Reply #68: Do you remember that students in swing states were targeted, 2004? [View All]

I wrote this 11/06/04:

Editor,

For the last two years, our young people have registered to vote, they've registered their friends and neighbors. They've phone banked and fund raised. They've listened to debates, invited candidates to speak to them and helped maintain the broad progressive coalition that swept over this country. They got out the vote last Tuesday. They helped mind the polls, often traveling to other states to go where they were needed.

They did an amazing job. So, when the pundits say, they were unnoticed, someone is looking in the wrong direction. And missing the as yet untold story of this election and the youth vote.

Because our young people were also targeted for voter intimidation and suppression. They got robocalls threatening their student financial aid. As a group, somehow their absentee ballots went missing at a higher rate. Their registration forms where shredded in Oregon and Washington. Precincts closest to their colleges were understaffed and under equipped. In Ohio, they were made to stand in alternate lines and to wait for hours as they watched other voters come, cast their vote and go. And as the reports come in, this list will get longer.

But, in other words, on Tuesday, the youth vote was Black in America, had their rights violated in the same old ways that the black community has been fighting for decades. So, if we don't see the difference our young people made on Nov 2, it may be because we may be too ashamed to look and see what really happened to them, after they worked their hearts out for our election.

They were there. Where were we? Where is the leadership that should be helping our youth understand the lessons learned last Tuesday? To point out to them that they just went through a trial by fire, and that we're all proud of them and grateful. Most of all, to promise them that together we will continue fighting for fair elections. And to mean that.

* * *

We won't be fooled again. :grr: