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May 24, 2013
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 Who Gets to Vote?Posted on Oct 16, 2008By Amy Goodman The 2008 presidential election may see the highest participation in U.S. history. Voter-registration organizations and local election boards have been overwhelmed by enthusiastic people eager to vote. But not everyone is happy about this blossoming of democracy. ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has become a lightning rod for the right wing. ACORN’s Web site notes that “the electorate does not reflect the citizenry of the United States of America. It skews whiter, older, more educated and more affluent than the citizenry as a whole.” Bertha Lewis, ACORN’s lead organizer, told me: “We organize low- and moderate-income people, usually folks who are minorities—African-Americans, Latinos, Asians and working-class white people. And most of these folks have always been disenfranchised out of the electoral process. ... We’ve registered 1.3 million new voters across the country over an 18-month period of time. We had over 13,000 hard-working voter-registration workers. And we may have had a few bad apples, but I don’t know any organization that didn’t.” Barack Obama himself was questioned about ACORN’s problematic registrations. He said: “Having run a voter-registration drive, I know how problems arise. This is typically a situation where ACORN probably paid people to get registrations, and these folks, not wanting to actually register people, because that’s actually hard work, just went into a phone book or made up names and submitted false registrations to get paid. So there’s been fraud perpetrated on probably ACORN, if they paid these individuals and they actually didn’t do registrations. But this isn’t a situation where there’s actually people who are going to try to vote, because these are phony names.” ACORN has seen some clearly fraudulent registrations submitted, with names like “Mickey Mouse” turned in. ACORN says it reviews all the registration forms. However, it does not serve as the ultimate arbiter of which registrations are fraudulent. In fact, ACORN cannot legally throw away any voter-registration cards. It flags suspicious cards and submits them to the appropriate state election authority to make the judgment. Republicans are increasingly alarmed at the shifting demographics of the United States. Minorities tend to vote Democratic, and the United States is slowly becoming a majority minority country—by 2050, whites will no longer represent a majority in the U.S. As right-wing commentator Patrick Buchanan lamented in 2004: “In 1960, when JFK defeated Nixon, America was a nation of 160 million, 90 percent white and 10 percent black, with a few million Hispanics and Asians sprinkled among us. We were one nation, one people. We worshiped the same God, spoke the same English language.” Buchanan’s xenophobia highlights a political reality: Immigration and mobilization of the urban poor are shifting the electorate to the Democrats, especially in key swing states like New Mexico, Colorado, Florida and Ohio. Advertisement Citizen groups like Election Protection and Video the Vote are organizing to document and report problems at the polls on Nov. 4. It is more likely that they will see honest people denied the right to vote, purged from the voter rolls, than an attempt by Mickey Mouse to vote Obama. Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column. Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 700 stations in North America. She has been awarded the 2008 Right Livelihood Award, dubbed the “Alternative Nobel” prize, and will receive the award in the Swedish Parliament in December. Distributed by King Features Syndicate  TAGS:
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By cann4ing, October 21, 2008 at 9:58 am Link to this comment
elizabethe, while I respect your support for Nader, I would strongly urge that you go to the AV booth and listen to what Noam Chomsky has to say.
Report thisBy antispin, October 19, 2008 at 6:32 pm Link to this comment
I couldn’t believe that Republican on DemocracyNow claiming that caging was a valid technique. But that’s just one face of the multifaceted fraud machine that is the Republican disenfranchisement machine. Full spectrum dominance by flagrant law-breaking Republicans ought to prompt Obama, as one of his first act as president, to forgive all inmates in federal prison for non-violent drug violations so we can make room for these suckers.
Sorry if I’m slightly incoherent. Anger makes me hyperbolic, and I’m angry. Very angry. My whole civic life (40+ years, now) has been trashed by rapacious politicians from LBJ to Nixon to Ford to Carter (yes, Carter) to on and on. What’s the matter with Americans that they have to be belligerent bullying ignorant cry-baby hypocrites?
Report thisBy elizabethe, October 18, 2008 at 9:11 pm Link to this comment
I am interested in the strong challenge offered by Ralph Nader and very upset with a media that does not have any interest in changing the ugliest powermongering of party claims over the majority ever seen in the history of this country.
We are not stuck in two parties, and it is not assumed they have any edge when there are SIX on the ballot and the TWO PARTIES have failed, and it is INDEED time for a CHANGE from the outside.
Voters have the right to see straightforward coverage of the challengers as if they CAN be elected by voters, because THEY CAN anyway, even if the media doesn’t want to offer the proper coverage.
We are not stuck in two choices, we have six, and the ABSOLUTE DUTY of every voter is to vote their honest choice of who they want for President as BEST and most able to deliver on their agenda offered, and most sincere.
I want Nader for President. I am voting for Nader for President. I want Nader policies enacted, and the bad Bush policies REVERSED, which certainly WILL HAPPEN if the majority chooses Nader for President with proper education and knowledge of who he is and what he stands for, and if they vote because they agree with his platforms and WANT HIS CHANGES TO HAPPEN.
If you want NO MORE BAILOUTS and you know what red ink and a bloated military budget is, you would not want Obama, and Guaranteed that does not mean you automaticaly have to vote for McCain. The media would say that, and they have, and the public should know they have SIX choices, and the OUTSIDE Independent strong challenge CAN WIN, by a majority.
We are 100 million registered at non-partisan level. 24 states only register voters to vote. That means they pick the BEST When they vote.
It is very clear the two parties do not want that.
It is very very very clear. They are in the face of a MAJORITY, AS IF THE TWO PARTIES RULE. THEY ARE IN OFFICE, BUT THEY DO NOT RULE. VOTERS RULE, AND we have six choices, not two. Pick the best of six, and decide at least you have taken the proper step toward honest voting, by doing your own honest vote. Your vote is only supposed to be to put a proper candidate who will put the country back on track when failure is in front of us, and yes, McCain and Obama ARE PART OF THE FAILURE IN FRONT OF US in the Senate.
They are not fixing the present situation, they have not fixed the present situation, they do not deserve to be President.
Nader would fix the present situation and HE WANTS TO. The Nation should vote for democracy to fix the current people in office GET VOTED OUT!
Report thisBy cann4ing, October 18, 2008 at 6:57 pm Link to this comment
The Acorn smear is a page right out of the Karl Rove play book. Erect bogus claims of voter fraud to cover a massive voter suppression effort. This time it is being met by a vigilant Democratic opponent.
Bob Bauer, the Obama campaign’s chief counsel, has written the DOJ requesting that the special prosecutor investigating the U.S. Attorney firing scandal “include a review of any involvement of the [DOJ] and White House officials in supporting the McCain-Palin campaign and the Republican National Committee’s systematic development of unsupported, spurious allegations of voter fraud.”
But the danger cannot be avoided simply by insuring lawful registrations and getting people to the polls.
“The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The
people who count the votes decide everything.”
—Joseph Stalin
“It’s all over but the counting. And we’ll take care of the counting.”
—Congressman Peter King (R.NY) commenting on the 2004 election during the Summer of 2003.
Already there are reports from early voting on Virginia electronic DRE machines—votes cast for Obama registering for McCain. California’s Secretary of State has long since dumped Diebold DREs. Ohio’s Secretary of State said that anyone who prefers to do so can cast a paper ballot rather than rely on their electronic DREs. Every voter should take her up on that lest we be faced with the theft of another election.
Report thisBy markbaland, October 17, 2008 at 2:30 am Link to this comment
hooray for ACORN! get the poor to vote, so we, the people, the people who work, the people who struggle to survive, can finally kick the Republicans and their rich slave owners out of office. The Civil War never ended. Watching debate #3, it dawned on me that Obama, in a way, represents the minorities, the workers, the young, the North, the urban, while McCain represents the old, white, rich, southerners who own the land and the plantation (or corporation) and the slaves (wageslaves). And as for illegal immigration, if that’s what it takes for our government to address the plight of the poor who are already citizens, then bring it on! After all, Mexicans are nice, hard working people. It’s not a real problems like the violent Muslim rape gangs in the south of France taking over Europe and growing in population while the Europeans native numbers dwindle. Our immigrants want to build our buildings, not blow them up.
Report thisI live in Texas, which was stolen from Mexico anyway. If they can take it back, they deserve it. Viva Tejas!
By Outraged, October 16, 2008 at 11:55 pm Link to this comment
Is it me…or what. Wouldn’t the simple fix be a birth certificate or documentation of established citizenship?
We need a FEDERAL STATUTE, that supercedes states rights, which gives EVERYONE, the RIGHT to vote, whether it be by birth or by established citizenship if foreign born. The ONLY exclusion should be for TREASON.
As a citizen, your RIGHT TO VOTE should never be in question.
Report thisBy lOst_sOuls_rembrd, October 16, 2008 at 8:14 pm Link to this comment
great show on this Amy. I appreciate how the debate was presented on your show with the representative of ACORN in the firehouse and the attorney for the Right.
I felt after that exchange I clearly saw how the Republicans are still shouting “fire fire” and we’re still falling for it.
Read what common sense and facts do. They make you think. Tohidu
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