GOP doing all it can to keep minorities from voting (Jesse Jackson)

In the Chicago Sun-Times:

GOP doing all it can to keep minorities from voting

November 2, 2004

BY JESSE JACKSON

snip

The mobilization to express the vote is a new small ''d'' democratic eruption. ACORN, the poverty group, registered more than 1.5 million voters this year, overwhelmingly in minority communities, and is gearing up a new effort to get that vote out. US Action, a collection of state groups, added another 500,000. America Coming Together, one of the infamous 527s, added 100,000 more in Philadelphia alone. The NAACP Voter Fund has registered hundreds of thousands also.

Disc jockeys and musicians summon the young to vote. Voter registration at historically black colleges has soared. In Florida, over a million people -- disproportionately African-American -- have stood in long lines to vote early.

Standing against this democratic expression is a systematic Republican effort at voter suppression. The Justice Department reflects Attorney General John Ashcroft's sordid history of discriminating against minority voters rather than the department's historic role of enforcing the Voting Rights Act. Ashcroft has the department focused on ''voter fraud,'' an old Jim Crow trick, not on enforcing voting rights. The Internal Revenue Service has been unleashed, threatening the tax status of the NAACP for criticizing Bush, and calling major African-American ministers, trying to intimidate them from calling on the faithful to vote -- even as Christian Coalition ministers turn their churches into Bush organizing centers.

Republicans have organized no effort to register minorities, but launched an unprecedented campaign to exclude the minority vote. They are organizing outside partisans to come to minority precincts and challenge the registration and vote of people they do not even know, notably in Ohio and Florida. If they challenge a big enough number, they figure, they will gum up the voting in minority precincts and discourage those who don't have the time to wait in long lines.

the rest at

http://www.suntimes.com/output/jesse/cst-edt-jesse02.html

Surprising? No.

<<ACORN, the poverty group, registered more than 1.5 million voters this year, overwhelmingly in minority communities, and is gearing up a new effort to get that vote out.>>

For some reason, I hadn't heard about this.

-wildflower

There's probably a group near you... they're worth supporting.

that represent them. FOR INSTANCE, in Florida, running against Jeb Bush was Bill dumbass McBride and Daryl Jones from Miami/Dade area. Daryl was African American, articulate, and experienced, but because of low democratic turn out, another fat stupid white man-McBride, got the vote. So, African Americans blame a system they don't take part in, that's just plain stupid to me! I voted for Jones and I knew if he got the nomination, he would have beaten Jeb Bush!

My ranting is over...get out and VOTE or DIE!

i went to Morehouse College in Atlanta, which has a high concentration of black quasi-intellectuals, activists and revolutionaries, but none of them could EVER be bothered to vote (in 96 and 98, i was practically alone at the polling place in our gym)...many of them were in that 'it doesn't matter' or 'our vote won't count' mindset...I just hope that opinion has reversed a bit since i graduated

The dude is good.

keep their hold on power!

:argh:

AMY GOODMAN: This is from the Washington Post, an excerpt of a piece. It says: “After the leadership council and civil rights news conference, two Republican National Committee staff member, both young African Americans were sent out to issue a rebuttal. Their efforts got off to a bad start, however, when one of them made what might be called a Freudian slip by introducing the other as “Director of Voter Suppression.” The spokesman tried to recover, contending that their party poll-watchers were only going to weed out ineligible voters, not intimidate others.”


http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/02/1523223