Don't let ANYONE tell you African-Americans were no-shows

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20298-2004Nov3.html

Magnetic Polls: Drawn To Vote in Cleveland

By Ann Gerhart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 3, 2004; Page C01

Throughout the morning -- and despite heavy rain -- lines up to 75 people long wound through the rec center gym, past the sign-in table, past the bleachers where the toddlers clattered around, toward the 20 polling machines. There, the residents of Outhwaite Estates, the church ladies and the hip-hoppers in their do-rags, the workers on their lunch breaks in their mechanics' jumpsuits and hospital scrubs, hunched over and frowned at Cuyahoga County's punch-card ballot. Kids of 18 and 19 wheeled in on their bikes after school. Many voters said they found the ballot confusing and time-consuming, and several held their completed ballots toward the ceiling lights, inspecting them for dreaded chad. The equally dreaded Republican challengers, who had vowed to hover to prevent fraud, never materialized.

By noontime, Tanya Brown had arrived with her tattered manila folder and her list. The president of her tenants association, she was in charge of 54 registered voters in her building, and she had come to make sure they had voted. "Only 15 of them have not yet come in!" she said triumphantly, after inspecting the publicly available list that Ohio law requires be updated at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Election Day. "I haven't seen it like this," she said of turnout. "Mmm, mmm, mmm."

<snip>

"On this day," predicted Edgar Taylor, a cook who watched "Meet the Press" as a boy, "Kerry is gonna win Ohio, and it is gonna be because black people, and new black voters, came out to vote. Of course, we want him to win everywhere else, too."

<snip>

"They ain't sending no challengers," said Dwayne Browder, in his Browder Boxing team jacket. "They would be fools to send them in here. It would be like trying to challenge Muhammad Ali's combination, when he hit you 10 times and you didn't move and the referee said you had enough. knows he ain't getting anywhere here. He stayed out in the townships with the $200,000 incomes and the $150,000 homes. He didn't drive those Bush-Cheney buses in no inner city."

<snip>

This makes me cry. I live in the suburbs now, but I know all these locations, my aunt lived in Outhwaite 40 years ago before she became a teacher, I remember those projects well. I'm so PROUD of this turnout I could break down. This is my fear, that those who believed will feel let down. But people are tougher than we think - if they know this bullshit "victory" is fraud, people will feel better. I hope we can prove it.

and were discouraged by the long lines and inclement weather later on in the day. I think it was intentional, and it makes me sick.

What makes me sicker still is the fact that a lot of them will feel like their votes didn't count, and may not bother the next time. I actually believe that Kerry didn't see any point in contesting Ohio, but what was done to the people in these communities to prevent them casting their votes in the first place is a horrorshow.

...armed with a tape recorder and a camera and my passport, ready to fight. There were no challengers there when I voted. I believe in my heart, now, that that whole challenger threat was a head-fake... look what happened: in the wee hours of the morning, that scum Kenneth Blackwell was able to look into CNN's camera and say "there were no problems statewide with challenges or litigation, we had a 'clean' election." Meanwhile, votes were disappearing. While we were fighting the challenger threat, they were stealing the state. Head-fake.

Montgomery County, asked them not to even think about sending challengers in because he knew there was no point here. Even though Kerry apparently took the county, I heard nothing about slow polling lines in Dayton, or ineffectual machines, or any of the other crap that happened in much bigger cities. That's why I'm pretty sure the whole thing was rigged to suppress that bloc of votes -- he knew who would win those precincts. The tale of the long lines, bad machines and inadequately staffed polling places is what grieves me about the whole deal -- and would have grieved me just as much if Kerry had won Ohio. As I've said before here, the vote that can't be argued about is the vote that isn't cast. He made sure enough votes wouldn't be cast that it could (and obviously did) make the difference.

i know you were there for us. i know the youth was there for us. i know we all turned out like nothing for 40 years.

thank you. we are in this together.

I know for a fact that we turned out to vote. Almost everyone I know did. And we didn't stand in line to vote for Bush.

:grouphug:

don't know why it duplicated...?!

...yes we did! The lines snaked around tables in my polling site, and people waited patiently without much complaint. I'm really baffled as to why the media would focus on the large turnouts all across the country, then turnaround and say that AAs and the young didn't turn up.

Oh wait, that's right, I've got it... only Team Morality showed up in droves, not us! And to prove their point, there's a... "mandate."

Ugh.

was brought out by Gwen Moore, the first black Congresswoman from Wisconsin. I believe she helped bring in black volunteers and black voters.

Plus the people I work with know the score. They were fully behind John Kerry, and still are now. I went to talk to one, Linda, just before the election to make sure she was voting and she said "You don't have to worry. I always vote. Don't worry. I know who to vote for."

She has told me of attending voter meetings in her neighborhood, and about telling others not to complain if they didn't participate in the system.

more. And his little lapdog press who are busy spinning his theft and fraudulency into a mandate.

No one I know. Everyone has been blaming the young people so far (even though they were the only age demographic to vote Kerry).

one was the son of a friend of mine...all three were 19 or so.
and in my six years of living in this area, that's something i had NEVER seen...young, black men voting...and certainly not three of them together :D
i think we ALL did our part...except those still deluded by the bushbots.
now let's pray we can prove fraud.

...specifically, it was - OMG, I'm blushing even giving them credence - Scarborough, and the heads all nodded around the table, except Ron Reagan, though he didn't dispute it. It was in the dead of night, when only the political freaks like us were still watching. Still, it pissed me off. Brian Williams said it too. Ugh. It was also parrotted on CNN, possibly Jeff Greenfield.