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I don't get to vote...
I know more about the process and the candidates than most of the American population, I'm sure of it, but I still can't vote...
Flawed system...

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As an outsider with some limited knowledge of your way of "doing Democracy", I maust say that I agree with Wolfman. The system is flawed.

I don't mean that only people who are knowledgeable about the system and the society should be able to vote, or that any one, no matter their age, should be able to, but that your system where each voter FIRST has to register, THEN has to come back to vote a month later is unneccesarily complicated.
In most other countries, all you have to do to vote, is to be of age, show up at election day with some kind of ID, and vote.

Also, imo, the system where you vote not directly on your favourite candidate, but on some kind of Electoral Man (don't know the english term for this), who in turn vote for the candidate you voted for, is unneccesary. We used to arrange our elections like this in Norway, too, but we stopped doing it this way in 1918...

But no matter the current difficulties and flaws: Voting is the main right you "buy" with your tax money; if you don't vote, don't start complaining about how badly run your country is, cos you could have dont something about it, and you didn't...

That's my 5 cents, or whatever it is you yankees say

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But the problem is that, in America, eligible voters are sometimes barred from voting for no good reason. In the Florida elections ethnic minority voters were barred from voting, probably because they were most likely to vote for the Democratic leader, Al Gore.

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Amendment XXVI of the Constitution of the United States

Section. 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

Section. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.


You have been watching too many Michael Moore movies. No United States citizen, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion is ever denied the right to vote. If minorites were ever denied the right to vote in the United States, then the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), along with the National Association for the Advacement of Colored People (NAACP) and other watchdog groups, would never allow this to happen.

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The Progressive | October 2004 Issue

Bullies at the Voting Booth
by Anne-Marie Cusac

What if Republican shenanigans tip the election? Many members of the media are looking at the dangers voting machines may pose to the integrity of the national election. Others are wondering whether voters may be disenfranchised by use of faulty felon lists, as happened in Florida in 2000. But there is another danger: Republicans may use a variety of tactics to suppress the vote of racial minorities in swing states. These tactics could determine control of the White House or the Senate...

...In some states, Republicans are threatening to conduct widespread vote challenges in heavily minority areas. In others, recent events suggest that poll workers may wrongly turn away voters. In still
others, new laws passed or enforced by Republicans have erected hurdles to trip up the minority vote. And on Election Day itself, say advocates, Republicans may direct numerous tricks at Democratic districts in an effort to confuse or frighten voters.

Here's a rundown of what's happening in several swing states.

...Florida

The state that started it all in 2000 is no stranger to controversy this election. In July, The Miami Herald revealed that the state issued faulty felon purge lists containing the names of 48,000 people it said were ineligible to vote. Among these were 2,100 who actually were eligible voters. Many of these people were African American Democrats...

In mid-August, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert revealed that the state was investigating get-out-the-vote drives among blacks in Orlando by sending armed police officers into the homes of citizens who had filed
absentee ballots. Most of these citizens were African American, and many were elderly.

And in Florida's late August primary, representatives from People for the American Way saw poll workers turn back registered voters who neglected to bring their IDs. "Under Florida law," noted The New York Times, "registered voters can vote without showing identification."

...Then there's the provisional ballot crisis. In Florida in 2000, many people who attempted to vote found that they were not on the rolls, even though they had registered. This is the reasoning behind the provisional ballot requirement in the federal Help America Vote Act. If a voter is wrongly removed from the rolls in the future, he or she should be able to file a provisional ballot. Most states interpret this part of the act as allowing provisional ballots as long as the voter files them in the correct county.

Florida is a little different. Rather than the correct county, voters must submit their provisional ballots to the correct precinct. "This will disenfranchise thousands and thousands of voters," says Gonzalez.

So the AFL-CIO is suing Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood, along with two election supervisors from areas of Florida that have seen some of the largest population increases, and some of the most marked changes in precinct lines. The precinct requirements "impermissibly abridge the right
to vote," the AFL says.

...Michigan

Michigan is the state that Jon Greenbaum, director of the Voting Rights Project for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, mentions as a potential trouble spot. On July 16, the Detroit Free Press quoted John Pappageorge, a Republican state representative from Troy, Michigan, who said, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election cycle." Detroit is 83 percent African American. Pappageorge later told the Associated Press that he was not advocating suppression of the black vote but that "you get it [the Detroit vote] down
with a good message."

Cecelie Counts, AFL-CIO director of civil, human, and women's rights, says ..."That is the political reality in most of these swing states," ...Democrats "can't win Ohio or Michigan or Pennsylvania without the African American vote, without a tremendous African American vote." And, she says, by using census numbers, Republican strategists "can pinpoint places" where minority voters are likely to influence an election. "They know it's Detroit. They know it's Kansas City and St. Louis. They know it's Las
Vegas."

...Michigan is no stranger to aggressive poll watchers. In the 1999 election, a group calling itself Citizens for a Better Hamtramck went to the polling centers in Hamtramck, Michigan, and approached people who appeared to be Arab. "As people were standing outside waiting to vote, this group took it upon itself to ask people to prove they were citizens," says Laila Al-Qatami, communications director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. "They were asking voters to step aside and say an oath of citizenship, even if they were capable of producing a U.S. passport." ... The U.S. government filed a lawsuit that claimed violations of the Voting Rights Act...

Missouri

..."In Democratic districts, which also happened to be predominantly African American, there were polls that opened late, like 10 a.m. instead of 7 a.m., which is a real problem for working people," says Counts of the AFL-CIO. "The hours weren't extended during the evening." Counts also says that "people who showed up without ID were turned away from the polls and not given provisional ballots," even though that's what the law required....

Nevada

In late August, Gary Peck, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, met with the registrars from the Reno and Las Vegas areas...  The registrar of Washoe County is Daniel Burk. "An official of the Republican Party" came to his office one day with a small group, he says. The official asked how to launch a "full-scale program for challenging voters who come to the polls." Burk says he informed the Republicans that vote challenges should be used narrowly, when one voter with personal knowledge of another calls attention to a problem.

"One said, 'Well, we were thinking of a wider scale use of it. We were thinking of challenging lots of voters,' " says Burk. It was the way they looked at each other, he says. "I began to wonder, what are they up to? I just told them I wouldn't tolerate it. The process isn't designed for one party challenging another."

The revelations, says Peck, are "consistent with reports people are getting all around the country. Republicans have a national strategy of going out and challenging voters" come November 2.

"Our concerns are utterly nonpartisan," says Peck. "It's the integrity and fairness of the election." Although Nevada law does allow for voter challenges when a challenger has personal information about a voter's citizenship or place of residence, "it becomes problematic when people are using this strategically, in a partisan way." ...

...New Mexico

...On September 7, Robert Thompson, a state district judge, refused to issue an injunction to force people to show IDs at the polls. "The eleventh-hour request by the plaintiffs creates a risk of substantially disrupting the public voting process, which far outweighs any potential harm to the plaintiffs," wrote Thompson in his decision...


South Dakota

South Dakota is hardly a swing state in the common sense, since George W. Bush is set to win here by a landslide. But the state is seeing a rough Senatorial race. The Republicans have targeted Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle for removal. And one tool is a new law that requires all voters to show ID at the polls and get all absentee ballots notarized.

During the 2002 election, Democratic Senator Tim Johnson won his seat by only 524 votes. He had strong Native American support. Republicans weren't happy about that. "In South Dakota, the common tactic is to allege voter fraud," particularly when the Democrats win, says Bryan Sells, staff attorney with the ACLU Voting Rights Project. "Usually it's called 'Indian voter fraud.' In fact, I can't recall a case of someone alleging 'non-Indian voter fraud.' The idea is, whether true or not, you create the sense" that Native American voters are not to be trusted...

After investigating fifty charges of fraud following that 2002 election, State Attorney General Mark Barnett, a Republican, said, "There was no widespread fraud and the election results are valid.  No one stole the election."

Nonetheless, Republicans introduced legislation that... requires South Dakotans to show a picture ID in order to vote or else write up an affidavit. And, if they vote by absentee ballot, they need to get it notarized. The legislation... will make it "harder to vote at the polls, harder to register, and harder to vote by absentee ballot," especially for people on reservations (Sells said). "I don't know if you've ever been to a reservation, but there aren't a lot of notaries around."

...Jesse Clausen, who has been active in many voter registration drives, puts it another way... "Indian people living in poverty might have higher priority on other things than spending $8 to get their driver's license." Clausen points out that many people on the reservations don't have cars.

During a special election held on June 1, the effect of the new law on the Native American vote started to show. "People would go in and say, 'Well, I don't have an ID,' and [poll workers] would let it be known that if they didn't have an ID, they should turn around and leave," says Clausen.

Poll workers weren't supposed to do that. According to the law, they were supposed to give voters who lacked IDs an affidavit. Once signed, the affidavit would allow people to vote. Jason Schulte, executive director of the Democratic Party of South Dakota, says that, "mostly on or near reservations," people who forgot to bring their IDs "were not told about the affidavit scenario." Daschle himself says eh "heard from countless voters who experienced difficulty when attempting to vote."

Jim Gardner, communications director for the Missouri Democratic Party, describes some of the tactics that he says have happened in his state during past elections: "Videotaping people as they're coming into the polling place. Parking near a polling place in a Crown Victoria with a couple of guys in dark suits. . . . A whisper campaign that everyone trying to vote who has outstanding traffic tickets will be arrested." ...the Missouri Democrats have also heard stories in past elections of people handing out flyers in Democratic precincts that say, "Don't forget to vote on Wednesday, November 4," when the election is Tuesday, November 3.

Greenbaum's organization faxed me a series of signs that have appeared in Democratic precincts on or near election day. One sign, which appeared in Baltimore in 2002, is entirely in capital letters. "URGENT NOTICE," it reads. "COME OUT TO VOTE ON NOVEMBER 6th. BEFORE YOU COME TO VOTE MAKE SURE YOU PAY YOUR
- PARKING TICKETS
- MOTOR VEHICLE TICKETS
- OVERDUE RENT
AND MOST IMPORTANT
ANY WARRANTS"

A second sign, this one from 1996, uses a tiny font to inform prospective voters that they may get into trouble when they walk into the booth.

"Thanks to advances in computer technology Voting Machines can now be equipped with computers inside. The computers can be connected to a phone line to Federal State, and Local government agencies to instantly check if a voter is:

A NON-CITIZEN

Wanted on Criminal or Traffic Warrants or Parole or Probation violations

Is behind on child support payments

Is cheating on Welfare, Food Stamps, AFDC, Section 8 or Medicaid by earning money 'off the books'

Has defaulted on government-backed student loans

Has failed to file income taxes for two or more years."

In late August, People for the American Way and the NAACP released a report entitled, "The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America Today." "In every national American election since
Reconstruction, every election since the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, voters--particularly African American voters and other minorities--have faced calculated and determined efforts at intimidation and suppression," says the report. However, it describes recent voter suppression tactics as "more subtle, cynical, and creative" than "the poll taxes, literacy tests, and physical violence of the Jim Crow era."

Jim Crow is still casting a very long shadow.

-- Anne-Marie Cusac is Investigative Reporter of The Progressive.

http://www.progressive.org

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It's probably that way on purpose, and poor neighborhoods get the worst voting equipment -- like the infamous punch card machines in the Florida elections

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Hey Dingo, you live in a less populated state, does it bother you that all those people in California have so much say in the election? Do you want them to have so much impact on things which affect your life?

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