Our Vote Will Not Be Intimidated, Suppressed, Purged, Folded, Spindled, or Otherwise Mutilated

NCDP Chair Jerry Meek announced today that state Democrats would participate in an unprecedented 50-state election protection program to prepare for the 2008 election.

North Carolina will participate in an in-depth nationwide survey to collect critical data on the often confusing and complex sets of administrative practices and decisions governing our nation’s elections. We will work with election officials throughout the state to help identify potential issues so they can be resolved well in advance of the 2008 election.

More specifically, we will work with local election officials to answer critical questions about voter registration, centralized voter databases, voting systems and absentee voting, provisional balloting, polling place procedures and Election Day preparation.

Data collected from the survey will be analyzed to determine the needs of each election locality and the next steps for strengthening the election process in that locality.

“North Carolina Democrats will not rest until every single eligible North Carolinian can register to vote, cast their ballot without fear of intimidation or harassment, and have confidence that their vote will be counted fairly and accurately,” said NCDP Chair Jerry Meek.

“Our commitment stands in stark contrast to what we’ve seen from Republicans both here in North Carolina and across the country,” Meek said. “From false reports of voter fraud and restrictive voter ID proposals to voter purging and voter intimidation tactics, Republicans want to place a variety of roadblocks that keep countless Americans from exercising their right to vote."

In June, for example, North Carolina Republican State Auditor Les Merritt attempted to block legislation that would make it easier for people to vote.

Citing a flawed report, Merritt asked for a delay on the same day that a state Senate committee was poised to vote on same day voter registration. When asked if he had any actual evidence of voter fraud, Merritt admitted he had none.

Mr. Merritt also used an analysis similar to that employed by the U.S. Justice Department, the same partisan agency that urged North Carolina to prematurely scrub qualified voters from the rolls.

North Carolina Republican attempts at voter suppression are not new, especially when aimed at African-Americans.

In 1990, just days before the general election in which Harvey Gantt, an African-American, ran against Republican Jesse Helms for U.S. Senate, postcards titled “Voter Registration Bulletin” were mailed to 125,000 African-American voters throughout the state.

The bulletin was sent to African-Americans who lived at the same address for years. It also wrongly suggested that they could not vote if they had moved within 30 days of the election and threatened criminal prosecution.

As a result, many black voters were confused about whether they could vote and some went to their local board of elections office to try to vote there. Considerable resources were devoted to clearing up the confusion.

Nationally, Republicans revived their deception and confusion strategy to dissuade African-American and other minority voters from going to the polls.

Here are just a few examples:

Bush Administration Politicizes Justice Dept., Twists Its Mission to Undercut Voting Rights for Partisan Purposes. The Bush Administration's politicized Justice Department, under the direction of political hacks planted to twist its mission for partisan purposes, has launched an outright attack on voting rights rather than promoting voting rights. The Bush Justice Dept has aimed to create roadblocks for Americans to exercise their right to vote by approving restrictive state voter ID laws, voter purging, and voter intimidation tactics. And as is now well-known, top Justice Dept officials improperly, and illegally, pressured U.S. Attorneys to bring phony voter fraud cases against Democratic and progressive organizations and individuals, to influence the outcome of elections for the Republicans. [Washington Post, 1/22/04; Boston Globe 6/6/07; Charlotte Observer, 5/31/07]

GOP Suppression Tactics in 2006. In Maryland, just days before the 2006 general election, copies of the Election Day manual for the Maryland Republican Party were obtained; in that manual, Republican Party workers were given false information about voters' rights, were told systematically to challenge voters and were advised to threaten election judges with jail time. Also in Maryland, on Election Day, flyers were distributed in Prince George's County, by the Ehrlich/Steele Republican campaign, falsely stating that African American elected officials had endorsed the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate and for Governor and misleading voters about the party affiliation of those candidates. [Washington Post, 11/3/06; Baltimore Sun, 1/20/07]

Email from Bush Campaign in FL to RNC Includes List of Voters to Be Challenged from African-American Neighborhood. "Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington, DC, contain a 15-page so-called 'caging list.' It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida. An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: 'The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on Election Day.'" [BBC Television News Online, 10/26/04]

Florida Election Officials Sought To Purge African-Americans From Voter Rolls. Florida Officials Struck Over 2,000 Eligible Voters From Voting Rolls, 62% Were Democrats, More Than Half Were Black. An analysis by the Miami Herald found that the Florida Division of Elections had improperly included 2,119 voters who were on a list of more than 47,000 felons potentially ineligible to vote in the November elections. Florida law requires convicted felons to request clemency in order to regain their right to vote. Of the 2,119 people on the list, 62 percent were registered Democrats, almost half were Black and less than 20% were Republican. [Miami Herald, 7/2/04; Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 7/7/04, 7/8/04; New York Times, 7/10/04]

Native Americans Told "To Go Home" In June Primary. Poll workers demanded identification from Native Americans in South Dakota's June primary, and they illegally turned away Native American voters from the polls when they did not have it. The state's elections auditor sent out a memo to state poll workers stating that all voters must have IDs, but did not widely disseminate information that said that voters could sign an affidavit in lieu of showing identification. State Democrats say that the actions by poll workers were an extension of a wider move by the GOP controlled state legislature to suppress Native American turnout. The law requiring voters to show identification was passed last year. One South Dakotan voter turned away from the poll was told by an elections worker that "if she didn't' have a photo ID, she could just turn around and home." [Argus Leader, 6/11/04]

Armed, Plain Clothes Police Officers Intimidated Elderly Black Voters In Orlando. Plain clothes police officers, revealing their side arms, made house calls to elderly, black voters who voted in Orlando's mayoral race in March 2003. The voters were often campaign workers or volunteers that helped to organize and get out the vote, mainly using absentee ballots, for African- American Mayor Buddy Dyer. Dyer won with just under 51 percent of the vote. His challenger, Ken Mulvaney and other defeated candidate alleged that Dyer aide, Ezzie Thomas, the 73-year old head of the Orlando League of Voters, filled out multiple absentee ballots on behalf of black voters. These actions came in spite of the fact that in May 2003 the Florida Dept of Law Enforcement had concluded "that there was no basis to support the allegations of election fraud."[Bob Herbert Column, New York Times, 8/16/04, 8/20/04; AP, 7/17/04]