In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
Some Good News
that nevertheless has me
thorougly rattled:
Mindful of the election problems in Florida four years ago, aides to Senator John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, say his campaign is putting together a far more intricate set of legal safeguards than any presidential candidate before him to monitor the election.
Lawyers for the campaign are gathering intelligence and preparing litigation over the ballot machines being used and the rules concerning how voters will be registered or their votes disqualified. In some cases, the lawyers are compiling dossiers on the people involved and their track records on enforcing voting rights. The disputed 2000 presidential election remains a fresh wound for Democrats, and Mr. Kerry has been referring to it on the stump while assuring his audiences that he will not let this year's election be a repeat of the 2000 vote.
Its plans include setting up SWAT teams of specially trained lawyers, spokesmen and political experts to swoop into any state where a recount could be needed.
Democrats say they learned from the Florida vote, and from the Supreme Court rulings that arose from it, that the most important legal battles are those fought before Election Day, over how election laws are to be carried out, who is allowed to register and who will be allowed to vote.
America's Families United, a racial-justice advocacy group that is registering thousands of people, has set up a "voter protection project" to ensure that its new registrants make it onto the rolls, by comparing each new voter list to its own list. Penda D. Hair, the project director, said her goal was to recruit 6,000 lawyers in 20 states who could challenge registrars when they reject applications improperly.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, meanwhile, has made a Freedom of Information Act request to review the Justice Department's communications to local and state election authorities during this election cycle.
Bear in mind that the Freedom of Information Act is under assault by the very Justice Department sworn to uphold it, and John Ashcroft has issued directives to stymie and stifle and suppress anything he finds politically inconvenient, including outright refusal to comply with the law. Anyone requesting such information must sue the Justice Department to get it, litigation that, as we all know, may get hung up in courts for years (remember Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force and that duck? "This is our due" I believe is the quote). Four months before an election and you think for one minute that Ashcroft is going to make his communications available upon request in a timely fashion -- that is, before the actual election? Are you kidding?
And monitors? Remember those monitors in Florida who were literally shrieked at, howled at, threatened physically, and intimidated to the point of hysterical exhaustion by paid Republican commandos, banging on the recount walls and shouting? The news media always referred to this hijacking mob as "ordinary Floridians" and "the people." The fact that every one of them was a paid operative (including John McSweeny, my Congressman from New York -- I didn't know he was an ordinary Floridian; he did so much for my district by banging on that glass with his hairy fists and screaming about how un-American it is to count a vote) was never mentioned once in the media during the actual debacle. Yeah, I have a ton of faith in monitors.
And disenfranchised blacks? Remember how the Florida cops erected a labyrinth of police barriers and blockades that made it virtually impossible for people who lived in black communities to actually navigate physically to the polls? They simply couldn't get to them. How are lawyers going to guarantee that the cops won't do exactly the same thing? By the time the lawyers intervene, election day is over. Then what? Sue the cops? Oh yeah, I have a ton of faith in Florida cops guaranteeing somebody his or her constitutional right to vote. How is a lawyer supposed to remove a blue barrier, at the point of a gun, in a state owned and operated by a Bush?
I have so much faith I don't where to put it anymore.
- Michael 12:15 PM - [PermaLink] -
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