Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Oh Gosh. What A Surprise.
Report Details Bias at Voting Polls
Unfair tactics and confusing rules still make it tough for many minorities to cast election ballots, and the barriers are so common that the federal safeguards for voters must be renewed, a detailed new report from a civil rights group says. [...] The 125-page report was to be released at a Washington, D.C. news conference on Tuesday. Among its findings: _Polling places and voting hours in minority neighborhoods are routinely changed shortly before elections. _Election officials were found to have illegally purged voter lists and refused to translate election materials for citizens who are not fluent in English. [...] Although barriers to minority voters are more subtle today, the report says, they are not gone — and they are no longer concentrated in the South. "This is kind of the untold story, the story doesn't grab national headlines," Lee said. "But if you look at what's happening in community after community, you see that when the numbers in minority communities reach a certain point and when they start to be interested in voting and politics, there's often resistance — and that resistance takes forms that violate the law."I recall that after the 2000 "election", the president of a local NAACP chapter told me that they had received complaints from all over the country. People were being referred to this office by offices in other regions because those offices couldn't keep up with the reports. Recall what I said a few posts below about Republicans' idea of "election reform" making it harder for people to vote. But only certain people, people that we might call "identifiable Democrats".
Comments:
<< Home
Given that Republicans' idea of democracy is what any thinking person would call oligarchy their definition of a clean election seems to be of a piece.
Our election system was drawn up by people who didn't want democracy breaking out, they'd had too much of that in the years of the Articles of Confederation. Too many farmers endangering their financial interests, etc. The several states added on their own impediments to democracy. The system is entirely corroded and produces rule by criminals who are stealing everything in sight.
Any system that makes voting by a qualified voter difficult is anti-democratic and will produce a government that doesn't have any right to govern. Any system that shuts out legally cast votes, the same.
The Republican-fascists will not fix it, their stooges on the federal bench will try to prevent fixing it. We are going to have to take it back, by force, more than likely.
One of my favorite books, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. By Charles A. Beard is a good place to start. Lani Guinier's work in this area makes the most sense to me. Add paper ballots marked and counted by hand and you could just find democracy breaking out. Maybe people would think it was worth taking an interest again. Politics is the birthright of all people, it should be their primary interest.
Our election system was drawn up by people who didn't want democracy breaking out, they'd had too much of that in the years of the Articles of Confederation. Too many farmers endangering their financial interests, etc. The several states added on their own impediments to democracy. The system is entirely corroded and produces rule by criminals who are stealing everything in sight.
Any system that makes voting by a qualified voter difficult is anti-democratic and will produce a government that doesn't have any right to govern. Any system that shuts out legally cast votes, the same.
The Republican-fascists will not fix it, their stooges on the federal bench will try to prevent fixing it. We are going to have to take it back, by force, more than likely.
One of my favorite books, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. By Charles A. Beard is a good place to start. Lani Guinier's work in this area makes the most sense to me. Add paper ballots marked and counted by hand and you could just find democracy breaking out. Maybe people would think it was worth taking an interest again. Politics is the birthright of all people, it should be their primary interest.
# posted by 
: 2/21/2006 06:37:00 PM
: 2/21/2006 06:37:00 PM
"Given that Republicans' idea of democracy is what any thinking person would call oligarchy their definition of a clean election seems to be of a piece." Amen.
Post a Comment
<< Home
More blogs about politics.
