The transcript is here [pdf 192KB]. There is much to quote and comment on. But Jesse Jackson goes first.
This passage is from the question period after the official statements by Congress people and expert panelists. It posts now because
a) it's late and time for me to go to bed, and Jackson's statement needs no comment: it says it all.
b) Jackson's statement follows well on the heels of The Southern Strategy of George W. Bush. Sometimes the borders of the South extend quite far.
I do not want the people who tried to vote and got violated and who have real suspicions to be marginalized as if something is wrong with us and not something wrong with the machine and those who own the machines. I remember in 1964, I guess it was, Dr. King got the Nobel Peace Prize, and President Johnson gave a White House reception, and he said Mr. Johnson, I thank you very much, but all people deserve the right to vote. He said Dr. King, I knew you were going to say that. But the fact is I wish I could give you the right to vote, but I can't give it. I wish I could, but I can't. Worse, the Congress can but won't. Therefore, you can't have the right to vote.
The Congress spoke. The President spoke. But it took an independent band of people who had to go to Selma and had to bleed some more to go outside that whole system and open it up. But now, if some of you came out of those streets, we need you to go back to the streets with your newfound power and declare our protests to be legitimate. We need some legitimacy in the struggle. When Mr. Kerry left, he took media scrutiny with him. So it's repeated that it's over. It ain't over. The machines have not been checked. Why did it take 34 days, because 88 counties and 88 distant schemes in the sense of discounting people, most of whose children are in Iraq. No member of Congress has lost a child in Iraq. None of the top 10 percent lost a child in Iraq.
The poor and the dying are being jammed again. This ain't right. A step further: this system can't be fixed. This is irretrievably broken. You cannot fix this under present law: 3,067 counties, 13,000 administrators, with each their own scheme; we deserve a Federally-protected right to vote.
I close on this: why do our kids do so well, from these same neighborhoods? Why do we do so well in football, basketball, baseball, track, golf and tennis? Because if you're from Mississippi or New York, California or Seattle, the playing field is even.
We deserve a Federally protected right to vote. We need a Constitutional amendment to protect our right with Federal machinery. We cannot have the poor people getting poor machines, rich folks getting rich machines and then calling it equal. It violates equal protection.
So my appeal is that we need two things: we need some right now presence in Ohio. Let people express themselves the way they have done in Ukraine. Let's express ourselves and hear people and investigate. And secondly, let's move right now for a Constitutional, individual, Federally-protected right to vote.
States rights are unfixable. We're voting for a President. Our right to vote for President and Congress should be protected by the Federal Government, and right now, we are dependent upon states to do that.
(Reverend Jesse Jackson, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES JUDICIARY COMMITTEE DEMOCRATIC FORUM: PRESERVING DEMOCRACY -- WHAT WENT WRONG IN OHIO?, Wednesday, December 8, 2004, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C., 110-113.)
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