AFL-CIO Saw Evidence of Organized Voter Suppression

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/4591

AFL-CIO Saw Evidence of Organized Voter Suppression - 11/08/06

By Doug Cunningham

The AFL-CIO organized a voter protection program in 23 communities in six key elections states Tuesday, manning a “War
Room” to field calls from activists about voting rights violations and other problems at the polls. Damon Silvers ran the AFL’s “War Room”.

: “And most seriously of all we saw a lot of evidence that there are organized forces at work in our political system that are trying to prevent people from voting, who are entitled to vote, through trickery and bullying. What’s particularly troubling is that these kinds of things seem to happen when races are particularly close.”

Silvers, who is Associate General Counsel of the AFL-CIO, says evidence of voter suppression will be turned over to law enforcement authorities.

: "And also I believe there will be people in COngress who will be interested in investigating and we're certainly going to encourage them to investigate this type of conduct in our elections."

FULL story audio; http://www.laborradio.org/files/lo/winsheadlines.ram

[IndyOp]

1. Unions won this one!! Unions and grassroots and netroots and

more... Unions and the minimum wage campaigns had a HUGE impact.

Don't give up - fight the disenfranchisement - send some people to JAIL.

:applause:

[troubleinwinter]

2. "there will be people in Congress who will be interested in investigating". Such as...

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr.!!!!

[Benhurst]

3. Long live John Conyers!

[damntexdem]

8. A few months ago, he couldn't get a hearing room.

Now, he's going to OWN the hearing rooms.

[Hekate]

9. No more hearings in closets. Go get the bastards, Mr. Conyers. nt

[SpiralHawk]

4. Why do republicons hate voters and democracy?

Ship them off to Godless commie red china, where they can play with corrupt brother Marvin Bush, who so loves those godless red commie heathens.

The repubs will be happy there -- for that's the kind of government they have been trying to shove down America's throat.

No real patriotic American would ever vote for the republicon cronies.

[bobbie]

5. It's not so much that they hate people

It's that they love war and--more to the point--war profits. And voters will vote against war, since they're the ones that die.

Tho' they do like to use war for population control.

[Morgana LaFey]

12. The only way they can win is thru trickery and deceit

the demographics of the nation are leaving them behind (and will), the people actually and honestly prefer Dem positions (when they're properly explained to people), and their agenda is anti-citizen (pro-corporate) to start with, which is another reason they wouldn't really have the support of average Americans IF there were honesty about their positions and agenda.

So if they want to retain power (and they really, really do!), they have to lie and cheat and steal. Sad thing is, that doesn't seem to bother them. Astonishingly, they don't feel that doing these things is wrong. That makes them sociopaths in my book.

[mirandapriestly]

6. So the REAL voter intent must have been a landslide.eom

[lumpy]

7. That is what is so sweet about the Dem wins.

In spite of Repub efforts and their dirty work to try and suppress the vote, we got the upper hand. The vote spread would probably have been greater if the GOP had not tried to jinz the vote.

[damntexdem]

10. But watch out for dirty tricks in recounts.

Especially in the VA Senate race.

[denverbill]

11. I sure hope DU'ers don't let them slide on voting reform.

The whole system is a shambles thanks for idiots like Blackwell and Harris, and covert/overt Republican voter suppression (late night robo-calls, threatening phone calls, voter list purges, false address change forms, etc).

We need a national voter registration database to prevent intentional/accidental registration in multiple states, a system to tie Post Office 'change of address' forms to voter registration changes, a way to purge dead people from the rolls (probably tied to Social Security), and an automated notification process to inform voters that their registration status has changed. Some of those changes may require a constitutional amendment, but I think the need certainly justifies an amendment. The Founding Fathers never contemplated people moving as far and as often or living in enormous metropolises where nobody knows their neighbor.