With all due haste, and making sure that we have the facts straight, I urge you, Senator Edwards, to go to Columbus ASAP and hold up before a rally a completed voter registration form that Secretary of State Blackwell is rejecting.
Our principle, as Democrats, is simple:
Count Every Vote.
This situation, in Ohio, is our High Noon....and this time we won't take ANYTHING lying down.
It's not just Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell's voter suppression in Ohio that
thistime highlighted on the front page, or that, as DelRPCV points out, 1971 Federal Law cites:
No person acting under color of law shall . . . deny the right of any individual to vote in any election because of an error or omission on any record or paper relating to any application, registration, or other act requisite to voting, if such error or omission is not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under State law to vote in such election.
It is that all the WORLD must see that we Democrats will not take interference with the right of every citizen to vote lying down. Not now, not this time, not ever.
Senator Edwards you must go to Ohio because the WORLD needs to see that the Kerry / Edwards ticket will be strong and tireless advocates of voting rights and for their own campaigns. If you are tough enough to face this Republican THUG in Ohio, you are tough enough to face down anyone. And we all know it. At the end of the day, if you can't stand up for us, and through us, for yourselves, than what do you stand for?
Senator Edwards, you must go to Ohio, because anything less is not HOT enough, not focused enough, not simple and direct enough.
It's simple.
We believe that everyone's vote should be counted. They don't
We believe that voter turnout for everyone is a good thing. They don't.
We believe that rules should be used to help people to vote not prevent them from voting as Ken Blackwell and Katherine Harris do.
It's as simple as this, Senator Edwards....you need to stand in front of a crowd with a voter registration form that has been rejected in hand and SHOW THEM how one particular person, an american citizen, is being disenfranchised in Ohio. You need to make it clear that if this one person's right to vote is denied that it affects all of us. Because if they can do it to her, they can do it to any of us.
And if I can make one further point....Senator Kerry and Edwards...your party needs to see you do this. We need to feel that you will fight for us...all of us. And in particular, those who tend to get disenfranchised the most. Your campaign needs to make it absolutely clear, that when it comes your voters, there is no bully that you will brook standing between them and casting their rightful ballot.
We need you right now, Senators. It is High Noon.
Get the facts. Get your ducks in a row. But, by all means...
Go to Ohio now.