Text 4307, 93 rader
Skriven 2004-11-02 04:14:20 av RICHARD JOHNSON (1:10/345)
Ärende: Honorable GOP?
======================
Typical Republican conduct.

From Capitol Hill Blue

Politics
Dirty Tricks Abound on Election Eve
By Staff and Wire Reports
Nov 2, 2004, 05:49

Friendly-sounding phone calls telling African-Americans they don't have to go
to the polls this year, warnings that anyone with an unpaid traffic ticket
can't vote and phony notices that Election Day is Nov. 3 are among the "dirty
tricks" reported on the eve of the ballot.

Election skullduggery is nothing new, voting rights workers said on Monday, but
the 2004 contest has been remarkable for the number of bogus flyers, phone
calls and other ploys aimed at suppressing the black vote.

"In Tallahassee, Florida, people were calling from a phone bank, calling what
they called long term stalwart African-American voters and telling them that
because they had been such faithful voters, that the county had decided that
they need not go to the polls anymore, that they could vote by telephone,"
Barbara Arnwine of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights told reporters.

Arnwine and others on a telephone news conference noted that while black voters
were the main target of the tricks, Hispanics and white elderly voters were
also vulnerable.

A joint report by the liberal People for the American Way and the NAACP civil
rights organization listed at least two cases where flyers were designed to
make some minority voters believe they should vote on Wednesday, one day after
the actual election day.

The tricks are focused on such battleground states as Pennsylvania, Ohio,
Wisconsin and Florida, Arnwine said, but have cropped up elsewhere. A hotline
set up to take complaints and questions about alleged voter suppression has
received more than 5,500 calls daily, she said.

VOTE ON NOVEMBER 3?

The report provided copies of various flyers aimed suppressing the vote,
including one from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.

"Due to the immense voter turnout that is expected on Tuesday, November 2, the
state of Pennsylvania has requested an extended voting period," read the
official-looking flyer, advising Republicans to vote on Tuesday, Democrats a
day later -- after polls were closed.

A similar flyer distributed in Jefferson County, Alabama simply gave out the
wrong date for voting: "Attention: Jefferson County!!!!! See You At The Poles
November 4, 2004."

In Wisconsin, flyers from the non-existent Milwaukee Black Voters League
offered some "warnings for election time," including the false claim that
anyone who voted in a primary election could not vote again the general
election.

"If anybody in your family has ever been found guilty of anything, you can't
vote in the presidential election," the flyer read. "If you violate any of
these laws, you can get 10 years in prison and your children will get taken
away from you."

In Columbia, South Carolina, a letter on fake NAACP stationery claimed that
anyone with an outstanding parking ticket or unpaid child support would be
arrested, and said voters must bring two forms of photo identification, a
recent credit check and a handwriting sample in order to cast their votes.

If there is no clear winner after polls close on Tuesday, NAACP Chairman Julian
Bond said it would show "that the country which counts itself the greatest
democracy in the world is incapable of holding an election in which most people
believe votes are fairly cast and fairly counted, and that the country is
incapable of restraining the racist impulses of people who are so desperate to
prevail that they will break the law again and again and again."

˙ Copyright 2004 Capitol Hill Blue

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