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Steal This Link
Thursday, October 28th, 2004 08:39 amWell, it's officially too late to Pull a Buckner.
This morning, Democracy Now aired a report created by Greg Palast. It's also airing on the BBC, but the RNC has threatened to withhold interviews for airing it, so most US news organizations aren't running it. You can watch it here.
The report outlines some of the ways Republican partisans are trying to stop Democratic Floridians from voting. In addition to an under-cover fellow filming early voters from a SUV with blacked-out windows and tens of thousands of people wrongly purged as felons (remember that problem?), he talked about something that's downright dirty. Republican operatives got students at FSU to sign what they thought was a petition to legalize medical marijuana. In fact, the petition covered portions of a voter registration form. The Republicans then filled out the Change of Party and Change of Address sections, changing the unwitting voter from a Democrat to a Republican and moving them from the panhandle to Orlando. This scam was caught because a top election official's daughter got hoodwinked. This is a blatant violation of federal law.
I don't claim that Democrats are not engaging in similar law-breaking measures, I just haven't heard of them. But this story illustrates a huge problem. People are trying to prevent other people from casting their vote. They are not content to make the arguments for their candidates and issues and let the voters decide. Rather, they are attempting people to not express their opinion. As Greg Palast noted, the perception in Europe is that the USA is running elections like Zimbabwe. How can we ensure free and fair elections in Iraq when supporters of the President don't even desire them at home?
If the St. Louis Cardinals had hired operatives to prevent Red Sox players from playing in the World Series, the Commissioner of Major League Baseball would probably strip their championship. If a student tried to get an A by preventing the top students from taking a test, and thus lowering the curve, he would be flunked. But Jeb Bush (a disinterested neutral party in this election, natch) says law enforcement agents will have no time in the coming weeks to arrest people who commit election fraud. So not only are people wrongly prevented from voting for being on a felons list, people committing felonies are allowed to carry on voting.
There's more to the story. Check out the video above, or listen to it from the Democracy Now website. And to folks who vote absentee to avoid computer glitches, are you really sure those votes are being counted?
This morning, Democracy Now aired a report created by Greg Palast. It's also airing on the BBC, but the RNC has threatened to withhold interviews for airing it, so most US news organizations aren't running it. You can watch it here.
The report outlines some of the ways Republican partisans are trying to stop Democratic Floridians from voting. In addition to an under-cover fellow filming early voters from a SUV with blacked-out windows and tens of thousands of people wrongly purged as felons (remember that problem?), he talked about something that's downright dirty. Republican operatives got students at FSU to sign what they thought was a petition to legalize medical marijuana. In fact, the petition covered portions of a voter registration form. The Republicans then filled out the Change of Party and Change of Address sections, changing the unwitting voter from a Democrat to a Republican and moving them from the panhandle to Orlando. This scam was caught because a top election official's daughter got hoodwinked. This is a blatant violation of federal law.
I don't claim that Democrats are not engaging in similar law-breaking measures, I just haven't heard of them. But this story illustrates a huge problem. People are trying to prevent other people from casting their vote. They are not content to make the arguments for their candidates and issues and let the voters decide. Rather, they are attempting people to not express their opinion. As Greg Palast noted, the perception in Europe is that the USA is running elections like Zimbabwe. How can we ensure free and fair elections in Iraq when supporters of the President don't even desire them at home?
If the St. Louis Cardinals had hired operatives to prevent Red Sox players from playing in the World Series, the Commissioner of Major League Baseball would probably strip their championship. If a student tried to get an A by preventing the top students from taking a test, and thus lowering the curve, he would be flunked. But Jeb Bush (a disinterested neutral party in this election, natch) says law enforcement agents will have no time in the coming weeks to arrest people who commit election fraud. So not only are people wrongly prevented from voting for being on a felons list, people committing felonies are allowed to carry on voting.
There's more to the story. Check out the video above, or listen to it from the Democracy Now website. And to folks who vote absentee to avoid computer glitches, are you really sure those votes are being counted?
