The Endurance To Vote

"The Endurance To Vote"
Submitted for posting by Collin County Democrat Joan Cross

The year was 1962. I had recently moved to California with my young husband. We had married right out of high school and moved to Santa Monica, California. I was determined to get a stellar education and to me that meant UCLA. We, however, were close to poverty; so we got jobs and went to Santa Monica City College until we could declare our residency.

I was bored, but I was quickly infatuated with the 1962 elections that were soon to occupy much of my time. I knew little about California politics, but the handsome young John Fitzgerald Kennedy commanded my attention. I soon knew I was on his team, but it was a hard sell when I wrote my yellow dog Democratic mother., Mom knew her politics, and she agreed with his platform, but he was too young(actually he was born two years before her) and he was a Catholic. Mother was a Southern Baptist, and Catholics were strange to her. She also thought he would never be a faithful man. I adored my mother, but I was finally growing up and this was our first open philosophical disagreement. But mother finally cast her vote for the Catholic, but made me eat my faith in him when woman popped up in JFK’s life. Mother had slept with one man, my dad, and she had no patience for a philanderer; however, she had less patience for the Catholics.

I volunteered to work at the polls when the elections came around and it was here that I learned the power of the vote. The day started with excitement. There was so many protestors and pole dishonesty that we were cautioned to be very careful about who we allowed to vote. Falsified records were everywhere.

I took my job seriously; so when an old, crippled man faced me, I was stoic. I was told that many voters came in disguise. I looked for his records. He was not registered. “I’m sorry. You can not vote for I have no records for you. The old man’s face turned red. “I vote”. “I citizn”. I refused stoically and advised he try another precinct. His anger real, but it shook me a bit when I saw tears in his eyes. “This America” “America is free”. “I find my vote”.

Voter Disenfranchisement

Historically disenfranchised voters, as illustrated by the story submitted by Joan Cross, have often been the target of voter fraud allegations. There is a long history in America of certain groups using allegations of voter fraud to restrict and shape the electorate.

In the late nineteenth century when newly freed black Americans were swept into electoral politics, and where blacks were the majority of the electorate, it was the Southern Democrats who were threatened by a loss of power, and it was the Southern Democrats that erected the so called "Jim Crow" rules that were said to be necessary to respond to alleged "voter fraud" by black voters. Many 20th Century Southern Democrats switched to the Republican Party after President Franklin Roosevelt,President John Kennedy and then President Lyndon Johnson championed voters' rights and the elimination of "Jim Crow" type laws.

Today, the success of voter registration drives among minorities and low income people in recent years threatens to expand the base of the Democratic party and tip the balance of power away from the Republicans. Consequently, the use of baseless "voter fraud" allegations for partisan advantage has become the exclusive domain of Republican party activists.

There is a major difference between Election Fraud and Voter Fraud.

The Politics of Voter Fraud Study by Lorraine Minnite PDF

Voter Fraud is the "Republican talking point" claim that large groups of people knowingly and willingly give false information to establish voter eligibility, and knowingly and willingly vote illegally or participate in a conspiracy to encourage illegal voting by others. Republicans claim that ineligible voters such as non-citizens, non-residents, those with fictional identification and, in some states, felons are voting in large numbers. At the federal level, records show that only 24 people were convicted of or pleaded guilty to illegal voting between 2002 and 2005, an average of eight people a year.

Election Fraud is a broad term applied to the manipulation of election results through corruption of the electoral process. Electoral corruption is accomplished by suppressing the vote of certain groups of voters or the actual manipulation of vote totals by election officials, candidates, party organizations, advocacy groups or campaign workers.

Voter Suppression can take many forms as reported in a Huffington Post article:

In El Paso County, Colorado, the county clerk -- a delegate to the Republican National Convention -- told out-of-state undergraduates at Colorado College, falsely, that they couldn't vote in Colorado if their parents claim them as dependents on their taxes.

In Montgomery County, Virginia, the county registrar issued a press release warning out-of-state college students, falsely, that if they register to vote in Virginia, they won't be eligible for coverage under their parents' health and car insurance, and that "if you have a scholarship attached to your former residence, you could lose this funding."

In Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, Democratic voters received a mailing containing tear-out requests for absentee ballots addressed to the clerk in Caledonia -- the wrong location. In Middleton, Wisconsin, Democratic voters received absentee ballot requests addressed to the clerk in Madison -- the wrong address. Both mailers were sent by the McCain campaign.

Florida, Michigan and Ohio have some of the country's highest home mortgage foreclosure rates. "Because many homeowners in foreclosure are black or poor," says the New York Times, "and are considered probable Democratic voters in many areas, the issue has begun to have political ramifications." If you're one of the million Americans who lost a home through foreclosure, and if you didn't file a change of address with your election board, you're a sitting duck for an Election Day challenge by a partisan poll watcher holding a public list of foreclosed homes. In states like New Mexico and Iowa, the number of foreclosures is greater than the number of votes by which George W. Bush carried the state in 2004.

In the 2006 election, according to the nonpartisan Fair Elections Legal Network, black voters in Virginia got computer-generated phone calls from a bogus "Virginia Election Commission" telling them that they could be arrested if they went to the wrong polling place; in Maryland, out-of-state leafleters gave phony Democratic sample ballots to black voters with the names of Republican candidates checked in red; in New Mexico, Democratic voters got personal phone calls from out of state that directed them to the wrong polling place. Does anyone think this won't be tried again in 2008?

The reason behind Alberto Gonzales' attempted purge of US Attorneys was that some of them wouldn't knuckle under to Karl Rove's plan to concoct an "election fraud" hoax that would put Republicans in control of the nation's voting lists. "We have, as you know, an enormous and growing problem with elections in certain parts of America today," Rove falsely told the Republican National Lawyers Association, an evidence-less problem crying out for a draconian solution. Does anyone think that Rove's move from the White House to Fox has dampened Republican ardor for this ruse?

Acorn has just completed the largest, most successful nonpartisan voter registration drive in U.S. history for the 2008 Presidential Election. Acorn helped 1.3 million low-income, minority and young voters across the country register to vote.

Unfortunately, just as in 2006, Bogus "Voter Fraud Charges" Aim to Camouflage Voter Suppression. Acorn's success in bringing people into the democratic process, have been greeted with unfounded accusations to disparage our work and help maintain the status quo of an unbalanced electorate. - After a similar spate of charges against Acorn in 2006, America learned that then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had fired Republican U.S. Attorneys because they refused to prosecute voter assistance groups on trumped up and bogus fraud charges. This was and remains the heart of the U.S. Attorney-gate scandal that led Karl Rove, Gonzales and other top Department of Justice officials to resign. Based on the evidence, career, non-partisan investigators recommended the appointing of a special prosecutor to determine whether criminal laws were violated in the ouster of those Republican U.S. Attorneys.

A recent flurry of activity in the long-standing King Lincoln v. OH Sec. of State lawsuit concerning voting rights violations in the state during the 2004 election has resulted in the judge lifting the stay to allow depositions to be taken of key GOP tech-guru Mike Connell, and potentially others, such as Karl Rove. From BradBlog.com:

The lifting of the stay comes on the heels of a troubling declaration filed with the court by Republican cyber-security expert and Connell colleague, Stephen Spoonamore who testified that he's concerned a classic "Man in the Middle" cyber hack may have occurred on Election Night in 2004 as Connell's Republican firm handled results reporting for Ohio's Presidential election.

According to Spoonamore, control of Ohio's election system by Connell's firm, may have allowed for the compromise of election results as they were being reported. The structure of the system, as results were allowed to be first diverted to Connell's servers that night, would have been "cause to launch an immediate fraud investigation" in the banking industry, charges Spoonamore, who ferrets out such problems in the financial services industry.

Spoonamore further notes in his declaration, in regard to Connell, that "He has admitted to me that in his zeal to 'save the unborn' he may have helped others who have compromised elections."

The federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requires each state to gather a list of its registered voters, then cross-reference that list with information from other state agencies. This law is intended to prevent voter fraud by purging the dead, the felons and other ineligible voters from the lists.

States and counties now regularly update their voter registration databases for accuracy, removing people who have moved or died and in some states people who have committed a felony. Updating voter registration databases for accuracy is a necessary and appropriate function, however, when the "clean up" process removes "qualified" voters through software programming error or intentional voter suppression motivations, it is typically termed "voter purging."

A new report by the non-partisan public policy and law institute, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law exposes troubling new insight into the voter registration database "clean up" process. There are no national standards and as a result, the cleaning up of voter rolls is not as precise as it should be and eligible voters are often wrongly removed. The video at left show a recent CBS News report by chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian that raises questions about the way states maintain their voter registration rolls.

The Brennan report calls the nationwide voter registration "clean up" process "chaotic," shrouded in secrecy, riddled with inaccuracies, prone to error and vulnerabilities to manipulation.

During the past two years, The PBS NOW program has investigated the state of America's election system. The NOW program website lists several reports giving evidence that our vote is in danger of manipulation and outright suppression.

Voter Caging
NOW reports on evidence showing that, in 2004, Republicans orchestrated a plan to hold down the Democratic vote in key battleground states. The plan centered on an effort to disqualify voters based on their race and ethnicity.

Taking the Initiative
Each election year, states around the country put ballot initiatives on a range of issues up to a popular vote. In 2006, NOW investigated how national organizations and wealthy individuals are often the driving force behind so-called "local" ballot initiatives.

Down for the Count
NOW looks at how problems with new voting machines introduced in the 2004 and 2006 elections undermine the integrity of our democratic process. Industry experts charge that the government implemented new technology too quickly and without safeguards.

Block the Vote
Under the guise of preventing voter fraud, several states have passed laws severely restricting voter registration and requiring more identification from voters to cast a ballot. NOW reports that the result has been the disenfranchisement of thousands of voters, among them the elderly, poor and minorities.

Obama Leads In Critical Swing States

According to a new Quinnipiac swing state poll Obama leads with 51 percent of voters to McCain's 43 percent in Florida, Obama leads McCain 50-42 in Ohio, and Pennsylvania gives Obama his largest lead 54-39.

Take a look at the Pollster.com running average of national polls and you can clearly see Obama begin to break away in the middle of September.

Barack Obama leads John McCain nationally by a margin of 46 percent to 42 percent, opening his biggest edge since the campaign entered the fall stretch after the two major party conventions, according to a new Ipsos-McClatchy poll.

New Voters Like Obama, But May Not Show up at Polls

The Wall Street Journal
By SARA MURRAY
OCTOBER 1, 2008

Nationwide poll of Americans who are eligible to vote for the first time, or who skipped the previous election but are registered now, found that they back Sen. Obama over Sen. John McCain by a margin of 61% to 30%.

The survey, conducted by the Wall Street Journal, NBC News and the MySpace networking Web site, also found these voters have distinctly more positive impressions of Sen. Obama than any of the other three candidates atop the Democratic and Republican tickets...

But that hardly means the Obama campaign can count on them. When asked to rank their interest in the Nov. 4 election, just 49% said they were "very interested." By comparison, 70% of voters of all age groups said they were "very interested," according to a separate Journal/NBC News national poll taken a week ago.

Moreover, 54% of the new voters said they would definitely vote Nov. 4.

The findings of the survey underscore the opportunities and the hurdles that face the Obama campaign. It has spent millions of dollars to register voters, as well as on plans to get them to the polls.

Traditionally it has been highly difficult for campaigns to get newly registered voters, especially young ones, to show up on Election Day.

Read the full story

Help Get Out The Vote (GOTV)

The poll sited in the WSJ article above is why we must help by volunteering to urge potential voters to GOTV through Phone Banking and Block Walking to personally urge people to vote.

The Democratic Party of Collin County, Texas Democratic Women of Collin County and the Obama Campaign Org of Collin County have pooled their GOTV planning efforts for the next month. All you have to do to help GOTV is to go one of the event calendars and RSVP for a "Phone Bank" or Block Walk event.

• Democratic Party of Collin County - click here for the calendar, pick an event and then RSVP
• Obama Campaign Org of Collin County - click here for the calendar, pick an event and then RSVP

Reassessing Ronald Reagan's "Government Is The Problem" Declaration

Ronald Reagan, in his first inaugural address, famously declared that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Twenty-eight years later, in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, Reagan's conservative anti-government philosophy of governance and his call for deregulation on all fronts must be critically reassessed. (Video - Speaker Nancy Pelosi 9/29 on the conservative anti-government approach to governance. This is the speech that so offended Republican House members that they felt compelled to voted against Pres. Bush's financial bailout.)

McCain has often quoted Reagan saying, "government is not the solution, it is the problem" and "I'm fundamentally a deregulator." Does McCain Still Agree with Reagan that Government is the Problem? The 2008 candidates' view of the role of government should be one of the central questions during the last few weeks of the campaign. This and other questions on their philosophy of governance should be put to the presidential and vice presidential candidates during their next debate:

"Senator McCain, given the part deregulation has played in the current economic crisis and your support of a massive government bailout of the financial industry, are you now ready to reassess your support of legislation that deregulated the banking system and financial industry?"

"Senator Obama, given the part deregulation played in the current economic crisis would you support eliminating the Enron-Loophole legislation and support restoring the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, the 1956 Bank Holding Company Act, the 1968 Truth In Lending Act and other financial system regulatory legislation that John McCain has actively sought to eliminate during his time in Congress?"

Similarly, other candidates who will appear on Collin County ballots should be question whether they firmly accept or now question Pres. Reagan's anti-government and anti-regulation philosophy of governance. Conservatives like Republican incumbent for the U.S. 3rd Texas Congressional District, Sam Johnson, age 78, Republican incumbent for the U.S. 4th Texas Congressional District, Ralph Hall, age 85, and Republican incumbent Senator John Cornyn have all joined Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain, in an avid push to fully deregulate the American financial system and return it to a 1920s-era environment. Johnson, Hall and Cornyn should be asked if they are ready to reassess their votes to deregulate the banking system and financial industry or do they continue to favor yet more deregulation.

Rick Noriega, the Democratic Candidate running for the U.S. Senate seat to replace incumbent John Cornyn, Tom Daley, the Democratic Candidate running for the U.S. House of Representatives 3rd Congressional District seat to replace incumbent Sam Johnson, and Glenn Melançon the Democratic Candidate running for the U.S. House of Representatives 4th Congressional District seat to replace incumbent Ralph Moody Hall each state in their campaign literature that they believe Republican deregulation has gone too far and some regulatory oversight should be restored.

Related postings:
McCain Advocates Deregulating Health Care
Republicans Spending Borrowed Money Worse Than Drunken Sailors
Obama's Economic Blueprint for Change
Joe Biden On The Economy
Republican Deregulation To Cost Taxpayers $1.5 Trillion
A New "New Deal" For America
A Republican Legacy To America

Rick Noriega Wins ActBlue's Blue America Contest

Rick Noriega, the Democratic nominee to replace Bush enabler John Cornyn for the U.S. Senate seat for Texas, this weekend won the Blue America Senate contest with 947 donors who contributed $20,500.

On Sunday I attended the "Vote Democratic to Fix Our Future" dinner hosted by the Texas Democratic Women of Collin County where Col. Noriega was one of the speakers. In his remarks about the financial mess George Bush, John McCain the Republican Party have given American taxpayers Noriega said, “I am outraged that taxpayers are having to foot the $700 billion bill to clean up the mess made by greedy Wall Street investors and mortgage lenders. This is what happens when John Cornyn takes nearly $1.5 million from the perpetrators of the crisis, spends six years championing an anything goes culture on Wall Street, and abdicates his duty to protect Texans from Wall Street greed. Cornyn’s special interest record is something Texans have come to expect but can no longer afford."

John Cornyn has new campaign ad out where he says, "No one is happy with the way things are being done in Washington" and America needs real change. Senator Cornyn is right, we do need real change - Texans need to change the political leaders who have taken America down the wrong road for the last eight years.

Cafferty: If Palin "Doesn't Scare The Hell Out Of You, It Should"

"If John McCain wins, this woman will be one 72-year-old's heartbeat away from being president of the United States, and if that doesn't scare the hell out of you, it should," CNN's Jack Cafferty said.

National Review's Kathleen Parker writes that the hockey mom / Governor Palin actually might not be ready to be a heartbeat from the presidency.

Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

In her column on the conservative magazine's Web site Friday, Parker notes Palin's life story sets her apart from traditional feminists, but she realizes that those superficialities alone aren't enough to prepare her for the White House. Unfortunately, as Palin's recent appearances reveal, she doesn't have much else to offer.

Indeed, no presidential nominee of either party in the last century has seemed so willing to endanger the country's security as McCain in his reckless choice of such an unqualified running mate. McCain is 72 years old; has had four melanomas, a particularly voracious form of cancer; and he refuses to release his complete medical records.

Bush Risks Wrath of Main Street To Save Banks

The Independent UK
Friday, 26 September 2008

A fictional scenario of financial collapse could not improve on the perfect storm that is battering the US economy. The crisis has been a decade or more in the making, but the hurricane has struck with its full fury at the worst imaginable moment.

The least trusted and most unpopular president in the country's modern history is serving his final months, his credibility and moral authority close to zero as he tackles a disaster partly, at least, of his own making. In the partisan heat of the campaign to replace him, politics cannot but intrude on the most sober judgment.

Proof of that came last night when, after a bailout deal seemed close, Republican Congressmen rebelled – against a measure urged by a Republican president. Suspicions were rife that their resistance was largely aimed at giving cover to John McCain, who had rushed back to Washington only for an outline agreement to be reached without him.

Read the rest of the story

Votes Are Lost As Homes Are Lost In Foreclosure

As homes are lost in U.S., fears that votes will be, too
International Herald Tribune
By Ian Urbina
September 25, 2008

More than a million people have lost their homes through foreclosure in the last two years, and many of them are still registered to vote at the address of the home they lost. Now election officials and voting rights groups are struggling to prevent thousands of them from losing their vote when they go to the polls in November.

Many of these voters will be disqualified at the polls because, in the tumult of their foreclosure, they neglected to tell their election board of their new address. Some could be forced to vote with a provisional ballot or challenged by partisan poll watchers, a particular concern among Democrats who fear that low-income voters will be singled out. That could add confusion and stretch out lines that are already expected to be long because of unprecedented turnout.

Federal election officials say they are concerned that voters are not being properly informed of how to update their addresses.

"Our biggest concern is that many of these voters will stay home or that poll workers will give misinformation," said Rosemary Rodriguez, the chairwoman of the federal Election Assistance Commission, which oversees voting.

Todd Haupt, a home builder, lost his home in Josephville, Missouri, to foreclosure last year, and said he had since become much more interested in politics. But asked whether he had remembered to update his voter registration information when he moved into his parents' home in St. Charles, Missouri, Haupt, 33, paused silently. "Is that required?" he said. "I had no idea."

Read the full story

Bush Administration’s Fuzzy Bailout Proposal

Peter Orszag, the Congressional Budget Office director, tells Congress that the proposed $700 billion bailout may worsen the current financial crisis. Orszag says, “. . . intervention on a massive scale is not without risks to taxpayers and to the economy. Almost by definition, the intervention cannot solve insolvency problems without shifting costs to the taxpayers. Ironically, the intervention could even trigger additional failures of large institutions, because some institutions may be carrying troubled [junk] assets on their books at inflated values. Establishing clearer prices [through the proposed bailout process] might reveal those institutions to be insolvent.”

Forbes writes that the Bush administration’s bailout proposal was thrown together in a rush without thinking it through:

The more Congress examines the Bush administration's bailout plan, the hazier its outcome gets. At a Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle complained of being rushed to pass legislation.

"The secretary and the administration need to know that what they have sent to us is not acceptable," says Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn. The committee's top Republican, Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, says he's concerned about its cost and whether it will even work.

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

“It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

Barack's Press Conference

In this time of economic crisis, Barack approached John McCain to suggest a joint statement of principles to guide a recovery plan. McCain then announced he would suspend his campaign and requested a postponement of Friday’s debate. In his press conference, Barack made it clear that a debate is needed now more than ever. Watch the video

Washington Helped Drag Europe into the Credit Crisis

Spiegel Online

Response to Washington's multi-billion dollar Wall Street bailout has involved a lot of skeptical grumbling in Germany and the UK. German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the Bush administration has mishandled Wall Street, and that its refusal to adopt stricter rules led to the current crisis.

The United States government is campaigning around the world for support for its multi-billion dollar Wall Street rescue package. The reaction has been skeptical at best -- and in Europe the plan has been met with bare-knuckled criticism.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has accused the US government of serious failures which she believes contributed to the current credit crisis. In particular she blamed Washington for resisting stricter regulation.

On Monday she also said the crisis could hurt the German economy. "The whole thing is going to set the pace for the economy in the coming months and perhaps years," Merkel said at a meeting of her party, the conservative Christian Democrats.

Read the full story

Americans Abroad Rushing to Fill Out Ballots

Spiegel Online
By Ira Porter in Berlin

In countries outside the US, teams of volunteers and organizers are working long hours to make sure Americans living abroad can vote if they want to. The traditionally low number of overseas voters may skyrocket this year. There are no reliable statistics for the number of expatriated Americans hoping to participate in this November's election. An estimated 5 to 7 million Americans live abroad, including military personnel.

Observers have noticed a change in sentiment. Jody Couser, a spokeswoman for the registration group Democrats Abroad, said, "We don't have exact statistics, but I can tell you we're signing up thousands of people every week."

Read the full story