"Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."
Quote from a male doctor who refused to say that suffragist Alice Paul was insane.
Excerpt from What Women Did So YOU Can Vote! By Vicki Flaugher
.... When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press....
So, refresh my memory. Some women won’t vote this year because--why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn’t matter? It’s raining?
http://smartwomanguides.com/...
Less than a century ago, I would not have been allowed to vote because I’m a woman, had I tried to vote, I might have been thrown in jail like the early suffragists, to be beaten, dragged, kicked and force-fed. Now, of course, I can vote without being assaulted because of my gender. Such progress!
But what if I were not white? It took The National Voting Rights Act of 1965 to outlaw discriminatory voting practices such as literacy tests, poll taxes and grandfather clauses that favored whites. There can be no doubt that America has benefited greatly from the diversity of its voters. According to the Pew Research Center:
The electorate in [2008’s] presidential election was the most racially and ethnically diverse in U.S. history, with nearly one-in-four votes cast by non-whites, according to a new analysis of Census Bureau data by the Pew Research Center....
Much of the surge in black voter participation in 2008 was driven by increased participation among black women and younger voters.... Overall, among all racial, ethnic and gender groups, black women had the highest voter turnout rate in November's election -- a first.
http://pewresearch.org/...
But as recently as 2006, some Republican lawmakers tried to alter provisions of the National Voting Rights Act or stall or stop its renewal for another 25 years. Even in 2010, the GOP practices its "Southern Strategy" openly, unashamedly, and regardless of geography. TalkingPointsMemo.com reports:
In a private phone conversation that was secretly recorded, Mark Kirk, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Illinois, told state Republican leaders last week about his plan to send "voter integrity" squads to four predominately African American neighborhoods of Chicago "where the other side might be tempted to jigger the numbers somewhat."....
As TPMMuckraker has reported, accusations from conservatives that ineligible voters are fraudulently stealing elections for Democrats have continued to fly in the 2010 campaign cycle, despite the lack of evidence of widespread voter fraud. "Voter fraud" has been the rally cry for conservative groups seeking to make it more difficult to cast ballots and suppress minority voter turnout. In particular this election cycle, Tea Party groups have taken up the issue, and Democratic groups have called for assurances that poll watchers trained by such groups are clear on polling station rules....
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmem...
No one is safe from interference in this election year. We are all subjected to an endless campaign of disinformation, conservative talking points deceptively packaged as news, and ads paid for by corporate special interests that have been granted "personhood" by a Supreme Court whose activist conservative majority was appointed by Republican Presidents.
There are many people working very hard and spending lots of money to ensure that Americans either disenfranchise themselves and sit out the election or crazily vote to undo two years of historic advances and reforms that would not have been possible without this Democratic President and this Democratic Congress.
There is a reason Americans have died to make sure their children or grandchildren could participate in self-government. There is a reason Americans have been murdered in efforts to intimidate them, keep them from the polls, and make a sick joke of our American ideals.
That is the power of our individual votes.
That is how precious they are.
And that is how frightening we the people are to everyone who wants the United States of America to be the property of entrenched power, secret deals, corrupt bargains and bigotry.
Please vote, if only because there are so many who don’t want you to. Please vote Democratic.