Reply #37: Hearings expose conspiracy in November voting [View All]

'Ohio's first poll tax'
Hearings expose conspiracy in November voting
By Martha Grevatt
Cleveland

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Public hearings in Cleveland, Akron, Columbus, Cincinnati and Washington, D.C. have torn off the veil of media and government denial. Hundreds of witnesses have given sworn testimony, pointing to a deliberate and coordinated effort to disenfranchise tens and maybe hundreds of thousands of Ohio voters, primarily African Americans.

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Statutes permitting partisan challengers have been overlooked for decades. "The Ohio statute, originally codified in 1831, was amended in 1859 to permit challenges based upon a voter's possession of a 'visible admixture of African blood,'" testified Judith Browne, acting co-director of the Advancement Project.

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Now tens of thousands of the 155,000 provisional ballots disqualified on technicalities, along with 92,000 "spoiled" ballots, may never be counted. They were not included in the statewide recount completed Dec. 17 (after Bush electors were already sworn in).

In a classic Catch-22 situation, the disregarded ballots were not included in the recount because they were never counted in the first place!

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The fight for the basic right of suffrage, to complete the unfinished revolution cut short by the defeat of Reconstruction, is a just fight deserving the utmost solidarity. Its best hope is to link up the fight over the Bush (s)election with the fight to overturn the whole Bush (and Kerry) program of war, bigotry and exploitation.


Link:
http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/ohio1230.php