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Thursday, October 26, 2006

Voter Supression!




Why are Democrats concerned with the "black vote"? How are candidates trying to get more African Americans to vote? According to the polls that the author uses in the article, what seems to be trend in the feelings of voters? Is voter suppression illegal or immoral? Whose job is it to inform the public of their rights? Is providing misinformation illegal? What assumptions about African American voters are all these candidates making?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Something this disgusting should be both immoral and illegal. But as the circumstances are it is just immoral. What is now being done is scaring people from voting by saying that any unpaided parking tickets and they will be arrested if they try to come vote. Sadly this is not illegal because of the freedom of speech. More and more people in the future will not come out to vote if more of this happens like that black voters leauge, keeps spreading these lies.
This seems to me like another kind of corruption. through these people passing out fliers and scaring good voters away it ensure that the people they want to vote will vote for them. This is most immoral because it is going against all things right and decent. The people are using lies and deception, to get what they want. What ever happened to a fair debate and running?
Michelle Asciote

Anonymous said...

This topic is pretty outrageous. When we started reading the article about this, i couldnt believe what i was hearing. Its pretty pathetic how people actually make groups like the "Milwauake Black Voters League" who hand out false information to falling neighborhoods because they dont know any better, or dont really care to find out. Whatever it is, its working and its pretty sad that these people can manipulate society and voting the way they do. I believe that creating a group thats purpose is to hand out false information about elections should be a felony becase thats screwing with our democratic process

W Brown said...

Michelle was it ever fair?

W Brown said...

Michael - What is the responsibility of the general public to know their rights and be critical of these groups?

Anonymous said...

there concerned to the black votes because most of them dont go out ot vote or when they request something to chenge in the are and it doesnt get change they dont care and dont come out to vote. They want the african amercains to come out to vote so that theyt come out and make a diffrence in the countrt at least.

Mighty Mojo said...

I actually think that I agree with Zilber a little bit on this one... It is pathetic and disgusting that people are able to actually persuade these voters not to vote. However, I don't think it's appropriate to limit freedom of speech, even in such a situation. The government or some not for profit organization needs to start doing things to counter these tactics. While it is really the voter's responsibility to be informed about voting policy and the like, we still have to be realistic: the general person does not know all the rules of voting. As Brown said in class, everyone should be in a class similar to the one we're in or at least be given some factual information as to the yeses and nos, the cans and cannots of voting.

Here are some websites I found with information on NYS voting:
www.elections.state.ny.

http://www.elections.state.ny.us/NYSBOE/download/law/2006NYElectionLaw.pdf (although this one is five hundred and sixteen pages, which might explain why no one has the time or patience to inform themselves about voting laws).

joanna vogel

Anonymous said...

I agree with what Mike said, it deff is pathetic on how there are voters who make up names for themselves i think its really "lame." I also dont understand why the government sends out the letters in the mail stating "with this letter you can come down tomororw and vote simply by cutting the line." That is utterly ridiculous...Why can't everyone just vote the regular way? Why does it have to be everyone doing something different? Why can't we just all do the same thing when it comes to governmental issuses and not figure out ways around it? I also agree with what Gio said. After Reading this article makes me feel like i don't want to vote however i Feel that maybe when i turn 21 or 22 and i do vote i most likely will change my mind, but if i had to vote tomorrow i deffinalty wouldnt...The reason why i said 21 or 22 is becasue next year (new Pres election) I will not be able to vote b/c i will only be 17 so maybe the next 5 years will impact me more and will give me the oppurtunity to catch up on the issuses that surround us today and the days to come!

W Brown said...

I'm not sure the purpose of the article was to dissuade you from voting however I could see how it might. What needs to happen to get the senior class to vote in non-presidential years?

Anonymous said...

The Democrats are concerned wit the 'black vote' because they NEED those voters. The chances of Dems. getting into office over republicans now is not slim but republicans focus on rich christian/baptist religious people. The democratic vote relies on minority & middle class voters.
“Democrats’ worries are backed up by a Pew Research Center report that found that blacks were twice as likely now than they were in 2004 to say they had little or no confidence in the voting system, rising to 29 percent from 15 percent. And more than three times as many blacks as whites — 29 percent versus 8 percent — say they do not believe that their vote will be accurately tallied.”1



I doubt that voter suppression is illigal but it is immoral. I hate to say it but I've come to expect immorality from today's politicians, regaurdless of their party. The only thing anyone wants to do is get into office just to not change a damn thing. I don't believe that it is ANYONE'S job to inform voters of their rights, it is a voter's responsibility to find out for themselves. This isn't like the cops reading an arrestee their Miranda Rights, its no one's responsibility to tell us what we have a right to do, we have so many resources (internet, libraries, telephones) to find out for ourselves. The laziness of people never fails to astound me.
Providing misinformation is not illigal as long as you don't say "it's the truth". You can hand out pamphlets that say ANYTHING!! Theres a whole website about how George W. Bush is the antichrist (http://www.bushisantichrist.com/).Anyone can print anything they want today, as long as they are not claiming it to be the truth. And in the end, isn't that what politicians want? Small voter turn out, a select few that vote for you? Its a garunteed easy way to office.




(1. http://betsyspage.blogspot.com/2006/10/concerns-about-black-turnout.html)

W Brown said...

Late after this post