November 01, 2004
And What About the Poll Tax?
The election isn’t until tomorrow, and already the parties are in court trying to affect the outcome. In hotly constested Ohio, two federal judges have barred party challengers at Ohio polling spots. The GOP wants to send party members to verify voter eligibilty, primarlily in heavily black parts of Hamilton County. However, both U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott of Cincinnati and U.S. District Judge John Adams of Akron ruled against allowing the practice, citing that “Ohio’s statute allowing challengers at polling places was unconstitutional.”
In making his ruling, Judge Adams said:
In light of these extraordinary circumstances, and the contentious nature of the imminent election, the court cannot and must not turn a blind eye to the substantial likelihood that significant harm will result not only to voters, but also to the voting process itself, if appointed challengers are permitted at the polls.
Judge Dlott said,"the presence of challengers inexperienced in the electoral process questioning voters about their eligibility would impede voting." The judges stated that it is the poll workers' resonsibility to determine voter eligibility.
In trying to sway the election in George Bush's favor, the GOP is clearly overstapping a line that was established ostensibly by the Constitution and reaffirmed by the 15th and 25th Amendments. These amendments, stating that voting rights "shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude" and "shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax" were enacted to prevent parties from preventing minority voting.
Clearly, the objective of sending GOP challengers into predominantly minority districts goes against the intent of these constitutional amendments. We don't hear of the GOP wanting to send challengers to check newly registered college students, who are probably more likely to have registration issues due to new registrations and whether permanent residency is at home or school.
If George W. Bush is to win the election, the least he can do is allow for the whole of the American population decide this. Many feel he already stole one election. We cannot allow for him to steal another one. Should he be allowed to do so, are we that far off from a dictatorship or monarchy? Will the process again be short-circuited to allow for Jeb's assumption of the throne in 2008? This process needs to be fair and open and reflective of the will of all registered voters -- not only those voters deemed favorable to those currently in power.
Posted by blipsman at November 1, 2004 11:19 AMGreat post blipsman. I only wish you could have made this important point in a non-partisan way.
I mean, are my voting rights not being “denied or abridged” if a fraudulent Mary Poppins vote negates my vote?
Both sides are guilty. It has to be fixed.
kctim, I made the post partisan because the cases both involved GOP attempts to overstep established bounds for determining eligibility, which smelled of voter intimidation.
The present systems has a process by which trained poll workers—representing both parties0—verify whether voters are eligible to vote. This helps ensure that “fraudulent Mary Poppins” votes don’t negate yours.
There seems no need for one party to send in additional challengers, especially when the plan so clearly intends to target areas with strong anticipated opposition turn out. Were the Democrats intending to do the same, or were the Republicans intending to send poll challengers to predominantly-white, GOP leaning areas, too, then maybe it wouldn’t be a partisan issue. But as the facts fall now, it is.
Posted by: blipsman at November 1, 2004 12:15 PMThats cool. I just thought it could have more merit if written in a non-partisan way.
I personally don’t let anyone try to intimidate me. If I’m on the registered voter list, I vote.
If people actually cared enough about voting, instead of only voting for who their told to, it might be alittle less intimidating for them.
Thats cool. I just thought it could have more merit if written in a non-partisan way.
Heh. That’s an old GOP tactic. Pull a dirty trick, then play the victim and yell “Partisan politics!” when you get caught. Nixon did that, too. :)
Several news stories make it sound like this is a race related issue. In reality it is not. The areas that were being targeted were areas where an unusually high number of new voters had been registered. Some of these areas are prdominately minority areas. This attention in turn originated from a large number of fraudulant new registrations, particularly non-existant addresses. Much of this stems from workers that were paid according to the number of new voters they registered.
I blame the media for the miss-information.
What about the poll ‘advisors’. They perform much the same function and no-one is questioning them. I say, ask the poll workers if you have questions. Besides its their job to verify voters. We don’t need ‘challengers’ or ‘advisors’.
Posted by: R J at November 2, 2004 12:20 AM
