Suppress the Vote? By BOB HERBERT Published: August 16, 2004 The big story out of Florida over the weekend was the tragic devastation caused by Hurricane Charley. But there's another story from Florida that deserves our attention. State police officers have gone into the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando and interrogated them as part of an odd "investigation" that has frightened many voters, intimidated elderly volunteers and thrown a chill over efforts to get out the black vote in November. The officers, from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which reports to Gov. Jeb Bush, say they are investigating allegations of voter fraud that came up during the Orlando mayoral election in March. Officials refused to discuss details of the investigation, other than to say that absentee ballots are involved. They said they had no idea when the investigation might end, and acknowledged that it may continue right through the presidential election. "We did a preliminary inquiry into those allegations and then we concluded that there was enough evidence to follow through with a full criminal investigation," said Geo Morales, a spokesman for the Department of Law Enforcement. The state police officers, armed and in plain clothes, have questioned dozens of voters in their homes. Some of those questioned have been volunteers in get-out-the-vote campaigns. I asked Mr. Morales in a telephone conversation to tell me what criminal activity had taken place. "I can't talk about that," he said. I asked if all the people interrogated were black. "Well, mainly it was a black neighborhood we were looking at - yes,'' he said. He also said, "Most of them were elderly." When I asked why, he said, "That's just the people we selected out of a random sample to interview." Back in the bad old days, some decades ago, when Southern whites used every imaginable form of chicanery to prevent blacks from voting, blacks often fought back by creating voters leagues, which were organizations that helped to register, educate and encourage black voters. It became a tradition that continues in many places, including Florida, today. Not surprisingly, many of the elderly black voters who found themselves face to face with state police officers in Orlando are members of the Orlando League of Voters, which has been very successful in mobilizing the city's black vote. The president of the Orlando League of Voters is Ezzie Thomas, who is 73 years old. With his demonstrated ability to deliver the black vote in Orlando, Mr. Thomas is a tempting target for supporters of George W. Bush in a state in which the black vote may well spell the difference between victory and defeat. The vile smell of voter suppression is all over this so-called investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Joseph Egan, an Orlando lawyer who represents Mr. Thomas, said: "The Voters League has workers who go into the community to do voter registration, drive people to the polls and help with absentee ballots. They are elderly women mostly. They get paid like $100 for four or five months' work, just to offset things like the cost of their gas. They see this political activity as an important contribution to their community. Some of the people in the community had never cast a ballot until the league came to their door and encouraged them to vote." Now, said Mr. Egan, the fear generated by state police officers going into people's homes as part of an ongoing criminal investigation related to voting is threatening to undo much of the good work of the league. He said, "One woman asked me, 'Am I going to go to jail now because I voted by absentee ballot?' " According to Mr. Egan, "People who have voted by absentee ballot for years are refusing to allow campaign workers to come to their homes. And volunteers who have participated for years in assisting people, particularly the elderly or handicapped, are scared and don't want to risk a criminal investigation." Florida is a state that's very much in play in the presidential election, with some polls showing John Kerry in the lead. A heavy-handed state police investigation that throws a blanket of fear over thousands of black voters can only help President Bush. The long and ugly tradition of suppressing the black vote is alive and thriving in the Sunshine State. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/16/opinion/16herbert.html?hp Harrasing blacks who participate in "Get out to vote" campaigns. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.
This is sickening. And the big media outlets will likely let the story die and most of America will never know or just look the other way.
We better hope for the sake of our way of LIFE and LIBERTY that this is untrue or exaggerated....forget the campaign, this is some Mississippi Burning type sh*t
problem fixing time Voters should be protected first, and those responsible will be exposed the elections haven't happened yet so do we really need the finger pointing before we know a damn thing?
Tens of thousands of African-Americans were wrongly disenfranchised in the LAST presidential election in Florida. As a result, we MUST point fingers as the abuses of power happen, not after.
The worse time to get concerned with "finger pointing" with regard to civil rights violations/election manipulation is after the election. It is better to protect voters before the abuses have their intended effect, not after. The "damn thing" we know right now is that black voters are being intimidated by armed officials who work for a department which reports to the governor's office. That is enough to warrant the spotlight.
Pfft. Neither political party did anything about it. Screw them both. (And I'm totally serious - it's annoying how no Democrat or Republican stepped up to ensure this wouldn't happen again. 2002 was an election year... and where were groups like Rainbow/PUSH, NAACP?)
Actually, the Dems have gone a long way, suing to get the list of voters that will be purged for this election to verify that they SHOULD be removed.
I may be reading between the lines -- but were they investigating whether someone used the names of poor, black, elderly people and submitted absentee ballets in their name? This is a very biased article only giving us some of the facts. I'm not saying no wrong was done but this article certainly has some holes.
I'd have to look it up but I'm pretty sure there were groups that went to Florida to protest/investigate this in 2000.
that is exactly what I was trying to say... it doesn't matter who is doing it but it mustn't be allowed to occur
Yes - in 2000. When there were cameras and media around. In 2002, what happened? In 2004, knowing a presidential election is coming, where were the protesters/volunteers to ensure that everyone gets to vote? Why isn't more made of this? Because all of the people in power are reactionary when cameras are around, that's why. Otherwise they'll sit back. As an example, if Al Sharpton really cares about disenfranchisement, perhaps he should use his media viability to go to a random voting booth in Florida on election day and sit there to make sure everyone gets to vote. Get his buddies to do the same at every voting booth in Florida. andymoon - I know what you're talking about - wasn't it a group of media outlets which sued, not a political party?
Isn't the writer jumping to conclusions? It's possible that they are doing a perfectly legitimate investigation of voter fraud.
If you've followed Florida at all since November of 2000, you'll agree that the state has a long way to go before "perfectly legitimate" and anything doing with voting go together without question.
Same in Albuquerque A Conflict of Interests Dear Alibi, Has the New Mexico Bush-Cheney camp found a questionable way to influence the 2004 election in Bernalillo County? "When they brought me on, it was plain and simple: They said we need to win Bernalillo County." Darren White, the Bernalillo County Chair of the Bush-Cheney '04 Re-election committee, and a member of the National Bush-Cheney '04 First Responders Leadership Team spoke these words in April 2004. Therein lies the problem, because Darren White also happens to be the sheriff of Bernalillo County. And as sheriff, White is currently conducting an investigation into what he terms "suspect" voter registration forms that have been submitted to the Bernalillo County Clerk's office. White states, in the Albuquerque Tribune, that he received copies of “fishy” voter registration forms from a “concerned citizen,” whose name he will not disclose. White does go on to state, "they were sent to me with the intention of me making a possible investigation." White says that the majority of the forms being investigated were from voters who did not want to state a party affiliation. Not so, according to the reporter handling the story for the local NBC affiliate station. He says that all of the voter form copies he received from the County Clerk's office were from people who had registered as Democrats. Not content to handle the investigation internally, White has requested that U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, a Bush appointee and known Patriot Act enthusiast, open an investigation into the matter. In this hotly contested election year, there has been a record number of voter registration forms filed in New Mexico. What assurance will Democratic registrants have that their voter registration form will be processed at all, when the man who has pledged to help Bush and Cheney win Bernalillo County in 2004 takes it upon himself to conduct an investigation that is, in fact, not the responsibility of the Sheriff, but the County Clerk? Of course, investigating possible voter fraud in Bernalillo County isn't the only thing Sheriff White is doing these days. On Saturday, he took some time out from his investigation to head a Bush rally in Albuquerque, N.M., where he spent most of his time distorting Sen. Kerry's record to a room of Bush supporters. I am not accusing Sheriff White of any impropriety. But if, in fact, there is a problem with voter registration forms in Bernalillo County, this should be investigated by someone without a partisan political agenda. As it stands, that cannot be said about either White or Iglesias. Mary Girsch-Bock Rio Rancho link
Absentee voter fraud has been a problem in Dallas County for years and no one has been willing to properly investigate it and put a stop to it. Professional vote harvesters fill out absentee ballots for people without their knowledge and then follow the mailman on the day those ballots are delivered through the neighborhood, sometimes stealing the ballots from the mailboxes and delivering them to a candidate or party. Other times, they bring the ballot to the voter, have them vote it (with much campaigning going on during this time, of course) and then take the ballot with them. If that person didn't vote the "right" way, the ballot is sometimes simply thrown away. One time last year, a group of 265 absentee ballot applications came in at once by UPS to the County Clerk's office. Many of them had identical handwriting on the signatures, despite being for ballot applications for several different people. Many people have been disenfranchised in this way in Dallas County. I don't know what's going on in Florida, but I do know that there needs to be some investigating in Dallas County in order to protect the votes of the largely minority folks in South Dallas/Oak Cliff.
