Flyer Targets Milwaukee's African American Voters
 

http://images.dailykos.com/images/user/3/milwaukee.gif
(Via Daily Kos)

No word yet on whether it's a fake. I want to believe it is, but then again, I remember 2000.

Pardon my French, but it just has to be said regarding that piece of used toilet paper circulating in the black areas of Milwaukee:

BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!

Point number one: WRONG! You can vote in a primary election, but that doesn't disqualify you from voting in the general election.

Point number two: YGBSM! (You Gotta Be Shittin' Me!) In most states, you cannot vote while in prison or on parole; once you have paid your debt to society, your civil rights are restored.

Point number three: What kinda cockamamie bullshit is this? What your family members do with their lives has no bearing on your right to vote. As long as they don't drag you down in committing a felony.

Point number four: The only one that's correct. If you didn't register to vote by the deadline, you don't vote in the election.

Point number five: scare tactics.

Sounds to me like someone (possibly white supremacists) is trying to scare off blacks from voting.

Don't get upset AlphaSigOU. This flyer is laughable because it is an obvious hoax. The Republicans have been accused of suppressing the black vote, while the Democrats have been accused of suppressing the military vote. We need to quit believing both of these ridiculous allegations.

It's so ridiculous that I don't see how it can be anything but something to 'scare' people to the polls. We've seen so much of this "Republicans are trying to steal your vote" crap that you have to believe that about 90% of it is just Democrats trying to make people feel falsely oppressed.

I have to believe it's working though.

So in your eyes, race-based voter suppression -- regardless of its source -- is okay?

Here's a good article from FindLaw that talks about the (relatively recent) history of race-based votter suppression in the US: http://writ.news.findlaw.com/scripts.../20041029.html

In 1981's "model" effort, the Republican National Committee and the New Jersey Republican State Committee engaged in "widespread challenging of individual voters and an Election Day presence at African American and Latino precincts featuring armed guards and dire warnings of criminal penalties for voting offenses."

More recently, armed plainclothes officers from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement went to the homes of elderly black voters to investigate the March 2003 mayoral election. And in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, "five Republican poll watchers - including two staff members of Senator Tim Hutchinson's office - allegedly focused exclusively on African Americans, asking them for identification and taking photographs during the first day of early voting."

Perhaps the most famous recent example of racially-based vote suppression in the United States took place during the presidential election of 2000. The State of Florida ordered implementation of a purge list to remove voters from the rolls. The purge disenfranchised thousands of eligible voters - primarily African Americans. These citizens were prevented from casting ballots through their largely erroneous - and humiliating - classification as convicted felons.

"Scare tactics" or not, there is a history of keeping African Americans disenfranchised (with respect to the vote) on both sides, and there is recent evidence that many in the GOP don't see the value in such policies as the Voting Rights Act (Pres. Bush 41 was hesitant to sign the act, and only did so when his approval numbers started to tank after his flip-flop on 'no new taxes'), and that they'll stoop to any level to keep black folks from voting.

Whether you're a GOPer or a Dem, if people are being pressured not to vote in this country, you should take it as a personal affront for all that you stand for.

How does anyone know that those flyers were put out by Republicans? They could have been distributed by Democrats to infuriate and mobilize part of their base.

Oooohhhh.... nice, you've officially become as cynical as the average Canadian voter ;)

I want to believe it's a fake too, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't.

Wisconsin is primarily Republican or politically mixed outside of the enclaves of Madison and Milwaukee (and some of its suburbs). In order to get Bush reelected, the GOP knows that they have to overcome the two biggest cities in Wisconsin often voting 60 percent+ for the Democratic candidate. (You can look at quite a few wards in Milwaukee where Bush received votes in the single digits . . .) Since, in 2000, Gore won the state by less than 6000 votes, I wouldn't be surprised if somebody took it into their head that suppressing the black vote would be a good way to tip Wisconsin toBush.


PS: AlphaSig, I think -- can somebody back me up on this? -- that Wisconsin actually has day-of registration and you CAN register at the polling place right before you vote. I think I did this during the primaries when my address had changed between elections.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by sugar and spice
[B]I want to believe it's a fake too, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't.

Wisconsin is primarily Republican or politically mixed outside of the enclaves of Madison and Milwaukee (and some of its suburbs). In order to get Bush reelected, the GOP knows that they have to overcome the two biggest cities in Wisconsin often voting 60 percent+ for the Democratic candidate. (You can look at quite a few wards in Milwaukee where Bush received votes in the single digits . . .) Since, in 2000, Gore won the state by less than 6000 votes, I wouldn't be surprised if somebody took it into their head that suppressing the black vote would be a good way to tip Wisconsin toBush.


:rolleyes:
I actually am with Coop on this one. I'm a BIG fan of cynicism. But I think it's a function of my age, and all the s.h.i.t. I've seen in politics over the years, rather than the fact that I lived across the river from Canada at one point in my life...:D

Would anyone like to buy some beans?

I'd like to believe that it's fake, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it were not. I live in Milwaukee and I've seen some pretty strange stuff going on and heard some pretty strange comments about voting from some of my African-American customers.Yes, S&S, that is correct. In Wisconsin (and Minnesota too, for that matter) you can register at your polling place. You must have with you photographic proof of identity (driver's license, passport, state or student ID) and proof of residency that is at least ten days old (driver's license with the correct address, utility or telephone bill, pay stub, etc.). These states encourage people to pre-register in order to decrease backup at the polling places, but would prefer that people register at the polling place and vote rather than not voting at all.

SSDD!

I do believe that the flyer is probably real. I do not think that "the Republicans" as in an organizes, recognized state committee or anything like that put it together. More likely some group of Bush supporters got themselves together and came up with this bright idea. I think people underestimate how effective this could be in deterring individuals not familiar with voting regulations from giving to the polls on Tuesday. While these statements are false and far-fetched, for some, the questions and confusion and threat of problems can scare them off.

Many of these types of tactics are done by folks who are pretty ignorant themselves and who harbor their own stereotypes about Black people as all criminal or uneducated and likely to fall for this type of crap.

Preach it Soror.

Hilariously enough, as a part of an extensive project I have all of the WI voting information from 2000 in front of me at my desk broken into judicial districts . . .



1.) Yes you can register at the polling place - WI especially promotes the "vote no matter what" corrolary, which leads to such fantastic elements as "not having an accurate measure of the electorate for the state" . . . only frustrating for me personally, but still strange.

2.) Outside of Milwaukee, "mixed" may be a stretch - however, inside Milwaukee, this is certainly not the case. 60% is not a stretch.

3.) These two factors lead me to think this is an elaborate hoax, because every element is so clearly over the top (and incorrect). If you don't buy the syllogistic argument here, that's cool, but it doesn't seem to be very effective if real.