9-13-07, 9:22 am

Don’t think that just because there’s not another Bush presently running for office that there won’t be anymore Black voter purge. It appears to that quite a few of you still don’t actually believe this happened, after all, the mainstream media hasn’t focused on this. Perhaps in your mind it’s just one of those radical Black conspiracy theories, but past documents and recent developments show that if you think this can’t happen with the Primary ’08 winner among the current crop of democratic candidates, then you are either being obstinate or ingenuous.

Understand these runners, some of them on their own merit strike more alarm into republicans than George McGovern did and are the most feared since John F. Kennedy. At least a couple of them have no connection to the DC lobbyist and are quite literally peoples’ candidates. To leave such a strong group like this hanging, while dreaming that just the competition amongst themselves will be enough to determine who sits in the Oval Office in ’09, will see republicans once again trotting away from the ballots snickering. Democrats are known for being reactive; this is a time and issue to become proactive as soon as possible. The year 2000 saw voter suppression result in a victory for W by just 537 electoral college votes in Florida (and a 5-4 Supreme Court vote in DC on 12/11/00. They ruled that a ballot recount in parts of Florida were to be stopped) even though Gore won the popular vote by a margin of 543, 614. All of this began with the severe disregard of African American Democrats knowingly having enough power to exercise their own political opinion by walking into a booth, close a curtain behind them and pulling a lever. That a dirt poor Black can do this against a blue-blood Republican thought to be born and bred to assume that office gets under many skins.

The book “Banana Republicans” by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber had this to say: “The US Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) produced a report in June 2001 titled ‘Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election.’ The report concluded ‘Despite the closeness of the election, it was widespread voter disenfranchisement, not the dead-heat contests, that was the extraordinary feature in the Florida election. The disenfranchisement was not isolated or episodic.’ The USCCR found that African American voters were at least ten times more likely to have their ballots rejected than other voters and that 83 of the 100 precincts with the most disqualified ballots had Black majorities.” This is a sharp contrast to the spin that the people themselves weren’t turned away from the polls or they weren’t smart enough to use their ballots.

Four years later Ohio became the center of voter suppression and tossed ballots during the presidential election. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote an essay, “How the 2004 Election was Stolen;” where he fires off at the GOP: “Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted-enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.” That the Republicans could do this a 2nd straight time and actually have people fearing the loss of credibility if they focused a lot of attention on their obvious racist vote purging is an earth shaking feat. The real trouble spot was the major media; they were just unwilling to focus on this. Though warranting investigation, the very thought of voter disfranchisement along mostly black democratic lines would be going too much in the direction of extreme conspiracy theories. Diana Goodwin, a Buffalo woman who is a well-known activist, once told me some words I’ll never forget; “If the race card is true, then don’t be afraid to play it.” Few Blacks realize that many whites collectively use the phrase to discourage Blacks, because they can’t control the behavior of their fellow whites.

In this case not only was it true, it was taken to court with little or no media exposure. On Election Day 2000 the Florida and national NAACP offices received calls of complaints from black voters who were turned away from the polls or had trouble submitting ballots The NAACP filed suit against Florida and ChoicePoint and on 7/2//02 reached agreement with ChocePoint who promised to donate $75,000 to the civil rights group to further voter opportunities for minorities.

Only the Dem's can protect their voters and a democratic winner can’t back down and concede as Gore and Kerry did in the face of such plots. These people are tireless, reports of an ‘04 plan to deny 70,000 (mostly Black soldiers and homeless) votes in Arkansas boils under the attorney scandal. This was under the watch of another Bush crony Tim Griffin. To expect that Republican voter tampering won’t happen during the 3rd presidential election in a row amounts to insanity.

--Chris Stevenson is a columnist for the Buffalo Criterion, Contact him at

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