At the end of July, I picked up the story of Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) officers intimidating elderly, black voters in Florida. On Monday, in the New York times, Bob Herbert wrote about the situation, and now, today, in a follow-up, he's laid bare the true purpose of the FDLE "investigation."
State officials have said that the investigation, which has already frightened many voters and intimidated elderly volunteers, is in response to allegations of voter fraud involving absentee ballots that came up during the Orlando mayoral election in March. But the department considered that matter closed last spring, according to a letter from the office of Guy Tunnell, the department's commissioner, to Lawson Lamar, the state attorney in Orlando, who would be responsible for any criminal prosecutions.
The letter, dated May 13, said:
"We received your package related to the allegations of voter fraud during the 2004 mayoral election. This dealt with the manner in which absentee ballots were either handled or collected by campaign staffers for Mayor Buddy Dyer. Since this matter involved an elected official, the allegations were forwarded to F.D.L.E.'s Executive Investigations in Tallahassee, Florida.
"The documents were reviewed by F.D.L.E., as well as the Florida Division of Elections. It was determined that there was no basis to support the allegations of election fraud concerning these absentee ballots. Since there is no evidence of criminal misconduct involving Mayor Dyer, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement considers this matter closed."
Well, it's not closed. And department officials said yesterday that the letter sent out in May was never meant to indicate that the "entire" investigation was closed. Since the letter went out, state troopers have gone into the homes of 40 or 50 black voters, most of them elderly, in what the department describes as a criminal investigation. Many longtime Florida observers have said the use of state troopers for this type of investigation is extremely unusual, and it has caused a storm of controversy.
The officers were armed and in plain clothes. For elderly African-American voters, who remember the terrible torment inflicted on blacks who tried to vote in the South in the 1950's and 60's, the sight of armed police officers coming into their homes to interrogate them about voting is chilling indeed.
One woman, who is in her mid-70's and was visited by two officers in June, said in an affidavit: "After entering my house, they asked me if they could take their jackets off, to which I answered yes. When they removed their jackets, I noticed they were wearing side arms. ... And I noticed an ankle holster on one of them when they sat down."
(via Body and Soul.)
That FDLE officer must have been incredibly relieved that he remembered to strap on his ankle holster before walking into such a dangerous situation. After all, you've got to watch out for a woman like that—black and in her mid-70s, ready to rear up at any moment and exercise her right to vote.
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The GOP has no shame. What does it say about the GOP when they are advantaged from a suppressed vote? Be it black voter intimidation or green party agitation, i.e., registering Nader voters in battleground states. It is clear that a core objective of their strategy is to marginalize any political activity which disrupts their radical social and economic agenda.
I found your synthesis of the Herbert articles illuminating–I also received the following email from MoveOn the other day which outlines some of the new methods and target demographic for suppressing the opposition vote.
Peace!
Barry
Dear MoveOn member,
Last month John Pappageorge, a Republican state representative in Michigan, told a journalist that the Republicans would do poorly if they failed to “suppress the Detroit vote.” Detroit, of course, is 83% black.[1]
Democratic officials expressed their outrage, and Pappageorge eventually apologized for his words, but his statement spoke to a bigger truth: Republicans continue to actively suppress black and minority votes in order to win elections through intimidation, misinformation, and tampering with voter rolls and records. In 2000, the black voters who were not allowed to vote would have almost certainly swung the election in Al Gore’s favor. And the practice continues: a recent report from the NAACP and the People for the American Way Foundation documents suppression tactics in use right now.[2]
The Republican Party’s continued silence is shameful. We’re joining with Julian Bond, Chairman of the NAACP*, Reverend Jesse Jackson, President of the Rainbow/Push Coalition*, Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. and others to demand that the Republican Party abandon these racist, unfair, and undemocratic tactics and condemn anyone in their ranks who uses them. Please join us by signing the petition below:
http://www.moveonpac.org/suppression/?id=3415-4309259-98neN_EiD3Yv9_BXpzvhqg
Many of the leaders above and other signers will personally deliver this petition to the Bush/Cheney campaign headquarters next month, so please sign today and ask your friends to sign.
Just last week, Bob Herbert of the New York Times wrote a column describing armed, plain-clothes officers from the Florida state police (which reports directly to Governor Jeb Bush) going into the homes of elderly black voters and interrogating them, supposedly as part of an investigation into voter fraud. While ostensibly random, several of those questioned were members of the Orlando League of Voters, a group that has been very successful in mobilizing the city’s black vote. According to Herbert, this supposed “investigation” has resulted in a blanket of fear, leaving organizers afraid to work and voters afraid of contact with campaign workers.[3]
Four years ago, Florida election officials removed over 52,000 voters from the rolls under the guise of “cleansing” the list of felons. Over 90% of those purged were not guilty of any crime and 54% were African-American, a group which, in Florida, are likely to vote Democratic over 90% of the time.[4] The company that provided the purge list warned Florida officials that thousands of eligible voters would likely be disenfranchised in the process, but Katherine Harris, the Florida Secretary of State who also served as state campaign manager for George W. Bush, went forward with the purge anyway. The result was thousands of voters not allowed to vote in an election that was decided by just over 500 votes.
It’s not just Florida. A joint report from People for the American Way Foundation and the NAACP “The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America Today” highlights recent attempts to suppress African-American and minority voting, documenting instances of the following:[5]
* Challenges and threats against individual voters at the polls by armed private guards, off-duty law enforcement officers, local creditors, fake poll monitors, and poll workers and managers.
* Signs posted at the polling place warning of penalties for “voter fraud” or “non-citizen” voting, or illegally urging support for a candidate.
* Poll workers “helping” voters fill out their ballots, and instructing them on how to vote.
* Criminal tampering with voter registration rolls and records.
* Fliers and radio ads containing false information about where, when and how to vote, voter eligibility, and the false threat of penalties.
* Internal memos from party officials in which the explicit goal of suppressing black voter turnout is outlined.
Here are a few other incidents highlighted in the report and elsewhere:
* In 2003, in Pennsylvania, men with clipboards bearing official-looking insignias were reportedly dispatched to African American neighborhoods. Tom Lindenfeld, who ran a counter-intimidation campaign for Democratic candidate John Street, said there were 300 cars with the decals resembling such federal agencies as the DEA and ATF and that the men were asking prospective voters for identification. In a post-election poll of 1000 African-American voters, seven percent said they had encountered such efforts.
* In 2002, in Louisiana, fliers were distributed in African American communities stating, “‘Vote!!! Bad Weather? No problem!!! If the weather is uncomfortable on election day [Saturday, December 7th], remember you can wait and cast your ballot on Tuesday, December 10th.” In a separate incident, apparently targeting potential supporters of Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, the Louisiana Republican Party admitted to paying African American youths $75 to hold signs aloft on street corners in black neighborhoods that appeared to discourage African-Americans from voting.
* Last month, in South Dakota, Native American voters were sent to the wrong polling places, and given misleading information about the ID they need to vote.[6]
Stopping eligible voters from voting is a basic affront to democracy. It is an outrage for any political party to condone or encourage the practice, especially given the history of African-Americans and other minorities being disenfranchised in our country. In the vast majority of these cases, Republicans are the perpetrators or it’s a Republican candidate that stands to benefit. Call on Republican leaders to to publicly disavow the suppression of the minority vote by signing the petition at:
http://www.moveonpac.org/suppression/?id=3415-4309259-98neN_EiD3Yv9_BXpzvhqg
Thanks for all you do,
— James Rucker, Laura Dawn, and the rest of the MoveOn PAC team
MoveOn PAC
Thursday, August, 26th 2004
1 http://www.freep.com/news/statewire/sw101420_20040721.htm
2 http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oId=16368
3 http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/081704C.shtml
(original: http://nytimes.com/2004/08/16/opinion/16herbert.html?hp)
4 http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040517&s=palast
5 http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oId=16399
6 http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oId=16362
Other links:
1 million black votes didn’t count in the 2000 presidential election”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/06/20/ING2976LG61.DTL
Commentary in Detroit Free Press
Commentary in Detroit Free Press”> http://www.freep.com/voices/columnists/eholl27_20040727.htm“>Commentary in Detroit Free Press
“The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America” (pdf)
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/dfiles/file_459.pdf
*Organizations named above are for identification purposes only.
PAID FOR BY MOVEON PAC http://www.moveonpac.org
Authorized by Maxine Waters and Jesse Jackson, Jr.