Back in 2004, I created the image to your right to depict how groups like the NAACP were on a mission to link every rumor, folklore, and claim of voter intimidation against Blacks as part of some grand scheme cooked up by Republicans. The mess surrounding the 2000 Presidential elections is really what started the fear-capade that lasted well into the 2004 election cycle.
While most of us will agree that any form of voter intimidation is wrong, the problem that I had with many of these stories was that many of them could not be verified. Plus, in an attempt to convince the public that some devious and racist plan was afoot, Black people were made to look like fools who were too ignorant to know the difference between a real polling station and a homeless shelter. Apparently, even electronic voting machines scared us to death.
Black Voters ‘Afraid’ of Electronic Voting Machines, Activist Says
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
September 30, 2004
An African-American civil rights spokeswoman said on Wednesday that the new computerized voting machines “terrify” her, and that blacks are “afraid of machines like that.”
Joanne Bland, the director and co-founder of the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute in Selma, Ala., told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that the new computerized voting machines are going to intimidate black voters in Florida and elsewhere and suppress their vote in the November presidential election because many blacks are not “technologically savvy.”
“The computers really terrify me. The electronic voting — the new machines — I think it will turn off a segment in my community, particularly the elderly. We are not as technically savvy, and we are afraid of machines like that, and they (African-Americans) probably won’t go [to the polls] and they probably won’t ask for assistance, said Bland, who spent the last week in Florida.
“It is going to turn them off totally and I want that to stop,” said Bland, who also serves as a spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Public Accuracy, which predicts that “several million voters” may be “deprived of voting rights again” in 2004.
Back in 2004, the NAACP and the organization People For the American Way teamed up and created the report “The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Suppression in America” where acts of voter suppression against minorities were highlighted. Despite the fact that ACVR (The American Center For Voting Rights Legislative Fund–a group made up of both Democrats and Republicans) concluded in 2005 that Democrat operatives were far more involved in voter intimidation in ‘04, the NAACP/PFAW report focused heavily on voter intimidation coming from Republican operatives.
Well since that time, the issue of voter intimidation still exists but NOT surprisingly it is no where near being the center stage issue it was back a few years ago. When you consider the players behind these recent acts, the selective outrage mystery doesn’t take long to figure out.
Absentee ballots tainted?
Some Detroit voters are incapacitated, without valid addresses, raising question of mayoral election’s fairness.
By David Josar, Lisa M. Collins and Brad Heath / The Detroit News
A Detroit News investigation raises serious questions about the handling of absentee ballots under Detroit City Clerk Jackie Currie as the city prepares to choose a mayor, City Council and school board Nov. 8.
Currie has been accused of irregular election practices in several lawsuits, and a review of election results, property records and databases of registered voters uncovered procedures that experts and other election officials described as questionable.
Among findings by News reporters were ballots cast by people registered to vote at abandoned and long-demolished buildings; a master voter list with 380,000 incorrect names and addresses — including people who have died or moved out of the city; and a practice of hand-delivering ballots from senior citizens and disabled voters that were filled out in private meetings with Currie’s paid election workers.
If the mayoral race came down to a close vote demanding a recount of absentee ballots, the result could be chaotic.
But the most poignant findings were stories from those in nursing homes who had recently voted absentee.
Among them is Charles B. Allen, a resident at the Passion Caring Home for the Elderly who stared blankly one day last week when asked to name the mayor of Detroit. He’s never heard of Kwame Kilpatrick and can’t recall whether he voted in August.
“I just don’t know,” Allen said. Six years ago, a Wayne County probate judge declared the 87-year-old legally incapacitated due to dementia and Alzheimer’s. (more…)
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Tire-slashing trial to begin
By DERRICK NUNNALLY
jsonline.com
Fourteen months after President George W. Bush was re-elected without carrying Wisconsin, five men who worked for the Kerry-Edwards campaign, including the sons of two prominent Milwaukee politicians, go on trial today on felony counts of vandalism in the tire-slashing of more than 20 vehicles rented by Republican campaigners.
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ACORN Part I
2006
(yahoo news) “Four people have been indicted on charges of voter fraud in Kansas City, officials said Wednesday.
Investigators said questionable registration forms for new voters were collected by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a group that works to improve minority and low-income communities.
The four indicted — Kwaim A. Stenson, Dale D. Franklin, Stephanie L. Davis and Brian Gardner — were employed by ACORN as registration recruiters. They were each charged with two counts.
Federal indictments allege the four turned in false voter registration applications. Prosecutors said the indictments are part of a national investigation.
ACORN and Project Vote recruit and assign workers to low-income and minority neighborhoods to register people to vote.
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ACORN Part II
8 St. Louis voter registration workers admit to fraud
fortmilltimes.com
2008
ST. LOUIS — Eight workers for a get-out-the-vote effort in St. Louis city and county have pleaded guilty to federal election fraud for submitting false registration cards for the 2006 election, authorities said Wednesday.
The workers were employed by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), gathering voter registrations. U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway said they submitted cards with false addresses and names, and forged signatures.
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ACORN Part III
Phila. Probing Advocacy Group’s Voter Registrations
by KYW’s Mike Dunn
Philadelphia elections officials are accusing the nonprofit advocacy group “Acorn” of filing fraudulent voter registrations in advance of the April 22nd Pennsylvania primary.
Acorn, which advocates on behalf of low-income residents in the city, has mounted a voter registration drive in the past few months. But city election commissioners are complaining that many of the submitted registrations appear to be faulty, and they have forwarded the matter to the district attorney’s office for further investigation.
Krista Holub, Acorn’s political director in Pennsylvania, promised the elections officials that her group will cooperate:
“We’re very committed to helping low- to moderate-income people across the state get registered to vote. And we’re here to work closely with the board of elections to make sure that everyone we’re helping to apply gets on the rolls.”
The city officials say many of the addresses listed on the registrations are invalid, but Acorn blames the post office for not adequately servicing low-income communities.
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Another group might be trying to get into the act: Women’s Voices, Women Vote
NC CUTS OFF SUSPICIOUS POLITICAL CALLS
By MAGGIE HABERMAN
May 2, 2008 — North Carolina’s attorney general has put a halt to automated phone calls that told blacks to register to vote after the state’s registration deadline for Tuesday’s primary had passed.
The suspiciously timed calls were eventually linked to the left-leaning Women’s Voices Women Vote group, which states as its mission signing up female voters to boost Democratic turnout.
Roy Cooper, the North Carolina AG, said this week he had put a stop to the calls, which spurred allegations that the women’s group was trying to confuse black voters, who overwhelmingly support Barack Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The calls urged people to register, even though the deadline for the primary was April 11.
The group has said it was a genuine mistake, and that it was trying to boost turnout for November’s general election.
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[…]
In Indiana, the chairman of the Democratic party in that state is planning on challenging cross-over voters at the polls.
The challenge process would work like this:
Voters must declare their party affiliation in spring primary elections.
Local party officials watching the polling locations then could check the names of voters against a list of all registered voters that shows past party declarations.
Fajman said any voter whose party affiliation is challenged can either decline to vote for the party in question or sign an affidavit, swearing under oath that they voted in the last election for a majority of the regular nominees of the party. (source)
——->Checking folks voting records to see if they are “legitimate” Democrats or Republicans is intimidation–period.
“A PROCLAMATION BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”
Many years ago, before I was married I bought the anniversary collection of Schoolhouse Rock DVDs for nostalgic purposes. Right smack in the middle of watching my usual lineup of Saturday morning cartoons as a child, I fondly remember seeing these short educational clips of cartoons with a catchy tune that to this very day is still buried deep in my brain (perhaps part of a secret scientific government conspiracy?). 
