Bullying the voters: Republican Style

As election day approaches and its looking more and more like Bush will be thrown out of office, along with many of his Congressional chorts one hopes, the Bush campaign's strategy increasingly resemble the thug tactics they so richly have cultivated. Voter intimidation by Republican operatives is being reported nationwide, and while my eye is perhaps jaundiced, it is hard to believe the press is disproportionately reporting Republican irregularities when, all along, the general trend has been to give Bush every benefit of the doubt and more.

So from the BBC comes this:

New Florida vote scandal feared

By Greg Palast Reporting for BBC's
Newsnight

A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in
Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in
the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation
reveals.

Election supervisor Ion Sancho believes some voters are being
intimidatedTwo 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."
Ion Sancho, a Democrat, noted
that Florida law allows political party operatives inside polling stations to
stop voters from obtaining a ballot.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . ...

A Republican spokeswoman did not deny that voters would be challenged
at polling stationsIn Washington, well-known civil rights attorney, Ralph Neas,
noted that US federal law prohibits targeting challenges to voters, even if
there is a basis for the challenge, if race is a factor in targeting the voters.
The list of Jacksonville voters covers an area with a majority of black
residents.
When asked by Newsnight for an explanation of the list,
Republican spokespersons claim the list merely records returned mail from either
fundraising solicitations or returned letters sent to newly registered voters to
verify their addresses for purposes of mailing campaign literature.
Republican state campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher stated the list
was not put together "in order to create" a challenge list, but refused to say
it would not be used in that manner.
Rather, she did acknowledge that the
party's poll workers will be instructed to challenge voters, "Where it's stated
in the law."
There was no explanation as to why such clerical matters would
be sent to top officials of the Bush campaign in Florida and Washington.

Similar tactics are being planned in Ohio as reported by the New York Times:

Big G.O.P. Bid to Challenge Voters at Polls in Key StateBy MICHAEL
MOSSPublished: October 23, 2004

Republican Party officials in Ohio took
formal steps yesterday to place thousands of recruits inside polling places on
Election Day to challenge the qualifications of voters they suspect are not
eligible to cast ballots.
Party officials say their effort is necessary to
guard against fraud arising from aggressive moves by the Democrats to register
tens of thousands of new voters in Ohio, seen as one of the most pivotal
battlegrounds in the Nov. 2 elections.

.......................................

Ohio election officials said they had never seen so large a drive to
prepare for Election Day challenges. They said they were scrambling yesterday to
be ready for disruptions in the voting process as well as alarm and complaints
among voters. Some officials said they worried that the challenges could
discourage or even frighten others waiting to vote.
....................................

Elections officials in Ohio said they hoped the criteria would minimize the
potential for disruption. But Democrats worry that the challenges will
inevitably delay the process and frustrate the voters

". . . delay the process and frustrate the voters. . . ." Now those are some lofty aspects of the democratic process.

None of this should come as a surprise, since the Bush crowd practiced such intimidation in Florida in 2000 under Jeb Bush, in all likelihood stealing the election for his brother. What should surprise and shock the American people is the scale on which it is being organized only four years later. If we hadn't become so inured to the sleaze and outright lying and corruption under the Bush regime, we might even have a normal reaction to such chicanery, horrified and disgusted that we have begun to resemble a third world country in what passes for governance.

2000 was a mistake. Bush was handed the election, but went on to act as if he had received a massive mandate. Ideological, secretive and anti-democratic, the Bush administration has gone on to dismantle much of our institutional democracy brick by brick. We the people have been negligent and lazy in protecting and participating in government. Rot had indeed begun to set in. Politics to be bought more than ever.

Maybe this year the populace will wake up a bit to the immense dangers of assuming that because politicians will be politicians one is as good (or as bad) as the next. Bush has shown the fallacy of such thinking beyond our wildest nightmare.