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Jan. 29, 2007 Sections 1 and 2 of The fifteenth amendment to the United States Constitution read as follows: “Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson announced that he would seek the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2008. Richardson was elected to Congress eight-times as Representative from New Mexico; He served as Ambassador to the United Nations under Bill Clinton, and later as Secretary of Energy. His foreign policy experience includes arranging the recent cease-fire between the Sudanese government and rebels in that country, and he has also negotiated with the North Koreans regarding their nuclear programs. Richardson is also known for his fundraising acumen, having raised nearly thirty million dollars for candidates for Governor. Richardson joins a crowded field that includes Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd, Delaware Senator Joe Biden, Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards, Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel, 2004 also-ran Dennis Kucinich, and Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsak. Expected to join the field is another 2004 also-ran, retired General Wesley Clark, and possibly Al Gore, who had garnered much publicity since the documentary An Inconvenient Truth,” (based on his book of the same name) has received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary. Richardson said, said on ABC’s This Week, “I believe this country is a very tolerant, positive country. I believe the country would be ready for a woman president, an African-American president, Hispanic president.” He was probably referring to his own prospects as well as those of Democratic stablemates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Oh? The Democratic party’s minority candidates remind me of the New York Yankees: Looks good on paper, but the chances of “winning the big one” aren’t that great. Too many dirty tricks impact upon white candidates, so you can imagine the shenanigans a minority candidate will have to endure. After the enactment of the 1965 voting Rights Act, people were under the impression that voter suppression was a thing of the past. However, according to a report by the NAACP and People For the American Way, Republicans are out to thwart black voter turnout. They cite the 2003 Philadelphia mayoral election, when “fully seven percent of a poll of 1000 African American voters described troubling experiences at the polls. Men with clipboards bearing official-looking insignia were reported at many precincts in African American neighborhoods.” Reporter Greg Palast wrote that in Ohio and New Mexico, not all of the votes were counted, most of which would have gone for Kerry. Palast added, "Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded." There is nothing that guarantees Kerry would have won, but the fact that such “slip-ups” can happen in an election between two white candidates, you can bet that the problem would be exacerbated for a minority candidate, especially if he or she is viewed as having a legitimate shot to win. More subtle forms of voter suppression were reported in Ohio. One woman soke of how her grandparents requested absentee ballots in. The ballots never arrived, and they were told that could not vote with either regular or provisional ballots, because they had already requested absentee ballots. Other complaints include polls opening late, making phone calls that falsely claim that voting will be extended to the following day, or giving incorrect information about polling sites and election laws (this happened in Virginia, in the Senate race between incumbent Republican George Allen and his Democratic challenger Jim Webb), police officers being stationed outside of polling places for no apparent reason, and according to an article in Wikipedia, during the 2002 New Hampshire Senate election, “Republican officials attempted to reduce the number of Democratic voters by paying professional telemarketers in Idaho to make repeated hang-up calls to block Democrats' ride-to-the-polls phone lines on election day.” The cheating goes both ways. It was reported that four campaign workers for John kerry were convicted for slashing the tires of more than two dozen vans that were to be used in a GOP ride-to-the-polls effort. Moreover, UK’s Tom Pain cited another incident of Democratic chicanery. Sources: David Solnit, Massive Voter Suppression and Corruption in Ohio, November 6, 2004, www.globalresearch, http://globalresearch.ca/articles/SOL411A.html Voter suppression, Wikipedia Matthew L. Wald, N.M. Governor Jumps Into Race For White House,The New York Times The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America Today, People For the American Way FBI Investigating Voter Intimidation In Virginia, Think Progress ------------ About the author: Timothy N. Stelly, Sr. is a 46-year old poet, novelist and aspiring screenwriter who resides in northern California with his three youngest children--Lawrence, Kimberly and Dante. He is a member of various writer's groups and has three novels in print, his most recent, "Like A Straight-Up Sucka," is available at www.lulu.com. website: http://stellbreadO@tripod.com Email: stellbread@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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