Robert Owens
We Be the Power
By
Aug 6, 2008 - 9:05:31 AM

Recently, I was thinking about the problems we encountered voting in Chesterfield during the 2008 primaries.  At several polling places, votes were eventually annulled by the State Election Committee, even though our local people tried to make a way.  This should have caused an avalanche of emails, calls, and letters demanding that our Governor do something to maintain the integrity of the system that forms the bedrock of a representative republic, the voice of the people as expressed through their vote.  However, for some reason I have the feeling the few emails, letters, and phone messages sent were easy to ignore, even though a few pebbles in an empty can should make some noise.  Has anything been done except for an official and showy chastisement of the only people who tried to deal with the situation?

Now we have another voting scandal that should have us all up in arms for those who are up in arms.  One of the great under-reported stories of the 2000 election debacle occurred not just in Florida, but nation-wide.  This was what can only be called the systematic lack of organization resulting in a massive disenfranchisement of our active duty service personnel and their dependents.  If any other similar size group were so discouraged from voting, if so many road-blocks were erected to depress the vote of any other group, even the most reactionary among us would say it’s time to lynch Ole Jim Crow and his evil discriminatory ways.  Instead, on July 8, a deafening silence greeted the introduction of a bill requiring the Defense Department to better facilitate the opportunity for our heroes and their families to vote in the upcoming elections.  This legislation was presented to the House by Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO).  100% of the Democrats, many of whom have made careers out of protesting voter abuse, refused to endorse the bill, and without Democratic support, no bill is discussed in Nancy’s house, so it’s DOA.

After the 2000 election, which turned on a few hundred hanging chads and butterfly ballots, several of our self-appointed professional Civil Rights monitors claimed massive discrimination and other evil efforts to suppress the vote.  After exhaustive investigations by such pro-Bush media organs as the New York Times, the Washington Post, ABS, NBS, and CBS, none of these excessive claims ever proved to be true, even though the urban legend continues.  Yet there are estimates that as many as 40 to 50 % of the active duty military who were actually able to obtain an absentee ballot with enough lead time to get it in before various arbitrary deadlines were rejected for one reason or another.  There are many stories of service men and women receiving absentee ballots when it was too late to send them in or when there was no way to have them properly notarized or postmarked.  The same disgraceful situation continued to exist for the 2002 by-elections and the 2004 presidential elections.

The Bush administration then demanded that something be done to make sure our military personnel could vote!  What happened?  There came inflated claims by the Defense Department in 2006 saying, “mission accomplished,” I mean, “problem solved.”  The Election Assistance Commission rejected these claims as fiction, estimating that less than 6% were actually able to cast their ballots in 2006.  In addition, how the Defense Department collects and analyzes the statistics is so poor the Commission feels there is no way to know how many of the estimated 6 million overseas service personnel and dependents voted.

Referring to our overseas active duty personnel, President Truman once said, “The least we at home can do is to make sure that they are able to enjoy the rights they are being asked to fight to preserve.”   As we ponder how to avoid another ballot famine here in Chesterfield, let’s also remember the people who are sacrificing so much so that we can have this privilege and do something to ensure they get the same opportunity.   

We have got to let the powers that be know that we know that we be the power and unless they start addressing pressing problems such as this, they may soon be the power that was.

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