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Archives for June 2004

Disenfranchising Blacks as Political Strategy

June 28, 2004 by staff

“Spoilage” Rates Determined by Technology, Not Voters

By Greg Palast
First published on GregPalast.com, June 21, 2004

In the 2000 presidential election, 1.9 million Americans cast ballots that no one counted. “Spoiled votes” is the technical term. The pile of ballots left to rot has a distinctly dark hue: About 1 million of them — half of the rejected ballots — were cast by African Americans although black voters make up only 12 percent of the electorate.

This year, it could get worse.

These ugly racial statistics are hidden away in the mathematical thickets of the appendices to official reports coming out of the investigation of ballot-box monkey business in Florida from the last go-’round.

How do you spoil 2 million ballots? Not by leaving them out of the fridge too long. A stray mark, a jammed machine, a punch card punched twice will do it. It’s easy to lose your vote, especially when some politicians want your vote lost.

While investigating the 2000 ballot count in Florida for BBC Television, I saw firsthand how the spoilage game was played — with black voters the predetermined losers.

Florida’s Gadsden County has the highest percentage of black voters in the state — and the highest spoilage rate. One in 8 votes cast there in 2000 was never counted. Many voters wrote in “Al Gore.” Optical reading machines rejected these because “Al” is a “stray mark.”

By contrast, in neighboring Tallahassee, the capital, vote spoilage was nearly zip; every vote counted. The difference? In Tallahassee’s white-majority county, voters placed their ballots directly into optical scanners. If they added a stray mark, they received another ballot with instructions to correct it.

In other words, in the white county, make a mistake and get another ballot; in the black county, make a mistake, your ballot is tossed.

The U.S. Civil Rights Commission looked into the smelly pile of spoiled ballots and concluded that, of the 179,855 ballots invalidated by Florida officials, 53 percent were cast by black voters. In Florida, a black citizen was 10 times as likely to have a vote rejected as a white voter.

But let’s not get smug about Florida’s Jim Crow spoilage rate. Civil Rights Commissioner Christopher Edley, recently appointed dean of Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley, took the Florida study nationwide. His team discovered the uncomfortable fact that Florida is typical of the nation.

Philip Klinkner, the statistician working on the Edley investigations, concluded, “It appears that about half of all ballots spoiled in the U.S.A. — about 1 million votes — were cast by nonwhite voters.”

This “no count,” as the Civil Rights Commission calls it, is no accident. In Florida, for example, I discovered that technicians had warned Gov. Jeb Bush’s office well in advance of November 2000 of the racial bend in the vote- count procedures.

Herein lies the problem. An apartheid vote-counting system is far from politically neutral. Given that more than 90 percent of the black electorate votes Democratic, had all the “spoiled” votes been tallied, Gore would have taken Florida in a walk, not to mention fattening his popular vote total nationwide. It’s not surprising that the First Brother’s team, informed of impending rejection of black ballots, looked away and whistled.

The ballot-box blackout is not the monopoly of one party. Cook County, Ill., has one of the nation’s worst spoilage rates. That’s not surprising. Boss Daley’s Democratic machine, now his son’s, survives by systematic disenfranchisement of Chicago’s black vote.

How can we fix it? First, let’s shed the convenient excuses for vote spoilage, such as a lack of voter education. One television network stated as fact that Florida’s black voters, newly registered and lacking education, had difficulty with their ballots. In other words, blacks are too dumb to vote.

This convenient racist excuse is dead wrong. After that disaster in Gadsden, Fla., public outcry forced the government to change that black county’s procedures to match that of white counties. The result: near zero spoilage in the 2002 election. Ballot design, machines and procedure, says statistician Klinkner, control spoilage.

In other words, the vote counters, not the voters, are to blame. Politicians who choose the type of ballot and the method of counting have long fine-tuned the spoilage rate to their liking.

It is about to get worse. The ill-named “Help America Vote Act,” signed by President Bush in 2002, is pushing computerization of the ballot box.

California decertified some of Diebold Corp.’s digital ballot boxes in response to fears that hackers could pick our next president. But the known danger of black-box voting is that computers, even with their software secure, are vulnerable to low-tech spoilage games: polls opening late, locked-in votes, votes lost in the ether.

And once again, the history of computer-voting glitches has a decidedly racial bias. Florida’s Broward County grandly shifted to touch-screen voting in 2002. In white precincts, all seemed to go well. In black precincts, hundreds of African Americans showed up at polls with machines down and votes that simply disappeared.

Going digital won’t fix the problem. Canada and Sweden vote on paper ballots with little spoilage and without suspicious counts.

In America, a simple fix based on paper balloting is resisted because, unfortunately, too many politicians who understand the racial bias in the vote-spoilage game are its beneficiaries, with little incentive to find those missing 1 million black voters’ ballots.

Greg Palast is the author of ‘The Best Democracy Money Can Buy – the New Expanded Election Edition ,” from which this article is taken.

© 2004 Greg Palast

Filed Under: Transforming Politics

Oklahoma Democratic Party Opposes Corporate Welfare, Personhood

June 20, 2004 by staff

Posted June 20, 2004

The Oklahoma Democratic party is the first major party that we’re aware of to officially oppose “corporate personhood” at the state level since the 1800s. Similar platforms and resolutions were passed in Washington, New Hampshire and Maine in 2004.

RESOLUTIONS OF THE OKLAHOMA DEMOCRATIC PARTY
AS APPROVED IN STATE CONVENTION, MAY 17, 2003

BE IT RESOLVED, AS FOLLOWS:

8. PRESERVING DEMOCRACY — The Democratic Party of Oklahoma believes that democracy is dependent upon local grassroots economies for our communities where families live.

We oppose corporate welfare which is defined as any action by local, state or federal government that gives corporations or an entire industry a benefit not offered to others, be it a grant, subsidy, real estate, low interest rate loan or tax breaks in the form of a credit, exemption, deferral, deduction or a tax rate lower than what others pay. Mega-corporations are the major beneficiaries of corporate welfare to the disadvantage of smaller companies.

We believe our democracy is controlled and threatened by mega-enterprises and propose to put an end to this consolidation of power. We strongly advocate legislation to strengthen controls and to increase penalties for businesses that violate the public trust.

We will work to promote a sustainable alternative to the new global “free market” capitalism, a system of democratically-governed market economies of “fair market” capitalism that are healthy markets leading to creating just, sustainable and compassionate societies.

We will initiate and promote the following actions:

* End the legal fiction that corporations are entitled to rights as persons

* Exclude corporations from political participation

* Implement serious political campaign reform to reduce the influence of money in politics

* Eliminate corporate welfare, direct or indirect

* Recover other externalized costs through fees and taxes

* Implement mechanisms to regulate international corporations and finance

* Use fiscal and regulatory policies to restrain financial speculation that exceeds the capabilities of the value of production

* Provide economic parity to human-scale, stakeholder-owned enterprises so they will flourish at the grassroots of our communities where our families are

* Community reinvestment to promote local business and home ownership

* Businesses that build, employ, and invest in the United States and do not engage in income tax avoidance by establishing offshore companies.

Filed Under: Corporate Personhood, Corporate Welfare / Corporate Tax Issues

Berkeley Becomes Latest U.S. Municipality to Oppose Corporate Constitutional “Rights”

June 16, 2004 by staff

Last updated June 16, 2004

Members of our San Francisco Bay Area chapter spearheaded a campaign that culminated on June 15, 2004 with passage of this resolution by the Berkeley City Council. Berkeley is the third California municipality to pass such a resolution, following Arcata and Point Arena. The resolution does not carry immediate legal consequence, but has served as a valuable education and organizing tool to advance debate over the appropriate role for corporations in a democracy. It also provides an important tool to influence future municipal decisions.

The strategy of passing local and state resolutions has been used with great effect in more than 300 jurisdictions to build support for defending constitutional rights and stop expansions of the so-called Patriot Act. The spread of local resolutions or, even better, binding ordinances opposing illegitimate corporate privilege, also can lead to larger change. See bottom of page for further resources.

Berkeley Resolution on Corporate Constitutional Rights

WHEREAS, Chapter 3.68 of the Berkeley Municipal Code, which contains the initiative ordinance creating the Peace and Justice Commission, sets forth several functions of the Peace and Justice Commission, including, but not limited to, “(A) Advise the Berkeley City Council on all matters relating to the City of Berkeley’s role in issues of peace and social justice, including, but not limited to support for human rights and self-determination throughout the world; (B) Help create citizen awareness around issues of social justice [and] (C) Help develop proposals for the City Council in furtherance of the goals of peace and justice, and help publicize such actions in the community;” and

WHEREAS, under the United States and California Constitutions, all sovereignty resides with “We the People,” such that people hold all inherent political power and government derives its power from the consent of the governed; government is created by the people and for the people for our health, safety, and welfare; our system of government is a representative democracy, through which the people govern; and “We the People” are entitled to inalienable constitutional rights to wield against oppressive governmental regulation; and

WHEREAS, “corporation” is not mentioned in the United States Constitution; our founders did not grant corporations rights; rights were reserved for natural people; historically corporations were created as artificial entities, chartered by state governments to serve the public interest, cause no harm, and be subordinate to the sovereign people; and yet by judicial interpretations, corporations gained personhood status, free speech and other protections guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment; and

WHEREAS, with “corporate personhood” and First Amendment rights, corporations dominate the political process and interfere with citizens’ control over our government as follows: corporations lobby our legislative and regulatory bodies; with the Supreme Court’s assertion that money is a form of free speech, corporations spend vast amounts of money to influence elections; and by virtue of their enormous wealth, corporations wield much more influence over our government and over the media than do “We the People”; and

WHEREAS, this corporate influence is transforming our government from one that is “by and for the people” to one that is by and for corporate interests; corporate influence over our government denies citizens our right to govern through a representative democracy and subjects us to minority rule by the wealthy few; and corporate influence has made it difficult to maintain a living wage, a clean environment, affordable health care, and quality education for all; and

WHEREAS, the citizens of the City of Berkeley consider it to be our sovereign right and civic duty to recognize that corporations remain artificial entities created by the people through our state legislatures; hope to nurture and expand democracy in Berkeley and in our nation; and reject the concept of corporate constitutional rights based on “corporate personhood” or any other factor.

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Council of the City of Berkeley supports amending the United States and California Constitutions to declare that corporations are not granted the protections or rights of persons, and supports amending the United States and California Constitutions to declare that the expenditure of corporate money is not a form of constitutionally protected speech.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the City Council directs the City Manager to send a copy of this Resolution to our state and federal government representatives including: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Majority and Minority Leaders of the California Senate Don Perata and James Brulte, California Assemblymember Loni Hancock, United States Senators Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein, and United States Representative Barbara Lee.

Resources
* For more on the Berkeley resolution, contact PhoeBe at: phoebeso”@t”earthlink.net.
* To learn more about our Bay Area chapter, contact Kirsten at: sfpersonhood”@”yahoo.com or 1-866-280-1409, ext 600.
* Tips on passing passing a local resolution (large pdf file designed to print at 11 ” x 14″ for brochure. Thanks to Jan Edwards).
* The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund also are excellent resources.

Filed Under: Corporate Personhood

Democrats in Washington State Officially Oppose “Money = Speech” Precedent and Corporate Personhood

June 9, 2004 by staff

Published June 9, 2004

Editors’ Note: Introducing positions into any local or state political party’s platform is one effective tool for broadening awareness of important issues among politically active citizens. We share below examples of statements passed by the Washington State Democratic Party on June 5, 2004, which occured after many citizens helped pass similar resolutions in their county platforms — a truly bottom-up process. Much of the language comes directly from our articles on campaign finance reform — we’re thrilled to see it put to such effective use!

Related platforms and resolutions have been passed in Oklahoma, New Hampshire and Maine. 

Resolution: Money Is Not Speech

Whereas, thirty-six years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the poll tax, which was a pay-to-vote scheme levied by several Southern states with the intention of disenfranchising Blacks. The Court struck down this scheme in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections by prohibiting deliberate economic exclusion of citizens from the electoral process, and;

Whereas, the bias of wealth still plagues our politics, largely due to the 1976 US Supreme Court decision in Buckley v. Valeo where the Court made a leap of logic to declare that spending money to influence elections was a form of “Free Speech,” protected by the First Amendment and largely beyond democratic control, and;

Whereas, as a result, we have two distinct classes of democratic participation. One class includes the majority of us who are entitled to turn out on Election Day to choose from a menu of candidates pre-selected because of their ability to raise (or possess) huge sums of money. The other class includes those wielding the real power – – the ability to finance candidates’ campaigns. This elite group determines the options for the rest of us and subsequently controls the political agenda, and therefore;

Be it resolved, that in order to provide all citizens, regardless of wealth, with more equal opportunities to influence elections, to influence public policy, and to run for office; and to further the principle of “one person, one vote” in a participatory and democratic republic; and to limit corruption and the appearance of corruption in our government, we, the people, declare the unlimited use of money to influence elections to be incompatible with the principle of Equal Protection established under the Fourteenth Amendment, and;

Be it further resolved, that we, the people, support all efforts:

  • To overturn Buckley v. Valeo, or to amend the Constitution to reflect that money is not a form of free speech,
  • To give Congress the power to set limits on contributions and expenditures made to influence the outcome of any federal election, including the power to ban such contributions and expenditures,
  • To ensure that each state shall have the power to set limits on contributions and expenditures made to influence the outcome of elections in that state for all offices, and
  • To ensure that each state shall have the power to place limits on initiative and referendum elections.

State Platform Plank on Corporate Power

Editor’s note: The language here was negotiated by the local activists who succeeded in passing the plank over vigorous objections. This is an example of their individual success, not model language.

  • We believe:
    • corporations are vital to our economy and standard of living;
    • business-friendly laws can be beneficial; and
    • corporations should not exert undue influence on our body politic or use our Constitution in the courts to thwart our democratically enacted laws.
  • We support:
    • revoking the charters of corporations that repeatedly violate our laws; and
    • a government created by, or, and for the people, not corporations.
  • We oppose:
    • the Supreme Court precedent that corporations are people, and further oppose corporate rights as persons under our Constitution and their associated constitutional rights, including the First Amendment right to make political contributions in the corporate capacity; and
    • tax breaks to corporations and other corporate welfare, unless a verifiable public interest is served.

More features on Political Reform

Filed Under: Corporate Personhood, Local Groups, Transforming Politics

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