[Mb-civic] Voter Apathy

[Michael Butler]

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    Worst Voter Error Is Apathy toward Irregularities
    By Donna Britt 
    The Washington Post

     Friday 12 November 2004

     Is anyone surprised that accusations of voter disenfranchisement and
irregularities abound after the most passionately contested presidential
campaign in memory? Is anybody stunned that the mainstream media appear
largely unconcerned?

     To many people's thinking, too few citizens were discouraged from
voting to matter. Those people would suggest that not nearly enough votes
for John Kerry were missed or siphoned away to overturn President Bush's
win. To which I'd respond:

     Excuse me -- I thought this was America.

     Informed that I was writing about voter disenfranchisement, a
Democratic friend admitted, "I'm trying not to care about that." I
understand. Less than two weeks after a bruising election in a nation in
which it's unfashionable to overtly care about anything, it's annoying of me
even to notice.

     But citizens who insist, election after election, that each vote is
sacred and then shrug at hundreds of credible reports that honest-to-God
votes were suppressed and discouraged aren't just being hypocritical.

     They're telling the millions who never vote because "it doesn't matter
anyway" that they're the smart ones.

     Come on. If Republicans had lost the election, this column would be
unnecessary because Karl Rove and company would be contesting every vote. I
keep hearing from those who wonder whether Democrats are "too nice," and
from others who wonder whether efforts by the mainstream media to be "fair
and balanced" sometimes render them "neutered and less effective."

     Perhaps. But the much-publicized voting-machine error that gave Bush
4,258 votes in an Ohio precinct where only 638 people cast ballots preceded
a flood of disturbing reports, ranging from the Florida voting machine that
counted backward to the North Carolina computer that eliminated votes. In
Ohio's Warren County, election officials citing "homeland security" concerns
locked the doors to the county building where votes were being counted,
refusing to allow members of the media and bipartisan observers to watch.

     Bush won the county overwhelmingly.

     Much of the media dismisses anxiety over such irregularities as
grousing by poor-loser Democrats, rabid conspiracy theorists and pouters
frustrated by Kerry's lightning-quick concession. Some of it surely is.

     But more people's concerns are elementary-school basic -- which isn't
coincidental since that's where many of us learned about democracy. We feel
that Americans mustn't concede the noble intentions upon which our nation
was founded to the cynical or the indifferent. We believe in our nation's
sacred assurance that every citizen's voice be heard through his or her
vote.

     The point isn't just which candidate won or lost. It's that we all lose
when we ignore that thousands of Americans might have been discouraged or
prevented from voting, or not had their votes count.

     If it were us, we'd be screaming bloody murder.

     Yesterday, Lafayette Square was the scene of a lively rally at which
dozens of upbeat, mostly older-than-25 protesters organized by
ReDefeatBush.com heard democracy-praising singers, rappers and speakers.
Protester Susan Ribe, 33, a Wheaton tax researcher, said that though she's
"open-minded" to the possibility that election results might be correct, she
believes that reports of irregularities suggest "there's the need for a
serious investigation."

     Election Protection, the nonpartisan coalition of civil rights
organizations that sent 25,000 poll monitors across the nation to ensure
that registered voters could cast their ballots, received hundreds of
reports of Election Day abuses.

     Some were from voters who said they repeatedly pressed the "Kerry"
button on their electronic voting screens, only to have "Bush" keep lighting
up. Others said that though they pushed "Kerry," they were asked to confirm
their "Bush" vote. There were calls about a Broward County, Fla., roadblock
that denied voters access to precincts in predominantly black districts, and
reports from hundreds who said they'd registered weeks before Florida's
October deadline yet weren't on the rolls.

     Why aren't more Americans exercised about this issue? Maybe the problem
is who's being disenfranchised -- usually poor and minority voters. In a
recent poll of black and white adults by Harvard University professor
Michael Dawson, 37 percent of white respondents said that widely publicized
reports of attempts to prevent blacks from voting in the 2000 election were
a Democratic "fabrication." More disturbingly, nearly one-quarter of whites
surveyed said that if such attempts were made, they either were "not a
problem" (9 percent) or "not so big a problem" (13 percent).

     Excuse me?

     Electronic, paper-trail-free voting is a danger to democracy that the
United States can, and I believe will, address. But not giving a damn about
fellow citizens' votes?

     Election Protection volunteer Bernestine Singley, a Texas-based
writer-lawyer I know, was torn between elation and outrage on Nov. 2 as she
monitored polls in three Florida precincts. Inspiring to Singley were
hundreds of volunteers, most of them white, who'd traveled hundreds of miles
to ensure the inclusion of minority voters. She felt stirred by scores of
young, black voters whose attitude, she says, was, "I don't care how long I
have to stand in line before I do what I came here to do."

     Singley's outrage was sparked by clearly hostile white poll workers,
and the police officer who stood -- illegally -- by a polling place door,
hand on his revolver.

     Did I mention the guy who shoved her?

     After watching Singley assist voters for hours, a scowling,
white-haired 70-something poll worker patronizingly suggested that she was
not a poll monitor. When she replied that he knew exactly what she was
doing, he rammed his chest into hers, shoving her backward.

     Pushing right back, Singley told the man, "You better get off me." He
did. Minutes later, Singley says the man told another poll worker within her
hearing: "I don't know why she thinks I know who she is. They all look alike
to me."

     Excuse me -- is this 2004 or 1954?

     Ironically, if all Americans did look alike -- if "black" and "white"
and "poor" and "well-to-do" didn't exist -- outrages such as those would
happen much less often.

     When they did, many more Americans would fight to ensure they never
happened again.

  

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