on "we the people"??
Oil companies use the "patriots" in the military and CIA to invade, slaughter, overthrow elected governments??.....FINE...NATIONALIZE ENERGY!
The media, owned by Zionist Jews betray us by not revealing the treasonous acts corporations and government constantly pull??....FINE nationalize the media!
Diebold et al keep making voter fraud programs to defraud the people's elections??.....FINE...DEMMAND PAPER BALLOTS and PROSECUTE THOSE INVOLVED FOR TREASON, throw them in prison or EXECUTE them!
The solutions are so simple!! we the people decide what happens here.....aren't you as tired as I about constantly COVERING YOUR ASS every time you bend over to pick up the "soap" around these maggots??!!
Erica Jong Tells Italians Obama Loss 'Will Spark the Second American Civil War.
Blood Will Run in the Streets'
http://www.observer.com/2008/politics/erica-jong-tells-italians-obama-loss-will-spark-second-american-civil-war-blood-will-r
But we still can't get away from the fact that John McCain, a widely respected and experienced politician who garners the full support of just about half of the American voting population, has revealed that ACORN is perpertrating one of the biggest election frauds in the history of the world. All ACORN has done, by way of response, is to present a defence that I refuse to consider (to be perfectly frank) in light of of the enormity of the accusation. If ACORN's refutation held any water at all, John McCain - a man of honour, war hero, and truth-telling maverick - would have been the first to accept it publicly.
You folks pretty much seem shocked and amazed that the theft of the single most important function of the private citizen in a democratic society is not subject to sanctions that befit the crime.
That's because you still believe the propaganda machine...that we live in a democratic society. When you finally wake up and realize that the United States of America is really an oligarchy run by and for the benefit of a small group of the most powerful people in the world who really give a ratzass about you or your piddling middle class existence, then you'll hopefully begin to look at this wonderful two-party system we have as the easily-manipulated machinery that keeps the powerful in power and keeps you grumbling and puling every four years.
Come on people...demand multi-party participation in the process and demand that your local newspapers stand up and shout for multi-party participation. Or you could just continue to be shocked and continue to snivel about it.
I'll bet you can't even name the people running for President this year and most of them certainly will NOT appear on your ballot or be discussed in your local papers and you didn't see a single one of them in the great national TV debates except for the blessed Obama and McCain. Now why would that be?
If you want true democratic processes then demand that your local newspapers write about them, demand that your representatives introduce legislation to guarantee them, write letters to the editors, write letters to TV stations, support third and fourth parties.
One first place to start in your education against the propaganda machine is to bag the idea that we are the "greatest" anything (you name it and we're arrogant enough to believe we're the best at it) and start with some facts and figures...try this site:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2079rank.html
That will tell you just how great we are in real dollars. We are the poorest nation on earth because we owe the most money to lenders. And when they finally call in the debt, you can kiss your standard of living (and the apparition of a democratic society) goodbye.
And don't forget to check out the CIA statistics on infant mortality...we rank 42nd!!! In other words, there are 41 other countries in the world that have lower infant mortality rates than we do:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html
(And who might some of those with lower infant mortality be?...the Czech Republic?...you've GOT to be kidding...CUBA??? Really, this has to be ultra-left-wing-pinko-communist LIES! Wake up folks...this data comes from your very own CIA...and if you can't trust THEM, who can you trust? When you find other countries that take better care of their babies than we do, then maybe you should question the Propaganda Machine that constantly tells you how to think about foreign countries and what a FINE system we have.)
And then there's life expectancy:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html
But as long as you believe that you have the best system, the best health care, the best two candidates, the best you-name-it, there is little incentive to take any meaningful action.
Get politically active and demand that this country finally pony up with a real democratic system that benefits the people rather than the top 5%!
If ACORN has perped 'one of the biggest election frauds in the history of the world,' then of course they should be roasted/sent to jail.
But so far, there's no verified evidence or official determination that anything of the sort has happened nor will be documented as having happened
At most, it appears that a small number of paid ACORN [voter registration] signature takers fabricated several dozen names -- which when discovered by ACORN administrators, were openly reported by ACORN administrators themselves --to both the press and government election officials.
For McCain to now spout, as he's been doing, dire possibilites about the ACORN matter on the campaign trail, for cheap political purposes, before anything more than a few irregularities have been documented, is obviously not only not "honorable," it's totally dishonorable. Just as McCains bombing of innocent North Vietnamese civilians in an insanely immoral war 38 yrs ago was totally dishonorable -- if not criminal.
On the other hand, there already HAVE BEEN been scores of 2008 election/ Republican-led maneuvers to illegally disqualify tens of thousands of mostly Democrat/low income voters in at least five states; maneuvers which have been proven and in most cased immediately reversed by either local judges or federal justice dept officials as being in violation of the Federal Voting Right Act.
Please: whatever you may think of Obama and the Democrats, don't anyone dare suggest that John McCain is an honorable man. He is at best a pre-clinical schizophrenic whose dominant darker side is utterly ruthless, violently self-entitling, and completely bereft of moral conscience. And his sub-dominant 'lighter side' is nothing but the public relations persona that tries to camouflage his deeper rottenness.
jj apple: "[McCain] at best a pre-clinical schizophrenic whose dominant darker side is utterly ruthless, violently self-entitling, and completely bereft of moral conscience. And his sub-dominant 'lighter side' is nothing but the public relations persona that tries to camouflage his deeper rottenness."
Par for the course in an exemplary kakistocracy.
Soeharto -
Phew! Your initial post above had me horrified.
I think I'm loosing my antennae for dead-pan tongue-in-cheek posts.
Having earlier read and noted some of your other rare but always on-the-mark comments, I though you'd suddenly somehow gone over to the dark side.
Apologies for my cynacism and windbag attempt at a reproof.
Cheers & health to you,
apple