ACORN in Florida UPDATE

A friend is part of the ACORN team fighting to register voters in Florida, and he's provided me with updates that I've posted previously about baseless accusations from an ex-employee (Mac Stuart, who's credibility was clearly demonstrated two weeks after he was fired when he tried to cash a $5,000 check made out to someone else). The charges, however, got picked up on local news, and repeated on NewsMax and the Washington Times, and the spinmeisters of the right used these charges to change the public perception of the issue from "the Republicans are engaged in widespread organized voter suppression and fraud" to "both sides are doing it".

He's sent me an updated summary of the extensive Republican voter suppression efforts in Florida which I've posted after the break.

To: Allies in the Civil Rights Community
From: Tamecka Pierce, Board Chair and Brian Kettenring, Head Organizer
Date: Monday, October 25, 2004
Re: Voter Suppression Efforts

We write to enlist your help to turn back efforts to attack one of the most successful voter mobilization efforts in the crucial state of Florida.  Once again, as in 2000, there is a concerted effort to prevent people of color from voting.  We cannot allow our constituency to be intimidated.

Across Florida, democracy is under attack:

• Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood has tried to deny voter registration applications that do not include a checkmark affirming citizenship, even though a signature below provides an oath of citizenship.  This will disproportionately impact minority voters: in Miami-Dade county, more than 35% of the registrations deemed incomplete were from African-Americans, and a further 25% were from Latinos.
  
• Hood has also ruled that provisional ballots cast in precincts other than the voter's own will be thrown out--a further blow against efforts to count every vote.  
  
• As Bob Herbert of The New York Times reported earlier this year, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) intimidated voting rights activists in Orlando by sending armed troopers into the homes of elderly voters.  
  
• The effort to disenfranchise African-American voters extends to the top of the Bush administration in Florida.  The Sarasota Herald Tribune reported on October 16 that even after being told the system was broken, Governor Jeb Bush went ahead with using a flawed procedure to purge voter rolls, which would discriminate against African-American voters.  Only a court ruling stopped the Governor from implementing this program.
  
• These efforts parallel the Republican Party's effort in swing states like Ohio to intimidate voters by questioning them at the polls.  Thousands of Republican supporters are being sent into African-American neighborhoods to question the credentials of voters in perhaps the most wide-ranging and open plan for voter suppression yet.
  
• In the first week of early voting, we are seeing these problems across the state: for example, when a contingent of Orlando ACORN voters went to early vote on Monday, October 18, there were no translators available for Spanish-speaking voters.  People had to wait up to two and a half hours to vote.  There was little or no privacy as people voted.  One ACORN member was told three times he could go to jail if he gave any incorrect information.  In Ft. Lauderdale, a member was not allowed to vote because he was on the inactive voter list, even though the law clearly states that can be rectified at the polling place.
  
• These attacks have also included charges leveled against ACORN, using two isolated problems to attack one of the state's most successful voter registration and mobilization campaigns ever, which includes registering over 212,000 voters and hundreds of people canvassing voters every day.
  
• The FDLE's attacks on ACORN are part of this offensive against the voting rights of low-income people.  While singling out ACORN for attack, they ignored more serious allegations against Arno Political Consulting, a Republican contractor, who is accused of changing the party affiliations of thousands of college students against their will or knowledge.

We look forward to the opportunity to work with you to counteract this comprehensive strategy to suppress the minority vote in the next eight days.

==end of ACORN update letter==

So - our course is clear - Vigilance, Determination, and GOTV. And DOCUMENT EVERYTHING: take down the names of uncooperative election personnel or obstructionist Republican operatives, get their pictures, bring a video camera to your polling place - let them know the world is watching!