What's next, a poll tax?

by Prometheus 6
October 28, 2003 - 8:53am.
on Politics

I had a cartoon to run with this, but that seems to bother folks for some reason, so…



NAACP Ridicules Republican Election Day Intimidation
Urges voters of color to go to the polls and defend their rights

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) today ridiculed the Republican Party for planning to place Election Day challengers at 59 voting precincts in predominantly Black neighborhoods in Kentucky. Voters there will cast ballots in the hotly contested race for governor on Tuesday, November 4, 2003.

Kweisi Mfume, NAACP President and CEO said: "The use of challengers at majority African American precincts amounts to nothing but blatant voter intimidation by the Republican Party. All Kentucky voters deserve to cast their ballots without the presence of this type of threat or harassment. The GOP must not be allowed to frighten voters of color away from exercising their constitutional rights in Kentucky or any other jurisdiction in the nation."

William E. Cofield, NAACP National Board of Directors, who represents Kentucky, said: "It is reprehensible. Anytime the GOP can target just Black precincts and not place challengers at all of the polling places is racist. We are going to fight it."

Kentucky law allows each political party to place one challenger at any precinct on Election Day to question the credentials of any voter who they have "a reason to believe" is not registered, not who they claim to be or not a resident in the precinct. Challenged voters must sign an oath asserting their legitimacy before receiving a ballot. Those who refuse to sign would not be allowed to vote unless an election officer intervenes on their behalf. The Democratic Party does not plan to use challengers.

Mfume encouraged African American voters to carry a picture ID with a current address to their voting precincts "go to the polls prepared to defend your right to vote and armed with your photo identification," he said.

The NAACP, a non-partisan organization, has conducted voter registration drives and get-out-the vote campaigns for 94 years. It is a prominent and active leader in guaranteeing voting rights across the country.

Founded in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is the nation?s oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its half-million adult and youth members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter registration drives and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.

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Submitted by Al-Muhajabah (not verified) on October 28, 2003 - 12:51pm.

Disgusting. Will voters be able to tell who the challengers are by their white pointed hoods?

Submitted by r@d@r (not verified) on October 28, 2003 - 1:37pm.

[trying hard to stay calm...what would martin do...stay calm...do not get violent...] this type of shit really brings out the john brown in me.

Submitted by ex-lion tamer (not verified) on October 28, 2003 - 1:43pm.

Trackback from ex-lion tamer:

prometheus6 sounds the alarm. my comment: this type of shit brings out the john brown in me....

Trackback from Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Blogs:

NAACP press release October 24, 2003 NAACP Ridicules Republican Election Day Intimidation Urges voters of color to go to the......

Submitted by Qusan (not verified) on October 28, 2003 - 9:20pm.

This is one of the most asinine things I have heard in a while. Do they think your average 'negro' is just going to let someone challenge them? By what standard will they decide who they 'have reason to believe' may be in some sort of violation? I thought we all looked alike!I guess this means there will have to be cops there too because I, for one, would take great exception to someone challenging me or attempting to deny my right to vote. Sure hope nobody gets punched in the face but ... don't start none, won't be none ...

Submitted by P6 (not verified) on October 28, 2003 - 9:51pm.

Qusan:It's called gaming the system. If you can jam shit up until people have to go back to work or otherwise can't hang around anymore, you eliminate a vote without breaking the law.I don't know on what grounds a challenge can be made. Like, if they can just roll on you and say, "prove you registered to vote." It strikes me that such a challenge should have support before even approaching a voter about it.If all you need to do is sign an affidavit, I say sign it and vote. Though to tell the truth, I'd be tempted to start something myself.

Submitted by { a burst of light } (not verified) on October 28, 2003 - 10:59pm.

Trackback from { a burst of light }:

And they wonder why Black people won't/can't trust them! The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) today ridiculed the Republican Party for planning to place Election Day challengers at 59 voting precincts in predominantly ......

Submitted by gtdread (not verified) on October 29, 2003 - 12:58pm.

It must be soooo hard to be a Black Republican!

Submitted by Al-Muhajabah (not verified) on October 29, 2003 - 1:04pm.

I agree with the last comment. Also it must be hard to be a Muslim Republican, gay Republican, etc.

Submitted by P6 (not verified) on October 29, 2003 - 5:41pm.

A lot of these types join the Republicans because they are the party in vogue, and they think they can change the party from within.They should read Chuang-tzu.

Submitted by { a burst of light } (not verified) on October 31, 2003 - 3:46am.

Trackback from { a burst of light }:

And they wonder why Black people won't/can't trust them! The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) today ridiculed the Republican Party for planning to place Election Day challengers at 59 voting precincts in predominantly ......

Submitted by phelps (not verified) on November 2, 2003 - 3:57pm.

Looks like the NAACP is in spin overdrive to me. They keep calling them black precincts, but they won't call them what they also are -- Democrat precincts. Given the Democrat history of voter fraud, I would consider it wise to put challengers in too.One the complaints was, "How do they decide who to challenge?" I have some ideas. If someone wants to vote without showing ID, challenge them. If you see the same person come up twice, challenge them. It isn't that hard to figure out.If you can show me a black Republican precinct where they do this, then you have a case. Until then, it is spin, just like the allegation that the Florida Felon situation was disproportionately targeting blacks. Felonies disproportionately target blacks, and while I have arguments both ways about that one, it doesn't have jack to do with the Florida vote. When you have a group of people voting as a block, it is pretty hard to target the opposition without targeting the block. This is like the Republicans claiming reverse racism if the Democrats put challengers in hayseed white precincts. It isn't reverse-racism, and it isn't class-warfare. It is just politics.

Submitted by P6 (not verified) on November 2, 2003 - 4:43pm.

What "history of Democratic voter fraud" are you talking about?If someone wants to vote without showing ID, challenge them.You'd better be sure showing ID is a requirement to vote. If it is, it's the poll worker, not a Republican watcher, that should be asking for it. That also takes care of the "voting twice" thing.Try again.If you can show me a black Republican precinct where they do this, then you have a case.Because there's no such thing as a Black Republican precinct, I have to invert this: If you can show me a Black Democratic precinct where they do this, then you have a case.

Submitted by phelps (not verified) on November 3, 2003 - 9:17am.

It doesn't matter if showing ID is required by law. What matters is that this is a reasonable reason for someone to suspect an alleged voter. It is still up to the Election Judge to decide whether or not the challenge is valid.In a lot of places it isn't required. I don't know if Mississippi is one of them.And you made my point on the black/democrat issue. There is no way for Republicans to target Democrats without targeting blacks. Your theory is unfalsifiable. (Remember this post of yours?)

Submitted by P6 (not verified) on November 3, 2003 - 10:39am.

Phelps:You said "if someone wants to vote without ID, challenge them." If the law doesn't require ID then that alone is not grounds for a challenge.What I want to know is, how does someone from outside the district claim to know who is in the district?As for targeting Black folks vs targeting Democratic folks, why aren't they targeting white Democratic district? You claim there's a istory of Democratic voter fraud…does it only involve Black Democratic voters? And where is this mystical case history you mention?What I'm looking for is grounds for challenging Black Democratic districts and not white ones. Because if "Democratic" isn't the determining factor for which districts are targeted, well…

Submitted by Phelps (not verified) on November 5, 2003 - 9:28pm.

(I thought I posted this this morning, but it seems to have gone into the ether. At least, I hope it was the ether and not the memory hole.)If the law doesn't require an ID, that doesn't mean that you can't be suspicious of someone who doesn't provide one. They have to establish identity some other way. (IIRC, you can be "personally known" to the election judge in some states and get by.)As for White/Black Democrats, I feel safe saying that you can count the number of white 80-90% Demo precincts in Mississippi on one hand, and probably not even use any fingers. If you look at the top percentile Demo precincts in Texas, then you are going to see black precincts. (That means you need to convince more white people.)In other words, if they are targetting the most heavily Demo precincts, they are going to be black precincts. As for the voter fraud, this is the history I was talking about. (The Republicans have thier history of voter fraud, but that was Lincoln's election.)

Submitted by P6 (not verified) on November 5, 2003 - 10:20pm.

If the law doesn't require an ID, that doesn't mean that you can't be suspicious of someone who doesn't provide one.

It does mean you need a different reason to be suspicious.
As for White/Black Democrats, I feel safe saying that you can count the number of white 80-90% Demo precincts in Mississippi on one hand, and probably not even use any fingers. If you look at the top percentile Demo precincts in Texas, then you are going to see black precincts. (That means you need to convince more white people.)In other words, if they are targetting the most heavily Demo precincts, they are going to be black precincts.
They're not going to win 80-90% Democratic precincts anyway. And since Black folks are so truly outnumbered in Texas, if your racial breakdown is accurate they don't need to do this sort of crap at all.And your voter fraud example goes back to 1969. That's probably because all the more recent allegations have been manufactured by Republicans. And let's not even discuss general sleazy tactics…oh, wait, that's the subject here, isn't it?

Submitted by Phelps (not verified) on November 6, 2003 - 9:09am.

(Those permalinks are hosed. I think the first one was the SD one, but I don't know what the second was. I thought at first you were expecting me to take Clinton's word at face value.)There looked like a whole lot of spin on the SD thing, just like here. You had three allegedly false affidavits. Submit them to the Grand Jury for perjury and punish them harshly, then move on. I'm not married to the Republican party.The spin part is where they try to make it out to be something that it isn't. The "pre-worded affidavits?" I've read hundreds (if not thousanfs) of affidavits and I've NEVER seen an affidavit that wasn't pre-worded. That is the whole point. You tell an attorney what you want to say, he drafts it to make it comport to the rules, and then you sign it. When you have a good case, you don't need to guild the lily.

Submitted by P6 (not verified) on November 6, 2003 - 12:20pm.

Those false affidavits, created and distributed by the Repubs, were then used by the Repubs to accuse the Democratic party of vote tampering.If you're not married to the Repubs, you really neeed to stop defending their sleazy tactics. And you need to stop tarring Democrats with a 30-year old brush when the Repubs have such a nice new one (or two or…) to work with.

Submitted by phelps (not verified) on November 7, 2003 - 12:49pm.

Here's the problem -- I don't see anything sleazy about people looking for voter fraud. If the Demos want to put poll watchers at every other precinct, I'm fine with that. Put big 6'6" black guys in NoI suits with bow-ties at every polling place. As long as they keep their hands to themselves and play by the rules, I'm all for it.Both sides try to win, and both sides should try to win. But what I see is the Republicans doing the best they can within the rules, while the Demos want to try to change the rules in the middle of the game (like only recounting certain places in FL, not counting the absentee military vote in FL, trying to get a waiver of the law to change candidates in Jersey at the last minute, etc.)

Submitted by P6 (not verified) on November 7, 2003 - 12:54pm.

Put big 6'6" black guys in NoI suits with bow-ties at every polling place.Hmmm....

Submitted by ronn (not verified) on November 7, 2003 - 9:17pm.

"Put big 6'6" black guys in NoI suits with bow-ties at every polling place."Ah-ha!