We’re Not Ready
It started out as a little wondering. You watched Recount on HBO and thought, “Boy, that Kevin Spacey sure is a good actor…Hey, wait a minute! Are we better off as voters now then when we were in 2000?” And this wondering is getting louder. It’s now a rumbling. Listen closely and you can hear it. You can hear it in the 15-page report jointly compiled and distributed by the Lawyers Committee and the National Campaign for Fair Elections (and first brought to our attention by the astute Mark Crispin Miller), that demonstrates, based on information gathered during this year’s primary elections, that our state and county and local election systems are unprepared for a heavy turnout. We’re not ready. Our election systems count on a low voter turn out and continued voter apathy. We’re not ready. Few problems occur in affluent areas. We’re not ready. The problems are concentrated in low income, Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. We’re not ready. If the race is close, “mishaps at the polls could cause another Election 2000-styled fiasco.” We’re not ready. Among the worse states was Pennsylvania. We’re not ready.
We’re not ready for November.
We’re not equipped to handle a massive voter turnout.
We’re not equipped to handle the small margins that caused the confusion and lawsuits in Florida in 2000.
WE. ARE. NOT. READY.
May 30th, 2008 at 8:02 am
We are so under served by our election boards! there goes our system.
May 30th, 2008 at 8:48 am
David,
We are. The quality of members varies so much from county to county. That’s why all those interested in the issue of election integrity should involve themselves in their local election boards and commissions.
Mary
May 30th, 2008 at 9:31 am
I think this has to be the most important focus of progressive efforts between now and November.
May 30th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Amen to that, Pat. You are so right.
May 30th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Mary, thanks for blogging about our report. We’re in the process of organizing our largest Election Protection program to date, targeting up to 24 states. It is vital that progressives sound the alarm about the problems that plague our election system. Thanks for your work. Please let your readers know they can sign up for our e-mail alerts at www.ncffe.org
May 30th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
In the face of all the rampant criminality that this Cabal of Cretans has perpetrated, it is impossible to imagine that they aren’t going to use every voter suppression tactic they’ve spent all their time in office honing to a science.
We need to show up in such overwhelming numbers with our video phones, cameras and whatever recording device is available that there isn’t any indication that we will be intimidated by lawyers and thugs who descended on polling stations everywhere like the 2004 Election and the 2000 “Selection”.
Are we ready? Not by a long shot! We need to defeat these Fascists by working to defeat the voterp-ID laws. Our Corporate Media will not be an ally. Blogs, saturation bombing on all Blogs we visit. YouTube rules the Media World. The Administration does pay attention to that!
We must get our Democracy back!
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:24 am
Thanks for all YOUR work, Eric. Let us know if there is anything we can do to help with your program.