9. GOP DIRTY TRICKS
The Republicans are notorious for their voter-suppression dirty tricks.
Terrified of all the new voters who have registered as Democrats, in state after state they have made it more difficult for these voters and others to cast their ballots. In addition, millions nationwide have been "purged" from the voting rolls -- some in mean ways, such as, in Michigan, attempting to remove from voting rolls those who have lost their homes as a result of foreclosures or storm damage and thus had no proof of current residency in their voting precincts. Students were lied to by GOP-friendly registration officials in Virginia, Colorado and South Carolina that they couldn't vote in their college towns if they were still listed as dependents on their parents' tax forms.
Other voters, especially those in minority communities (which, again, are
assumed to be more inclined to vote Democratic) are told the wrong date, and the wrong precinct, for the election. Others are warned not to go to the polls if they have any outstanding parking citations as they will be arrested. Last-minute computer-generated "robocalls" go to likely Democratic and Independent voters, filled with outright lies that are impossible to adequately respond to just days before the balloting starts. And so on. Best advice: Don't even listen to last-minute negativity, from any candidate regardless of party. And do not reward those practicing this kind of dirty politics by voting for their
candidates. (As I write this, the McCain Campaign has launched robocalls in at least 17 states, which are filled with smears and lies about Obama -- this at the same time that McCain talks about wanting to run a more "civil, positive" campaign.)
10. MASSIVE VOTE THEFT
As a result of a myriad of GOP/CheneyBush Campaign dirty tricks, it is
reliably estimated that the ballots of 3,000,000 voters were not properly counted in the 2004 elections. This altered the tallies just enough in key battleground states to throw the election to Bush, despite exit polls showing that Kerry won handily.
Even eight years after the 2000 vote-counting fiasco in Florida, Ohio and
elsewhere, the U.S. continues to avoid dealing seriously with its underlying electoral problems. Vote-tabulation is still outsourced to a handful of private (and in this case Republican-supporting) corporations. They manufacture the voting machines, write and control the secret software that both records the votes and tabulates them later. (Stalin famously said: "It's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes.")
One third of the country next month will vote on touch-screen voting
machines, which are notoriously unreliable, provide no paper trail for possible recounts, and are easily hackable. (for example, often you vote for your candidate but the name of the opponent is recorded). All votes, whether recorded on a touch-screen or fed into an optical-scanner machine are tabulated by the same Republican-leaning companies that make the machines; the possibility of corrupted totals is built into the system. It has been publicly demonstrated that a company technician or outside hacker can within 45 seconds enter the software, manipulate the vote numbers, and leave no evidence of tampering.
Certainly the Republicans have no desire to alter the current system. Why should they? It works well for them, and they've rarely been charged with crimes in this area. But an Obama/Biden administration and Democratic-controlled Congress might well be more amenable to reforming the electoral process to make it more transparent, less corruptible, less corrupted.
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Well, those ten will do for starters. I'm hoping some or all of those reasons will help convince you to consider supporting Senator Obama's candidacy. But if you can't, I'm quite open to hearing from you as to why not.
Finally, please be aware that it's not just lifelong Democrats who are urging support for Senator Obama. Lifelong Republicans, many of them generals and admirals (including Colin Powell), anxious to reshape their party away from its current extreme right-wing focus so that they can win future elections, are abandoning Senator McCain in droves.
Some are doing so because they feel McCain's been a very poor candidate, much too closely tied to the Bush policies with which most Americans disagree, some because they are appalled at his judgment in choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate, someone not even remotely qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.
If you are going to be voting for Obama, please consider volunteering to help the campaign in these final weeks. A landslide vote is what's called for to lessen the impact of Republican dirty-tricks and to better ensure that major reforms can be initiated in Washington that will help get our country back on track. Thank you.
All best wishes, Bernie #
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Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, worked as a writer/editor with the San Francisco Chronicle for two decades, and currently serves as co-editor of The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org). To comment:
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