Could Virginia become the Florida or Ohio of 2008? Or even 2007?
In 2006, Virginia needed to call in the FBI to investigate voter intimidation. And, with the state becoming increasingly competitive for 2008, the voter intimidation and vote suppression problems will likely escalate - unless we do something about it in advance.
Over the last few weeks, the Virginia Fair Elections Task Force has traveled the state, talking to voters, party leaders and state officials about the growing problem of voter intimidation in Virginia. Given the stories we?'e heard, we have reason to be concerned.
That's why we're asking you today to come forward to share your story of voter intimidation, vote suppression or Election Day dirty tricks. We're trying to raise attention to the issue now - before we have another election like 2006. Last year, as you'll recall, we saw the cottage industry of intimidators and dirty tricksters spring into action around Election Day in Virginia:
From Port Folio Weekly in Tidewater:
Virginia voters heard scores of intimidating and outright false disclaimers in the lead-up to the 2006 general elections. They ranged in delivery from mass flyerings to automated-dialing smear campaigns, and they were all legal. Though it bears similarities to the overtly racist voting fraud that predated the Voting Rights Act of 1965, today?s vote suppression is invisible and harder to trace.
From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:
A Norfolk voter who described receiving more than 30 phone calls degrading a Democratic candidate in the 12 days before last November's election; black neighborhoods in Buckingham County being flooded with fliers urging voters to "Skip this Election"; and automated calls telling voters, falsely, that their polling locations had been changed.
If you've witnessed - or been a victim of - voter intimidation or vote suppression in Virginia, we'd like to hear your story. At the Fair Elections Task Force, we believe that the only way to stop the dirty tricks around Election Day is to call out the shady operatives who perpetrate them - well before Election Day.
With that in mind, please share your story with us at the Virginia Fair Elections Task Force. Contact Patricia Roberts or share your story through our website.
The Virginia Fair Elections Task Force is a project of Citizens Against Un-American Voter Intimidation (CAUAVI), a national election reform group headed by Patricia Roberts of Lithonia, Georgia.
Patricia's son, Jamaal Addison, was killed in the line of duty in Iraq on March 23, 2003. Given that her son had paid the ultimate price to spread democracy abroad, Patricia has been working to protect democracy here at home.
For more information about the group, check out Michael Paul Williams? column on Patricia Roberts in the Richmond Times-Dispatch; this month's feature story in Port Folio Weekly; and a story in the Richmond Voice.
We'll keep this diary - and RK readers - up-to-date on our progress. And we invite you to join us in fighting voter intimidation and vote suppression.
With your help, we'll keep Virginia from becoming the Florida/Ohio of 2008.
-Anna Landmark
Task Force Member
Virginia Fair Elections Task Force
www.letamericansvote.org
Prediction:
Both Virginia and Ohio will go Democratic inthe presdicential election, unless something REALLY weird happens.
Well, as I was flyering cars at St. Mary?s church in Burke, a Democrat was following behind me with a trash bag, ripping up our flyers and throwing them away (and not putting his own literature on the cars). The Dem was Bill Kuster, who at that time was an officer in the VYDs and working with Gov. Warner?s PAC. Meanwhile, it turns out that Bill had done the same thing over at St. Timothy?s church earlier in the day, AND Warner?s PAC director and Peter Feddo had done the same thing over at St. Andrew?s church. And there may have been other locations too, that I?m not remembering at the moment.
They ALL said the same thing when confronted: ?we?re here to protect the tax exempt status of the church.? Oh really? You guys all came up from Richmond just to protect the tax status of a few churches that you had not even previously known existed? And what a coincidence that you?re all doing the same thing, with the same excuse, to suppress the same population of voters ? namely churchgoing Catholics.
As far as I know, none of the churches even knew we were coming (i.e., they couldn?t get in trouble, including 'losing their tax exempt status?), but it?s an open parking lot, so there was nothing wrong with us flyering the cars.
Does anyone seriously think that Gov. Warner did NOT know that his own PAC director was doing this? For those that remember, Richmond ran Cathy Belter?s campaign, not Cathy Belter. So, here is Gov. Warner?s own, personal Richmond political team in town two days before the election (a Sunday) and their only public appearance is to rip flyers off of cars in Catholic church parking lots in multiple churches around the district? Have you ever seen a Governor?s PAC director that went out on his own to do his own thing in the ONLY legislative race in the state going on at that particular time, i.e., a special election? Never. Ever. I find it hard to believe that these guys were doing anything but suppressing the Christian vote at the specific instructions of Mark Warner. There is simply no other logical explanation.
And Bill Kuster knows he was caught red handed. I?m not sure the other two guys ever realized that we figured out who they were. Well, now that you Democrats are so concerned with voter suppression in Virginia, keep in mind that no Republican Governor has ever tried to suppress turnout (I?m not talking about things like mailing the Dem base a negative message about their own candidate, I?m talking about real voter suppression, in this case stealing flyers), but Mark Warner has.
I also learned later that 10 years before, in 1993 I think, when Mark Warner was chairman of the Va. Dem Party, he filed suit to block the distribution of voter guides at churches all over Virginia. At least that time he was using the legal system. I understand that he lost that case, maybe that?s why he had his minions ignore the law and simply take our political literature right off of the cars. Nice. Anyone want to explain how this is NOT voter suppression?
It would be trivial to hack the system in most districts in a way that no one would know, so long as the total count of votes matches the number of voters who voted.
We need a transparent and source-code visible system, or purely mechanical and paper one. Right now we have the careful hiding of a sham in Virginia, and I do not trust our system.