-
Election 2004 Special Reports
By Nation Contributors
Jacksonville, Florida
At 8:30 this morning, members of the Jacksonville Leadership Coalition met to discuss precisely how they were going to make sure all voters in Duval County will be able to vote tomorrow. It was, perhaps, the most important meeting of the hundreds of meetings the group-representing more than 100 churches as well as unions and civic groups-has had in several months of steady organizing.
Florida Republicans have been busy too, compiling and disseminating lists that members of the coalition believe will be used to challenge voters on Tuesday. (Because of Florida law, poll watchers cannot use their right to challenge a voter during early voting.)
(0) CommentsNovember 1, 2004
-
International Election Inspection
By Nation Contributors
International election monitors recently travelled to Afghanistan to observe the country's first post-Taliban election, which was fraught with corruption and irregularities. Their counterparts are now in the land of the "liberator," to see if similar issues arise in states like Florida and Ohio.
On November 2, one hundred specialists from the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and twenty experts invited by the San Francisco-based non-profit Global Exchange will observe and monitor elections in crucial swing states across the country.
The idea of international monitors made headlines last July when thirteen Congressional Democrats, concerned about a repeat of the fiasco in Florida, sent a letter to Kofi Annan asking the UN to send representatives. "We believe that the engagement of international election monitors can be a catalyst to expedite the necessary reform, as well as reduce the likelihood of questionable practices and voter disenfranchisement on Election Day," the letter stated. House Republicans shot back with concerns about the infringement of US sovereignty and passed an amendment to a foreign aid bill banning US tax dollars from supporting any UN mission to monitor votes. In a compromise, the State Department decided to invite the less-controversial multinational OSCE to see if US elections measure up to international standards.
(0) CommentsNovember 1, 2004
-
Labor in Pennsylvania
By Nation Contributors
Allentown, Pennsylvania
Just across the river from the massive, rusting Bethlehem Steel Works sits a union hall for three United Steelworkers locals. It is the hub of activity for a huge, unprecedented, voter mobilization effort in Lehigh Valley, which is the linchpin of the Kerry campaign's efforts to win Pennsylvania's 21 electoral votes. The saying in this state is "as goes Lehigh Valley so goes Pennsylvania."
On the weekend before Election Day, the union hall was jammed with volunteers, who had come from all around the country to walk precincts in Bethlehem and adjoining Allentown. New Yorkers have been streaming here every weekend for some time, eager to help out in a battleground state just next door.
(0) CommentsNovember 1, 2004
-
Still a Contender
By Nation Contributors
Nogales, Arizona
For so many weeks, Arizona was considered a toss up, a battleground, a wild card, a key swing state. OK--admittedly not in the same league as Florida or Ohio, but certainly second tier, like West Virginia or Iowa. Some even thought it might turn blue.
Now it's been left for red; dumped by both of its suitors, who, driven by the polls' prognoses of sure success or demise, have reassigned staff and pulled TV and radio ads. The buzz is that Kerry's head campaigner was sent to Colorado. Even Martin Sheen cancelled a date with Scottsdale for some "other" city in Ohio.
(0) CommentsNovember 1, 2004
-
Palm Beach Déjà Vu?
By Nation Contributors
Palm Baech, Florida
The real issue in the 2004 election in Florida--at least in Palm Beach County, where the uprising against the 2000 election began--is the election itself. Ask people what their main concerns are, as I have been doing for the past few days, and the answer is almost always procedural. "I'm concerned about the limited number of early voting stations." "I'm concerned about the absentee ballots." "I'm concerned about the paperless electronic voting machines."
Another frequent answer is the atmosphere. Although Democrats and Republicans are both convinced that they are the party of civility, the most notorious example of un-civility so far has in fact been the Democrat who tried to run down former Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris with his car, claiming he had a right to express his opinion.
(0) CommentsOctober 31, 2004
-
Hip Hop the Vote
By Nation Contributors
Remember, years before Sex in the City, when Sarah Jessica Parker adopted voting as her personal cause, and it was so dorky? Times have changed. Last week in Detroit, soon after white Republican State Representative John Pappageorge emphasized the strategic importance of "suppressing the Detroit vote," more than 6,000 young people attended a "Vote or Die" rally at Wayne State University featuring P. Diddy, Leonardo DiCaprio and Mary J. Blige.
The excitement isn't just about the celebrities, though they add to the fun. All over the country, students, especially African-Americans, are for the first time in years, deeply invested in the electoral process. "Puffy, Russell Simmons, they tapped into something that was already there. Our jobs are deteriorating, and then there's the war. People are worried about getting drafted," says Steven Waddy, 22-year-old coordinator of Georgia Black Youth Vote. "They're angry, too, about the 2000 election," he adds. "We want to make sure our votes are counted."
Many students are being trained to serve as election monitors. Even campus groups usually regarded as apolitical, like black fraternities and sororities, have mobilized their members, registering voters and screening Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.
(0) CommentsOctober 31, 2004
-
Confusion in Ohio
By Nation Contributors
At a rally in Washington a couple of Sundays ago called the Million Worker March, comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory joked, "We won the Voting Rights Act forty years ago, but it didn't say they have to count that vote. That's gonna have to be another bill and another march." In the run-up to the election, Ohio is putting its own special exclamation point on that statement.
Since the beginning of the year voter registration in the state has swelled by about 700,000 souls, to a record 7.8 million voters. It's estimated that about 60 percent of those new voters registered as Democrats. Meanwhile, like sportscasters filling the dead air between plays, pundits have been intoning for months that "No Republican has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio." All of which lays the table for what Republican operatives nationally have been quite frank to admit is an effort to suppress the vote, and--surprise, surprise--such plans especially target African-Americans.
To list just the most high-profile efforts, Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, a black former militant-turned-Carter-Democrat-turned-Republican-with-ambitions, ordered all county boards of elections to reject any registration forms that were not on 80-pound card stock. Cries of public outrage forced him to back off in September, but he did so without clarity, and it's unknown how many registrations may have been junked in the meantime.
(0) CommentsOctober 30, 2004
-
A Modern-Day Poll Tax
By Nation Contributors
Seattle, Washington
Dan Madison wanted to go to the polls to vote in the presidential elections on Tuesday, motivated in particular by President Bush's re-election plan to cut Section 8 funding by $1 billion. Instead, Madison will be sitting at home.
The thing that stands between Madison and the election amounts to a vote-denying "legal financial obligation" (LFO) of $15 per month.
(0) CommentsOctober 29, 2004
-
Dirty Tricks and Treats in Wisconsin
By Nation Contributors
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
The Republican administrator of Wisconsin's largest county recently sent a powerful signal about his respect for the voters of Wisconsin and the state's electoral system.
Apparently worried about massive increases in voter registration in the city of Milwaukee--and about the intense interest in the presidential race among people of color, young people and others who might not be inclined to vote to re-elect George W. Bush-Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker pulled one of the most bizarre stunts ever seen in Wisconsin electoral history.
(0) CommentsOctober 29, 2004
-
Super Bowl Tuesday
By Nation Contributors
Jacksonville, Florida
These days, Jacksonville likes to pass itself off as a "Shining New City of the South," with gleaming downtown corporate towers and lush gated communities. The city fathers are hoping to promote this new image when they host the 2005 Super Bowl in February.
But there's tension in the air in Jacksonville--pregame jitters, if you will--about another, bigger game: the presidential election. In 2000 more than 27,000 votes were "spoiled" in Duval County because of a poorly designed ballot and directions suggesting that votes be punched on every page (those who did this had their votes tossed out as "over votes").
(0) CommentsOctober 28, 2004
- Atrios
- Arts and Letters Daily
- The Caucus
- Campus Progress
- Crooks and Liars
- The Daily Gotham
- Daily Kos
- Echidne of the Snakes
- Ezra Klein
- FAIR
- Feministe
- Feministing
- Firedoglake
- Glenn Greenwald
- Gothamist
- In these Times
- Hendrik Hertzberg
- Huffington Post
- Hullabaloo
- Matthew Yglesias
- Media Matters
- Mother Jones
- My DD
- New York Review of Books
- Openleft
- Pam's House Blend
- Pandagon
- Political Wire
- The Progressive
- RaceWire
- Real Clear Politics
- Roberto Lovato
- Romenesko
- Swing State Project
- Talking Points Memo
- Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Tapped
- Tech President
- Tompaine
- The Washington Note
- Utne Reader
- Wonkette
- ZNet
RSS