ELECTION 2004 EDITORIAL
No more Floridas
As we go into the 2004 election, the United States ranks
absolutely the lowest of the world's industrialized countries
in the percentage of people voting. In the presidential
election of 2000, only 49.3 percent of the voting-age
population made it to the polls--and this in a country the
ruling class declares to be a model of democracy for the whole
world.
The poorest sections of the working class are the most
affected. Rules that make registra tion and voting difficult
for working people and that disenfranchise those who have been
in prison--aimed especially at
African Americans--are partly responsible. So is actual
intimidation of voters, which was deadly in the South before
the massive civil rights movement and still is chilling to many
communities. The apathy of millions also affects turnout, and
reflects the lack of real choice in a political system
dominated by two big-business parties.
But this year has seen a massive voter registration drive
among poor people, most of whom are expected to vote
Democratic. Now Republican Party officials and other
right-wingers are trying to discredit and intimidate these new
voters before they even have a chance to go to the polls.
A major smear campaign has been launched against the
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which
has registered 1 million new voters this year, including
212,000 in Florida. Articles attacking ACORN are appearing in
newspapers all over the country. Right-wingers are organizing
to challenge these new voters at the polls, especially in swing
states like Florida.
Bush stole the 2000 presidential election primarily through
threats, intimidation and fraudulently disqualifying African
American voters in Florida while Al Gore, who won the popular
vote, eventually caved in to the five-to-four decision by the
U.S. Supreme Court. In the current campaign, similar tactics
have been used against Native peoples in South Dakota and
Latin@s in Texas. In Michigan, a Republican state senator was
quoted in the Detroit Free Press as saying, "If we do not
suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in
this election." African Americans are 83 percent of Detroit's
population.
The issue here is not whether Kerry is worth voting for. It
is the right to vote itself--which was won by women and by
African Americans only through massive independent organizing
and militant action in the streets. The low number of people
voting in the past shows how many are still struggling to
exercise this bare minimum of basic democratic rights--to vote
and to have their votes counted.
It is possible, given the charged climate of war and
economic uncertainty, that real struggles may break out at the
polls on election day. Even if they take the form of Democrats
vs. Republicans, their significance is that they reflect a
desire by the workers and oppressed to enter the political
arena, which has been totally dominated by the super-rich and
their representatives in both major parties.
Reprinted from the Nov. 4, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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