[Vision2020] Disenfranchisement (was re: Conspiracy?)

[Joan Opyr]

Dear Dan, Pat, Donovan, etc.,  

First, exit polls reflect the views of those who choose to answer.  I've been quizzed many times by exit pollsters (in Raleigh, NC and Columbus, OH) and never once have I been harassed.  I was asked if I'd like to share information about how I'd voted, and I was free to say yes or no.  I always said yes.  Others said no.  No one was chased down and beaten with a clipboard until they were so angry they felt obliged to lie.  BTW, I'd be wary of anything I heard on a radio call-in show, especially if it were one those right-wing idiot soapbox specials like Hannity or Limbaugh -- I heard a call once in which a white voter very carefully explained how, through a series of seemingly unrelated events, affirmative action had killed her cousin.  (Remember the old joke: Secular Humanism gonna get your mama?  It worked something like that.)

Second, black and other minority voters are disenfranchised disproportionately more often than white voters.  Typically, as in Ohio this year, the disenfranchisement takes the form of what's called vote spoilage, AKA the old pregnant chad.  Ballots are discarded at the discretion of the precinct supervisors if they appear to be insufficiently punched, double-punched, or inadequately punched.  This is what happens when people are obliged to use old machines or machines that are not equipped to handle the number of voters assigned to them.  In busy precincts in Cleveland where voters should have had three or four machines available to them, they had only two.  Hence the long lines and the machine failures.  It's easy to wind up with a pregnant chad when the chad catcher is full -- sort like when your little three-hole punch fills up with paper circles.  Ever tried that?  Doesn't work so well, does it?

As for Clinton having been elected twice, the second time, he won by more than 10%.  I think you're confusing disenfranchisement, Dan, with losing  They're not the same thing.  When Ronald Reagan won in 1980 and 1984, I was not disenfranchised; I was pissed off.  I was disgusted.  I was angrier than the blind snake who'd married the garden hose.  But those elections were free and fair; there was no Diebold way back then giving Mr. Reagan extra electronic votes in Ohio and North Carolina -- and we've already found more than 8000 of those for Mr. Bush without even really looking  In the meantime, we know that more than 150,000 "spoiled" paper ballots were discarded in Ohio.  I don't know about you, but that smells like old fish to me.  Stinky, bloated, Rovian smelt.   

If I'd cast a ballot in a largely black precinct in Cleveland rather than here in quiet white Idaho, I'd be rioting about now.  (Are you listening, John Ashcroft?  I'm shouting fire in an empty Red State theater.)

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment

PS: I've been thinking about the Bush "mandate," and you know, 51% does not a mandate make.  I've also been thinking about Ted's election 2000 protest in Seattle; I've been watching the movie Iron-Jawed Angels; and I've decided that what we need on inauguration day is a "49% March."  Nearly half of this nation voted last Tuesday to give Mr. Bush his walking papers.  We need to remind him of this, forcefully.  If anyone on this list is interested in helping me organize an inauguration day protest parade (complete with a marching band and floats), email me.  Let's get a grip here  Half of us still think the country is on the wrong track.  Half of us still think the war in Iraq is a disaster, that we don't need any more tax cuts for the wealthy, that Social Security and Medicare and the environment are worth saving, and we have no business on January 20th just rolling over and playing dead.  A healthy democracy requires a healthy opposition.  Let's give ourselves a little CPR, a little defibrillation.   

THE 49% PARADE: JANUARY 20TH, RIGHT DOWN MAIN STREET!!!        

----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Carscallen
Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 7:18 AM
To: 'Pat Kraut'; 'vision2020'
Subject: RE: [Vision2020] Conspiracy?

Conspiracy, schmonspiracy . . .

A couple things:   

The exit polls:  my wife, who is quite apolitical, told me that if
someone badgered her about the way she voted, she'd tell 'em the
opposite of how she did just to screw with them.  "It's my vote, it's my
business!"  Bully for her.

The disenfranchised voters:  Hell, anyone who's candidate isn't on the
winning side is going to feel disenfranchised!  How d'you think I felt
when Clinton won twice!

That'll do 'er for now

DC

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