Challenging
The Vote At The Voting Polls--Ultimate Terrorism or Ultimate
Treasure?
by
Cliff McKenzie
GROUND
ZERO PLUS 1147 DAYS,--New York, NY, Tuesday,
November 2, 2004--There's
something terribly frightening about "armed guards"
challenging each voter's right to vote at the polling booth
in 21st Century America. And, on the opposite side of that fright,
there's something very beautiful and precious about the value
of a vote.
There's
a strange combination of events here in America this election
On the
scary side, some 3,500 Republicans will stand like sheriffs
inside polling booths in the state of Ohio staring down the
800,000 new voters recently registered. These "voting guards"
have the right to challenge voters who might have fraudulently
represented their right to cast a ballot.
But
which one gets the jack boot? Which one gets picked out of the
crowd to be "body searched" for the "right to
vote?"
It's
a crap shoot at best. There are some with lists of names of
new voters whose mail was returned from the address they listed,
suggesting that they offered a bogus address.
Others
are suspect the age of the person voting is under 18, the legal
voting age.
Then
there is the potential bogus voter who may be a felon and didn't
disclose that information because it would deny the voter the
right to mark a ballot for or against a candidate.
In a
fierce battle, the higher courts have allowed the right to challenge
voters in Ohio. Inside the voting polls Democrats will be standing
guard over the "vote police" observing. If the Republicans
"get out of hand" they will be ready to "rescue"
their people from "intimidation," "fear"
and "oppression."
There's
a strange combination of events here in America this election,
and it sounds a lot like the not-so-distant election monitoring
in Zimbabwe when the U.N. and other interested nations tried
to keep machine guns away from the voting polls so people wouldn't
fear being shot to death for voting the wrong way.
New York
City's Bowery Boys
American
voting irregularities go way back. In New York at the turn of
the century, every time a person voted they got a free beer,
so the Bowery Boys would go from one precinct to another voting
and collecting voting slips so they could down another free
beer.
As early
as the 60's black and undereducated voters were kept away from
the polls by a literacy test that required one to be able to
read and write at a certain level. This kept the white vote
up and the black vote down.
Bracing
for Election Day, Palm Beach County officials review the
eligibility of absentee ballots
But,
in today's election, there is the element of "terrorism"
wafting about the voting arena.
It appears
in Ohio that gunslingers have arrived to challenge voters, to
splay them out and body search them before they enter the poll.
This
doesn't ring of a "free nation" offering "free
elections." It's more third-world, more in the realm of
tyranny and oppression than in the spirit of freedom.
Such
is the result of a bitter campaign between two forces each closely
pitted in vital swing states such as Ohio where a few votes
on one side or the other could shift an election as was in the
case in 2000 in Florida.
No matter
what the reason, there is something peculiar and ominous about
having to install Voting Police next to where someone is about
to spend the most important coin of freedom--the vote.
It seems
that long before you need to have body searches at the door,
the system would disallow any fraud. But, the system is weak.
Democrats have been charged with fraudulently registering voters
to boost numbers and stack the deck.
1870 Fifteenth
Amendment established the right of the black male to vote
The
Republicans are claiming they're only protecting the public
from what the zealous Democracts did when they knowingly jammed
in 800,000 new voters, a large number of which are questionable
as to their right to vote.
So the
battle wages today.
Women
voting in Wyoming in 1888
In Ohio,
there will be jack-booted guards monitoring the door. Some claim
they will intimidate voters and drive them away; others say
their presence will infuriate voters and attract them.
One
thing is for sure about today--the American voting system is
alive and well.
When
people guard the doors to the voting poll as they might the
doors of Fort Knox, you know that great treasures reside inside.
There
is no question that the great treasure in a free land is the
vote itself, not for whom the vote is cast.
If there
will be a loser in this election, it will be those people who
chose not to vote at all.
The great
treasure in a free land is the vote itself
They
will be the losers, the bankrupt, the moral vacuums of this
nation. They will be the real voting terrorists, not those at
the voting polls guarding the right to vote from infraction.
So,
when one begins to argue about the rights or wrongs of Ohio,
one should include the argument about the people who refuse
to vote or are too lazy or unconcerned to vote.
If anyone
should be labeled with voter fraud, it should be all who do
not vote.
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