Entries Tagged with vote
November 7th, 2006
The Hotline 1-888-DEM-VOTE (1-888-336-8683)
By calling 1-888-DEM-VOTE, voters can learn more about their rights, find their polling location, and report problems and get answers on Election Day.
This is your democracy. Know your rights.
Know Your Voting Rights
- If You have problems, you are still entitled to cast a provisional ballot.
- If you are in line before the poll’s closing time, you are entitled to vote.
- You are entitled to view a sample ballot at the polling place before voting.
Source: The Democratic Party Voting Rights Institute
Update:
Election Protection’s 1-866-OUR-VOTE has live operators who can address some problems over the phone and dispatch lawyers on the ground, if necessary.
Common Cause’s 1-866-MYVOTE-1 can help people find their polling place.
Hat tip: Firedoglake
Tags: vote, voting irregularities
November 7th, 2006
I exercised my American right to vote. Have you?
If you do nothing else today, make it your priority to stop at your polling place and vote, whether it’s Democrat, Republican, Independent, Green Party. It’s important to voice your opinion by pulling that lever, filling in those dots, checking that box, punching those chads, touching those screens, whatever the voting mechanism…and of course, double checking to make sure that your vote is recorded correctly.
Show off your pride at having shown up and participated in one of the greatest freedoms and powers you’ll ever experience — the right to pick your public representatives and vote on your laws — by placing a virtual “I Voted” pin on your blog from here.
Tags: vote
November 7th, 2006
“Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves — and the only way they could do this is by not voting.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
Tags: Quote of the Day, Franklin D. Roosevelt, vote
November 3rd, 2006
This Thursday Thirteen from Carmen’s Gone to Plaid blog just begs to be reposted and forwarded via email all across the Internet to everyone everyone knows before Election Day next Tuesday. There are some excellent reminders in there no matter who you’re voting for (and you should be voting for someone).
(note: my own Thursday Thirteen is a few posts down.)
Thirteen Reasons (or Not) You Should Vote for Me if I Ran for OfficeTuesday is Election Day (GO VOTE!).
[…snip…]
PS: You have the right to disagree with me (isn’t America great?), but not to be mean in my comments.
- Being a Democracy isn’t easy. Take free speech. You may not like what I say, and you have the right to disagree. But I still have the right to say it. That includes questioning our leaders without being called “unpatriotic.” Questioning our leaders and speaking your mind is the most patriotic thing you can do. However, these freedoms require responsibility.
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Tags: vote, Election Day, Democracy, free speech, Patriot
September 8th, 2006
A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won’t cross the street to vote in a national election.
–Bill Vaughan
Tags: Quote of the Day, Democracy, vote
June 16th, 2006
Here are a few posts written elsewhere that I thought worth passing on:
- Cat and Mouse with the VA (Score One for the Cat) — Dark Wraith is one of those Veterans who received a letter from the Veterans Administration about last month’s Fubar with the laptop and all of that personal data that might or might not have gotten hijacked. He’s not just upset about the Fubar; he’s upset that that they were able to find him at all after he spent ages carefully not alerting them to address changes…
This is Exhibit Number One of what happens when the government turns into a nosy weirdo: its minions collect all kinds of personal data for whatever compelling reason they’ve concocted to make their jobs have meaning, and once they’ve got all that data, they place everyone in the database at risk, both from their own nefarious people and from those who would be able to compromise whatever security they have on the data. They take what isn’t theirs—our privacy—and they can’t have the decency to ensure even that they’re the only ones who can mess up our lives with what they’ve expropriated.
To the Veterans Administration—and knowing full well that my rage will do no good whatsoever—I say this: Stay the Hell out of my life.
To everyone else, I say this: if you’re not afraid of this government, you should be; and if you are afraid of this government, you should be more so.
Not that it will do you any good to be afraid. As far as I can tell, they’ll find you when they want to, anyway. It’s all part of the price we now pay for the security our government provides as it diligently dismisses any regard whatsoever for the right we thought we had to be left alone.
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Tags: Veterans Administration, Identity Theft, Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, insurgents, American soldiers, amnesty, Florida, voter fraud, Voting Irregularities, Greg Palast, sexual harrassment, inhumanity, humanity
May 30th, 2006
Over the weekend my mom and I got on the subject of politics. That doesn’t really happen often. Usually if I’m going to chat politics with anyone it’s my dad. It’s not that I don’t think my mom knows anything about politics, it’s just that I think she tends to be more of a follower and less of a thinker. She’s definitely a liberal but she’s more of a follow-the-leader liberal though she doesn’t know it. She scoffed at my grandmother’s follow-the-leader Republicanism but she does tend to say “Well your father thinks…” more than she should where politics are concerned, which is why I prefer to go straight to the source.
Anyway, it’s really not her politics I want to talk about anyway (thought that sort of “follow-the-leader” mentality is a big pet peeve of mine). I want to talk about my politics or at least my point-of-view this year.
At first, at the beginning of the year, I was thinking that this would be a good year to back a third party. In fact, it may still be; I just don’t know if enough dissatisfied Dems and Reps could be convinced to jump their parties ships to do the same. It’s easier to get Independents like myself to vote for third party candidates because we don’t feel party loyalty or guilt and we don’t feel our hands drawn to check off the party candidate on the Diebold machine or the paper ballot. We haven’t been to any of the secret brainwashing meetings where we sold our souls and signed in blood or promised our first borns or anything. 
So, if we choose to vote Green Party this year, we can do so and walk away relatively unscathed.
I still think that now is the time to think about a third party. I think the days of the Republicans and the Democrats controlling the government have got to end. Obviously they’ve become complacent and they are feeding each other the power rather than doing their jobs — you know, their jobs, right? We elected them to take care of us, protect us, govern us, ensure our safety, provide for us, etc. Mostly they seem to bicker and struggle and fight for power and ignore the people who need help.
However, I think that the general public isn’t ready to consider a third party yet. At least not seriously. That’s the impression I’ve gotten the last few months.
So…where does that leave me? How am I going to vote in November? Well, it turns out that Olympia Snowe is up for re-election. She’s a republican and I was thinking of voting for her actually. I have enjoyed our letter exchanges and she and Susan Collins have been big supporters of the environment and the Katrina victims. However, Snowe has voted the party line consistantly even on issues where she claimed she did not want to vote for the issue — she always followed up in an interview stating that she “held her nose while doing it.” This is inappropriate. If you don’t thing you should vote for something, you don’t vote for it. This is exactly what has been wrong with the Bush Republican Congress.
Also, I made a decision the day the Patriot Act was renewed. I truly and honestly believe that anyone in Congress who voted to renew the Patriot Act should not be re-elected to Congress — that includes Democrats, especially John Kerry. I have begun my own personal campaign to remove the Patriot Act renewers from Congress. I could almost forgive them for voting for it in the first place because of how the Bush Administration manipulated the situation originally, but the renewal was completely different and most of them, like John Kerry, had spoken out against it. They can no longer be trusted to look out for the best interests of American citizens.
My mom thought this was very practical of me…of course she thought my father might agree with me. 
Anyway, while I was thinking this over, I couldn’t help but remember the movie Brewster’s Millions with Richard Pryor, where he has to spend a fortune in 30 days to inherit so much more. One of the ways he does this is by running for office in New York, when he starts winning, he drops out and instead starts running the campaign encouraging everyone to vote “None of the Above”.
What would happen if this November 2nd we all spoke out and voted “None of the Above”? Would they get the message that we’re tired of all the crap? We want them to stop playing games and start running the government. We want them to stop thinking just about themselves and their bank accounts and start thinking about our growing lower and middle classes and the number of starving children right here in the United States. We want the to actually keep their campaign promises.
Tags: vote, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, politics, Green Party, Patriot Act
May 3rd, 2006
Well, I’m absolutely fascinated by the fact that the Main Stream Media doesn’t appear to be reporting anything about the fact that Ohio’s Primaries yesterday had major issues with the voting machines.
Akron’s NewsNet5.com reported that a judge ordered the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections to keep the Garden Valley Neighborhood House polling location open until 9:30 p.m. when poll workers had trouble setting up equipment in the morning, which meant that that the polling place didn’t actually open until 1:30 p.m for voting. (Remember, Cuyahoga’s Board of Elections is under investigation for voting fraud from the 2004 elections.)
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Tags: Ohio, Voting Irregularities, vote, politics
May 3rd, 2006
“Either every vote is sacred, or democracy is a sham.”
- David Cobb, Green Party presidential candidate, 12/2/04
Tags: David Cobb, Green Party, vote, Democracy
April 18th, 2006
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Secretary of State Al Ater wants to know why the federal government agreed to pay for New York City’s municipal elections after Sept. 11, 2001, but refuses to pay for New Orleans’ elections after Hurricane Katrina.
FEMA recently turned down Louisiana’s request for the extra $3-4 million it will take to hold the April 22 New Orleans municipal elections, rescheduled in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
But the agency shelled out $7.9 million after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks delayed New York City’s elections.
Ater said it’s a double standard.
“After the election, I’m going to dedicate my life to this,” Ater said. “I’m going to become very obsessive-compulsive about it.”
Orleans Parish doesn’t have the money to pay even the normal elections cost of $400,000 for the city. FEMA said the additional elections costs are outside the agency’s authority and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has not responded to a request to meet with the secretaries of state of Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama.
FEMA spokesman Manuel Broussard of Baton Rouge said he would look into the issue, but the agency did not respond. [“FEMA won’t pay for New Orleans Election” (Nola.com)]
Let’s not forget that more than 50% of Katrina victims are still displaced as well and while displaced Iraqis outside of Iraq were provided poling stations, displaced Katrina victims in places like Houston, Memphis and Atlanta with large concentrations of New Orleans minorities will not have the same courtesy.
Tags: vote, FEMA, Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans
April 11th, 2006
Can you believe that it’s 2006 and we are still talking about voting irregularities in 2004?In fact, can you believe that it’s 2006, and three Ohio election officials are just now being indicted for their participation in “fudging” the Ohio 2004 recount?
Let’s talk about some facts in the case, shall we?
- Michael Vu, executive director of the Cuyahoga County elections board, said workers followed procedures that had been in place for 23 years.
- There is no evidence of voter fruad.
- The election officials’ efforts were aimed at avoiding an expensive and very public hand recount of all votes cast.
- Candidates for president from the Green and Libertarian parties requested the Ohio recount.
- Election workers in each county are supposed to count 3 percent of the ballots by hand and by machine, randomly choosing precincts for that count. If the hand and machine counts match, the other 97 percent of the votes are recounted by machine. If the numbers don’t match, workers repeat the effort. If they still don’t match exactly, the workers must complete the recount by hand, a tedious process that could take weeks and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
- Precincts with 550 votes or fewer were not used.
- Nor were precincts counted where the number of ballots handed out on Election Day failed to match the number of ballots cast.
- Then days before the Dec. 16 recount, outside of any witnesses and without anyone’s knowledge except for the Board of Elections, workers opened the ballots and hand-counted enough votes to identify precincts where the machine count matched. If it didn’t balance, those precincts were excluded.
- On the official recount day, employees pretended to pick precincts randomly. Cuyahoga County election workers sat at 20 folding tables in front of witnesses and reporters. They did the hand and machine count of 3 percent of the votes 34 of the 1,436 precincts and when the totals matched, the recount was completed by machines.
- The recount gave Kerry 17 extra votes and took six away from Bush.
- But observers suspected that the precincts were not randomly chosen and asked a board worker about it, said Toledo attorney Richard Kerger. The worker acknowledged that there had been a precount.
- Kerger wrote a letter to Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason, complaining and asking for an investigation. Mason recused himself, and Baxter was appointed special prosecutor. He brought elections workers before a grand jury to find out what happened.
“They screwed with the process and increased the probability, if not the certainty, that there would not be a full countywide hand count,” Baxter said.Everyone expected the recount to “be conducted in accordance of the law,” he said.
- Kathleen Dreamer was manager of the board’s ballot department. Rosie Grier was assistant manager. Jacqueline Maiden was Elections Division director and its third-highest-ranking employee.
- All have been charged with misdemeanor and felony counts of failing to follow the state elections law.
- All continue to work at the election office.
Very disturbing.
I don’t even think this is part of a big conspiracy so much as a royal fuck up that obviously needs to be cleaned up. I’m sorry but that kind of manipulation behind the scenes is just too suspicious. I’m sorry if they didn’t want to do a hand count, if I lived in Cuyahoga County, and I have relatives who do, I’d be pretty pissed. I want to make sure my vote counts and matters. Men and women have suffered and died so that I have a voice so that when I cast my vote it means something and when I pay my taxes it’s funding someone’s salary to make sure that I get the government I want and voted for — well, that someone voted for.
Source: “Worker’s accused of fudging ‘04 recount” (The Plain Dealer)
Tags: Ohio, Voting Irregularities, vote
April 4th, 2006
Yeah, Baby! Vote!
Polling is taking place in a Kuwaiti council by-election in which women are allowed to vote for the first time.
Two women are also among eight candidates running for the seat in the Salmiya district, south of the capital.
The 28,000 eligible voters, 60% of whom are women, are voting in segregated polling booths, a condition demanded by Islamist and tribal MPs.
Women were granted equal political rights last year and will vote in full legislative polls in 2007.
[…]
Kuwait’s first women candidates are 32-year-old Jenan Boushehri, a chemical engineer at the Kuwait Municipality, and 48-year-old Khalida Khader, a US-educated physician and a mother of eight.
“I am so pleased that I have become one of the first Kuwaiti women candidates to run in elections,” Dr Khader said in an interview with AFP news agency.
“I have broken the ice and hope this will benefit the cause of women.”
Historic moment
Women voters quoted by news agencies reflected the years of frustration which this election finally dispels.
“They have given us some attention. We became equal,” said voter Iman al-Issa talking to AP.
“It’s certainly a historical moment for me. I felt very happy while casting my vote,” Afaf Abdullah told AFP outside a polling station.
“I had participated in co-operative society elections before, but the feeling here is totally different. I feel that justice has been achieved for Kuwaiti women.”
Despite the segregated voting, women were required to show their faces to judges supervising the elections for the purposes of identification.
There are reports of at least one woman refusing to remove her Islamic veil and leaving the polling station without voting.
The Salmiya seat of the Kuwait Municipal Council fell vacant when incumbent Abdullah al-Muhailbi was named a minister in the Kuwaiti cabinet formed in February.
Attempts by the ruling Sabah family to change the male-dominated legislative structure succeeded in May 2005 - after being blocked for six years by tribal and Islamist members of the National Assembly.
Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser al-Muhammad al-Sabah said on Tuesday that women suffrage boosts Kuwait’s international standing.
“We say to our Kuwait sisters, ‘Forward, and take your place with your Kuwaiti brothers’,” he said in a statement. [”Kuwaiti Women Vote For First Time”(BBC News)]
Tags: Kuwait, Women's Rights, vote
November 7th, 2005
I’m fairly certain that in most places in the United States tomorrow there will be a voting booth open. Oh, sure, there’s nothing big to vote on like the Presidency, but there’s still important decisions to make.
Heck, here in Maine, we’re voting on the right to discriminate against perceived homosexuals. Oh, I’ll be voting “no” against repealing the law that protects gays and lesbians from discrimination, but the important thing is that people get out and make an educated vote for whatever their cause. Just because you think whatever’s on the ballot doesn’t affect you, just because you think it’s not as important as last year’s election, doesn’t mean you don’t have a responsibility to vote.
Think of those countries we’re bringing democracy to and how they’ve risked their lives to go to the polls and cast their vote and make their voice count. The likelihood of a polling place here in the states, in your community, getting bombed tomorrow is probably less than the likelihood of a whole day passing in the entire Middle East without a bomb or attack of some sort. Be a role model. Don’t take for granted the very thing our soldiers are dying to give other people!
You know, people died in this country so we could have the right to vote too. Maybe we shouldn’t disrespect their sacrifice for our personal freedoms.
Tags: vote, politics, Gay Rights, Discrimination, Freedoms
October 22nd, 2005
Here in Maine, we’re getting ready to vote on whether or not to keep a newly passed law that will protect the rights of fellow Mainers based on their sexuality or preceived sexuality.
First of all, I think Question 1 is worded strangely — possibly to confuse voters as to what exactly they are voting for.
Do you want to reject the new law that would protect people from discrimination in employment, housing, education, public accommodations and credit based on their sexual orientation?
The important thing to note is that a “yes” vote would repeal the law and a “no” vote will keep it on the books. Oh, and the law defines sexual orientation as “a person’s actual or perceived hetrosexuality, bisexuality, homosexuality or gender identity or epression.” Repealing the law would mean that whether or not you are a gay or lesbian or bisexual or hetrosexual, it will not be against the law for someone to judge you based on their impression of you and fire you, harrass you, deny you an apartment or a hotel room, or even enrollment in a university based on their personal judgement of you.
Get that? The discrimination is legal even if the boss or landlord just imagines you might be “a little light in your loafers” for his taste.
Last Sunday’s Maine Sunday Telegram had a couple of front page articles on the subject since the vote is a hop, skip, and a jump away, and there was something in the one titled “Grievances unlikely to surge if Maine gay rights law upheld” that has been nagging at me. Actually, it’s the subheader that’s been nagging at me — you know, that place between the headline and the byline (Mark Peters, by the way)?
Critics say a lack of filings in other states proves the law isn’t needed here.
So, I’ve been wondering why it is that the law isn’t needed?
Is it because no one in Maine discriminates based on sexuality? Are we such an openminded Blue state liberal community that we would never ever have an incident where this might occur?
And if that’s the case, if it’s not needed because no one would do it, what’s the harm of leaving it on the books? Why spent all this time and money petitioning to have a repeal option be put on the November ballot and advertising about what a bad idea it is? If it’s so unneeded then leaving it won’t harm anyone because it’ll never come up in a court case, right?
Some opponents of the state law say there isn’t evidence gays and lesbians face discrimination in Maine.
“I don’t discriminated against them, and I don’t see how other people do,” said Jill Taylor, an opponent of the law who collected signatures to help force the Novemeber vote.
The stay-at-home mom in Buxton fears that passage of the gay rights law will further erode the freedom of Christians to speak openly about their faith.
Wow, that’s mind-boggling. I mean, I don’t think there’s anything in that law that says that Christians (of which I am one) can’t speak openly about their faith. It just says that they can’t judge others and discriminate against them because of their faith.
- discriminate
- to make a difference in treatment or favor on a basis other than individual merit; especially : to make a difference in treatment on a basis prohibited by law (as national origin, race, sex, religion, age, or disability)
You know, I’m fairly sure that God would approve of such a law. Remember, Jesus loved all the children; he never said don’t love if they are a different race or a different sexuality or a different religion. Oh, he didn’t say you have to love them, but I’m fairly certain that hate is a pretty un-Jesus-y thing to do. Oh sure, you aren’t supposed to love the sin, but then we’re all sinners. None of us but Jesus are above sinning. Of course, whatever choices anyone makes in this life that doesn’t actually harm anyone else really is between that person and God in my opinion. I don’t think you get moved up to the front of the line to the Heavenly Gates because you were more disapproving of sin than others.
Just my 2¢ whatever they’re worth.
If you’re wondering, I’ll be voting “no” on Novemeber 8th. It just seems like the Christian thing to do.
Source: Maine Sunday Tribune, October 16, 2005.
Recommended Reading: Maine Won’t Discriminate
Tags: politics, Maine, vote, Gay Rights, Christian bigotry
August 20th, 2005
One of my biggest complaints about voters is that so many of them are uniformed which makes them more dangerous than the people who don’t vote. Worse, are the people who only get their information from limited sources as evidenced from this quote from a candid interview with Mary Fowler, 54, Housekeeper, on Stories in America:
Where do you get your information about the war?
The Bible and the 700 Club. I also listen to preachers who know what’s going on. Pat Robertson. [“Conversations At The Gas Pump” (Stories in America )]
I’m pretty sure that the Bible was written before the war started.
Anyway, I’m begging everyone to read and watch the news from real news media like CNN, Yahoo!News, MSNBC, NPR, and even Fox News. Try to get a view of the big picture by checking the facts with multiple sources and don’t get sucked in by other people’s (including the media’s) opinions!
Be responsible; be a well-informed voter!
Tags: politics, vote, blogs, Pat Robertson, Christian Zealots
August 11th, 2005
The Republican Party has repeatedly and pointedly disavowed any tactics aimed at keeping citizens from voting since allegations of voter suppression surfaced during the Florida recount in 2000 that tipped the presidential race to Bush.
Interestingly, while denying any conspiracy to keep possible Democrat voters from casting their ballots in both Ohio and Florida, a top New Hampshire Party official and a GOP consultant have pleaded guilty in conspiring with James Tobin, the president’s 2004 campaign chairman for New England, to interferre with the Democratic campaign. Apparently Tobin called the GOP consultant to get a telephone firm to help in a scheme to tie up the phone lines in New Hampshire to prevent Democrat campaigners from calling voters to encourage them to get out and vote on Election Day 2002. At the time Tobin was the RNC’s New England Regional Director.
Earlier this week, RNC chairman Ken Mehlman, the former White House political director, reiterated a “zero-tolerance policy” for any GOP official caught trying to block legitimate votes.
“The position of the Republican National Committee is simple: We will not tolerate fraud; we will not tolerate intimidation; we will not tolerate suppression. No employee, associate or any person representing the Republican Party who engages in these kinds of acts will remain in that position,” Mehlman wrote Monday to a group that studied voter suppression tactics.
But then again, didn’t Bush promise to fire anyone involved in leaking Plame to the press? Hard to believe the Republicans will actually follow through on such a statement when their king has set the precident to say it and not do it.
Paul Twomey, a volunteer lawyer for New Hampshire Democrats who are pursuing a separate lawsuit involving the phone scheme, said he was surprised the RNC was willing to pay Tobin’s legal bills and that it suggested more people may be involved.
“It originally appeared to us that there were just certain rogue elements of the Republican Party who were willing to do anything to win control of the U.S. Senate, including depriving Americans of their ability to vote,” Twomey said.
“But now that the RNC actually is bankrolling Mr. Tobin’s defense, coupled with the fact that it has refused some discovery in the civil case, really raises the questions of who are they protecting, how high does this go and who was in on this,” Twomey said.
Yes, how high does it go? Where does the buck stop? It does seem rather suspicious, but maybe I just love a good conspiracy story too much. Sounds to me like the tip of the iceberg. Maybe my crazy co-worker, who goes on and on about how the Ohio election was fixed and how the technology was used to do it, is right on the money. There’s a thin line between genius and insanity sometimes.
Read the rest of the story.
Tags: Republicans, vote, Democrats, Florida, Ohio, Voting Irregularities
August 7th, 2005
According to the Middle East Times:
Saudi women to vote in chamber poll
UPI
July 29, 2005
RIYADH — Some 600 Saudi women are expected to participate in the elections of the chamber of trade and industry in eastern Saudi Arabia for the first time.
The Saudi daily Al-Yawm said on Wednesday that the chamber of commerce and industry in the eastern province decided to allow businesswomen to take part in the elections of its board for the first time in the kingdom’s history.
The paper said that the elections would take place before the end of the year and ballot boxes for women would be placed under the supervision of a female committee representing the ministry of trade and industry, which oversees the elections of trade chambers in the kingdom.
Saudi women were banned from participating in the kingdom’s first municipal elections earlier this year.
Women in the Muslim-conservative kingdom are deprived of many social and political rights, including the right to travel alone and drive cars.
Every little step forward is a good step. I find it fascinating that the Bush administration keeps pushing democracy and women’s rights in the Middle East but our “allies” the Saudis have been exempt to that kind of pressure…not that our peer pressure has done that much good.
Anyway, I really do hope this proves to be a victory for Saudi women.
Tags: Saudi Arabia, Women's Rights, vote
July 13th, 2005
Ginny’s comment on my Let’s Make A Statement post got me thinking. Five years ago, I was very much against the whole armchair President thing. I had quite a lot to say on the subject concerning people who are all talk and no action. As Mark Twain once said, “Thunder is impressive, but lightning gets the work done.”
However, as liberal as I become, I am reluctant to commit to any party in particular. Over the years, I have been registered as a Republican, a Democrat, and an Independent. No party is everything to me all the time — though it’s true that currently, the Republicans are getting on my nerves. Really it has more to do with their recent behavior. But, on the other hand, I don’t think the Democrats are perfect either. And there are candidates on both sides that I like and would vote for.
So, where does that leave me if I want to make more than a statement?
This morning, inspired by Ginny’s comments, I joined The League of Women Voters, which is a nonpartisan political organization that “encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.” I have volunteered my time to help register voters among other things. I feel like the LWV is a good fit for me because one of my biggest disappointments in the last few years has not only been low voting rates, but uniformed voters. As I said many times last fall, while I would like to convince people to vote for my candidate, what’s most important is that people vote and do so intelligently.
Tags: League of Women Voters, politics
October 12th, 2004
- The other day, President Bush bragged that under his administration, we have the highest number of homeowners. What he failed to point out is that under his administration we also have had the highest number of filed bancruptcies and the highest unemployment rate. The unemployment rate is skewed as it only counts people actually on unemployment benefits, but Americans are remaining unemployed far longer than those six months of benefits. The average amount of time for unemployment is nine months. I suspect that the high unemployment rate coupled with the high number of people buying homes has led to the high bancruptcy rate.
- Women will not be allowed to vote or run for office in Saudi Arabia’s first nationwide elections. Aren’t these our allies? Shouldn’t we hold them to the same standards we insisted for Afghanistan? Of 10.5 million voters in Afghanistan, I’m proud to say that 41% were women. I don’t know the exact statistic, but I bet that the percentage of American women who actually vote is lower.
- Rallies showing only loyal supporters for Bush all remind me of those old films of German masses saluting Hilter. I’m not at all saying that Bush is as evil as Hitler. I don’t even thik Bush is actually in charge at this point. However, such events smack of images of dictators allowing the masses to adore them and heralds a rather bleak possible future for Americans. After all, the fact that Bush and his administration are so secretive and seem so underhanded and claim that either we’re with him or against him is downright frightening. Sometimes I worry that my Kerry window clings and button will earn me a visit from the secret service. After all, wasn’t there another rather secretive president who misused the resources of office? Hmmmmm… And I’m deeply concerned about this administration’s stand that the end justifies the means and that our make-believe safety from potential terrorists can only come at the sacrifice of the freedoms that made us Americans. In that sense, the terrorists are winning.
Tags: discombobulated, George W. Bush, Women's Rights, Saudi Arabia, vote, politics, party loyalty
August 27th, 2004
The following was sent to me by a friend.
“Night of Terror” on Nov. 15, 1917
A short history lesson on the privilege of voting… The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of “obstructing sidewalk traffic.”
They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.
Thus unfolded the “Night of Terror” on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their food — all of it colorless slop — was infested with worms. 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?
HBO’s new movie “Iron Jawed Angels” is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that we could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have our say. It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn’t make her crazy. The doctor admonished the men: “Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.”
Please pass this on. We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women.
Tags: Women's Rights, politics, history, vote
