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 From The Desk Of
Ron Walters
Columnist Page
Friday, December 17, 2004; Page 17
CBC Attacks Ohio Voter Disfranchisement
I have seldom seen tears come to his eyes. But there was Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., sitting in front of Detroit Rep. John Conyers, expressing his pain at the indignity of having to fight to legitimize the right to vote all over again, urging the Congressional Black Caucus to go to Ohio and hold hearings on the massive evidence coming out of voter disenfranchisement coming out of that state.
To his credit, Rep. Conyers not only responded, but was somewhat ahead of Jackson by calling the hearing in the first place. And he also committed himself and the CBC to go to Ohio and other places to continue the fact-finding role they were pursuing. They both were on point.
The hearing on December 8 was packed with individuals, many who had important information on the degree of voter disenfranchisement. They told of results in the voting data in some counties that did not – could not -- have been reconciled with the initial exit polls. They told of voter purges in the Cleveland area that accounted for the mystery that Cyuhoga County, where Cleveland is located, had no more people registered in 2004 than in 2000, while Franklin County, where Columbus is located, had far more people registered this time than in 2000.
They also told of an incident where 95,000 votes were invalidated because they were put in the machines upside down by Hispanics who had language difficulty – and were not assisted. They told of standing in long lines 3-10 hours at polling stations with large numbers of minority voters, while suburban voters had enough machines. They told that Black Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell had refrained from providing enough machines, causing one gentleman, the former Chair of the Columbus School Board, to suit the State for violation of due process rights.
A white student from a small college in Ohio told of “being mad” at not having enough voting machines for his college, standing for hours in the long lines with his fellow students either in the rain, or in a hot voting station, conditions that caused many students to give up on voting.
Jackson’s tears should be our tears, to such an extent that we become resigned to turn our pain into power. How can we do that? We should de-legitimize this election by making noise about the stealing of elections in America. Isn’t it strange that – and there was testimony to the fact – that most of the voting irregularities have been about people who tried to vote for John Kerry, or Al Gore, but were prevented from doing so.
Well, they fooled us once, shame on them, and now they have fooled us again, shame on us. Shame on us for believing that all of this is accidental. Shame on us for allowing the people we vote for to turn their back and walk away from challenging the system to count our votes. Shame on us for not mounting a means to protest loudly what has happened in our name and most importantly in the name of democracy. Shame on us for allowing the massive double-standard to exist, where the American president stands before the world criticizing the result of elections in the Ukraine, when his own house is filthy. And just shame on us for having the audacity to call people out to vote and then allow the system to corrupt the innocent faith they have invested in the political system to work in a fair and unbiased manner.
Sitting in these hearings, and watching them again and again on CSPAN, I have been awed by the boldness of what I believe has occurred now twice. And I have had occasion to write in this column, with some admiration as a campaign junkie, for the manner in which Karl Rove mobilized his troops. But one story here is the excellent manner in which he designed and executed the turn-out of Republican voters; another story however is the possibility that what showed up as “turn out” was manufactured by insidious tampering with the machines used to record the vote.
So, it is necessary to ask, what would Martin do? What would Fannie Lou Hamer do? They would answer in the tones of the singing group Sweet Honey on The Rock that “those who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.” This means that there must be a design to fight back - not just at the next election, but in the street, at every corner, on every mountainside. It must be said that the system we call democracy in America is corrupt, has been corrupted by a vicious desire to win at all cost, a desire that mitigates fairness - the bedrock of democratic process - a desire to further the aims of a conservative ideology by the absolute control of government.
And that message should not be silenced by the ultra pragmatists among us, those would go back to business as usual, because there are better things to do, or because things will not change, it’s always been that way – or by the smugness of those who win this way. We must call this kind of activity into question or we really do not believe in freedom and will not know it when it comes.
Ron Walters is the Distinguished Leadership Scholar, director of the African American Leadership Institute in the Academy of Leadership and professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland-College Park. His latest book is “White Nationalism, Black Interests” (Wayne State University Press). |
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