Last night our class had a brief discussion concerning voter suppression and the YouTube/ PBS effort to encourage voters to videotape the polling places next Tuesday. Some in our group seemed not to be aware of the need for video evidence of subversive voter suppression tactics like those used in Florida and Ohio in 2000 and 2004. This videothevote.org video offers a few examples of voter suppression in 2006:
Andrew Burman's voter suppression article found on Salon.com gives a state by state breakdown of what has happened this year in some of the most hotly contested states. The article focuses on the voter suppression attempts made by state or local Republican officials. Ohio, the state where the most alleged voter suppression occurred in 2004, was again the focus of attention this year for suppression attempts based on voter verification. The idea being that the poll workers would be forced to turn away voters who do not conform to new and complicated registration guidelines. Long lines of voters would form as a result, and as Sarai points out, some people might give up and not vote at all.
People being turned away at the polls is an easy thing to document with a video camera. I expect the broadcast networks will probably follow the lead of PBS to some degree and have cameras ready in Florida and Ohio "hot spots." I just hope that the obvious and historic connection between voter suppression efforts and Republican officials doesn't dissuade the networks from covering the polling places for fear of seeming biased.
Hello World
11 years ago
1 comment:
Like you, I think this is an extremley important topic. And we all know what happened (or at least we hope everybody does) in 2000 and 2004, this year may be even worse with these racial hate groups and people in the Republican party who would basically do anything to gain votes.
I hope the mainstream media does have coverage as PBS is doing, but I feel they make cop out, as you said, for fear!
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