Hello, Saiks. That thought has often crossed my mind during this whole
election mess. Just goes to show that, in my opinion, the USA is not so
much better than everyone else. Now, we won't be able to go to some third
world country in South America or somewhere else and "fix" their elections
just because of some irregularities we think we are seeing.
I say this because we are having our own problems here.
Ginny
----- Original Message -----
From: "Saikou Samateh" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2000 8:02 AM
Subject: Re: Allegations of voting rights violations need invest igation
(fwd)
> Hi,
> Is this the USA or Cammeron in Africa,just wondering.
>
> For Freedom
> Saiks
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Ylva Hernlund <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, November 20, 2000 8:10 PM
> Subject: Allegations of voting rights violations need invest igation (fwd)
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2000 03:27:40 EST
> From: [log in to unmask]
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Allegations of voting rights violations need invest igation
>
> Folks~
> It will only take 5 minutes of your precious time to read this and maybe 2
> minutes to send emails to the news programs. Please take the time to do
so.
> It could mean a positive change for our country. It's time this stuff got
> brought out into the light so it can be corrected. Thanks~ Tori
>
>
> Subj: [FAIR-L] ACTION ALERT: Allegations of voting rights violations
need
> invest igation
> Date: 11/17/00 6:19:56 PM Pacific Standard Time
> From: [log in to unmask] (FAIR-L)
> Sender: [log in to unmask] (media analysis, critiques and news
> reports)
> Reply-to: [log in to unmask]
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
> FAIR-L
> Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
> Media analysis, critiques and news reports
>
>
>
>
>
> ACTION ALERT:
> Allegations of voting rights violations need investigation
>
> November 17, 2000
>
> Since November 7, major media outlets have devoted enormous attention to
the
> aftermath of the presidential election in Florida. But one critical aspect
> of this story has received relatively little attention: the allegations of
a
> pattern of voting irregularities and discrimination against
> African-Americans and other minority groups that may violate the 15th
> Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
>
> Upon request from major civil rights groups, including the NAACP and the
> Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Justice Department is
> deciding whether to pursue a federal investigation into allegations of
> significant harassment of minority voters in Florida and elsewhere
> throughout the country. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 makes it illegal to
> intimidate, threaten, coerce or prevent any individual from exercising his
> or her right to vote.
>
> These are some of the disturbing and highly newsworthy charges that
deserve
> more media attention:
>
> --Charles Weaver, publisher of Community Voice, a Fort Myers African
> American weekly paper, witnessed "intimidation, harassment and apparent
> illegal activity" at a polling place he visited. ''There were illegal poll
> watchers, threatening people, telling them, 'I know where you work. You're
> going to get fired,''' Weaver told the Inter Press Service (11/14/00). The
> same article reported that Tallahassee police set up traffic checks at the
> entrance to a polling place in a black neighborhood; that police in
Newport
> News, Va. stopped people at checkpoints; and some black voters were turned
> away from polls in St. Louis for not having voter registration cards, even
> though registration cards were not required from white voters.
>
> --In an NAACP public hearing held in Miami (C-Span, 11/11/00), Stacy
Powers,
> a former police officer who currently serves as news director for Tampa
> radio station WTMP, spoke of witnessing numerous voting irregularities in
> her election day travels through city neighborhoods. Powers testified that
> she saw people being turned away from several polling places in the black
> community after being told their names were not on voting lists. When
Powers
> reminded poll workers that an individual can legally sign an affidavit and
> vote even if their name isn't on an official list, she said, she was
ejected
> from several polling places (Daily News, 11/17/00).
>
> -- Miami's Donnise DeSouza testified that she was denied the right to vote
> after being shuttled to several polling places and told her name was not
on
> the list. When she checked with the elections board the next day, she
said,
> she found her name was in fact on the list. Many other voters were told
> they'd been dropped from the rolls as convicted felons, even though they
had
> never been arrested, and that names of black college students who
registered
> this summer never showed up on voter lists, according to the NAACP
hearings
> (Daily News, 11/17/00).
>
> --According to the New York Times (11/17/00), more than 26,000 ballots
were
> disqualified in the largely Republican area of Duval County-- four times
the
> total in 1996. The Times notes that nearly 9,000 of these ballots were
cast
> in predominately African-American communities around Jacksonville, which
> registered support for Al Gore over George Bush at a ten-to-one ratio.
(The
> November 17 Daily News places the number of rejected African-American
votes
> in Duval County at more than 12,000, nearly 60 percent of disqualified
> ballots).
>
> --Derek Drake, an editor of the black weekly newspaper Central Florida
> Advocate, told the London Financial Times (11/16/00) that Haitian
Americans
> and Hispanics, unlike whites, were often asked for two forms of
> identification. "There was either something of a conspiratorial nature
going
> on or there was mass incompetence," Drake said. In a recent column for the
> Los Angeles Syndicate (11/12/00), the Reverend Jesse Jackson noted that
> ballot boxes in black communities went uncounted, voters were turned away
> after being told there were no ballots left, and Creole speakers were not
> allowed to assist Haitian immigrants voting for the first time.
>
> Such exclusionary voting practices are hardly limited to Florida, or to
> racial minorities. According to a Federal Election Commission report cited
> by the Center for an Accessible Society, more than 20,000 U.S. polling
> places fail to meet the minimal requirements of accessibility, depriving
> people with disabilities of their fundamental right to vote. (Some of
their
> stories are documented by the Center's magazine, Ragged Edge Online, at
> http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/1100/1100votestory.htm .)
>
> In New York City, Columbia University journalism students reported that
> citywide voting irregularities included broken ballot booths, the denial
of
> translation assistance and insufficient instructions given to first-time
> Russian voters hoping to support a write-in candidate, and the transposing
> of the Chinese characters for "Republican" and "Democrat" on wall posters
at
> polling places and on columns in ballot machines (City Limits Weekly,
> 11/13/00).
>
> As Juan Gonzalez of the Daily News noted (11/17/00), "Congress passed the
> Voting Rights Act specifically to dismantle the Jim Crow laws -- including
> poll taxes and literacy tests -- that kept blacks from voting in the South
> for most of the 20th Century." Major media should investigate the
> allegations of fraud, harassment, intimidation and voter profiling in
> Florida and throughout the country, to determine whether or not the 2000
> election included civil rights violations akin to latter-day Jim Crow
voter
> discrimination.
>
> ACTION: Contact major media and request they conduct in-depth
investigations
> into allegations of violations to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
>
> CONTACT:
> NBC Nightly News
> Phone: 212-664-4971 or 202-885-4259
> Fax: 202-362-2009
> mailto:[log in to unmask]
>
> ABC World News Tonight
> Phone: 212-456-4040
> Fax: 212-456-2795
> mailto:[log in to unmask]
>
> CBS Evening News
> Phone: 212-975-3691, 202-457-4385
> Fax: 212-975-1893
> mailto:[log in to unmask]
>
> For more media contacts, see:
> http://www.fair.org/media-contact-list.html
>
> ----------
>
> Feel free to respond to FAIR ( [log in to unmask] ). We can't reply to
> everything, but we will look at each message. We especially appreciate
> documented example of media bias or censorship. And please send copies of
> your email correspondence with media outlets, including any responses, to
us
> at: [log in to unmask] .
>
> FAIR ON THE AIR: FAIR's founder Jeff Cohen is a regular panelist on the
Fox
> News Channel's "Fox News Watch," which airs which airs Saturdays at 7 pm
and
> Sundays at 11 am (Eastern Standard Time). Check your local listings.
>
> FAIR produces CounterSpin, a weekly radio show heard on over 120 stations
in
> the U.S. and Canada. To find the CounterSpin station nearest you, visit
> http://www.fair.org/counterspin/stations.html .
>
> Please support FAIR by subscribing to our bimonthly magazine, Extra!
> For more information, go to:
> http://www.fair.org/extra/subscribe.html . Or call 1-800-847-3993.
>
> FAIR's INTERNSHIP PROGRAM: FAIR accepts internship applications for its
New
> York office on a rolling basis. For more information, please e-mail Peter
> Hart ([log in to unmask])
>
> You can subscribe to FAIR-L at our web site: http://www.fair.org , or by
> sending a "subscribe FAIR-L enter your full name" command to
> [log in to unmask] . Our subscriber list is kept confidential.
>
> You may leave the list at any time-- just send a message with "SIGNOFF
> FAIR-L" in the body to: [log in to unmask] .
>
> FAIR
> (212) 633-6700
> http://www.fair.org/
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>
> list administrators: [log in to unmask]
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
>
> To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
> Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
> You may also send subscription requests to
> [log in to unmask]
> if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write
your
> full name and e-mail address.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
>
> To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
> Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
> You may also send subscription requests to
[log in to unmask]
> if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write
your full name and e-mail address.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask]
if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
