I posted this in the news and politics forum..but posting here as well for those that don't vistit that forum.
Only Democrats can get away with this type of rhetoric...cause the Republicans are so racist..
Miami (CNSNews.com) - An African-American civil rights spokeswoman said on Wednesday that the new computerized voting machines "terrify" her, and that blacks are "afraid of machines like that."
Joanne Bland, the director and co-founder of the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute in Selma, Ala., told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that the new computerized voting machines are going to intimidate black voters in Florida and elsewhere and suppress their vote in the November presidential election because many blacks are not "technologically savvy."
"The computers really terrify me. The electronic voting -- the new machines -- I think it will turn off a segment in my community, particularly the elderly. We are not as technically savvy, and we are afraid of machines like that, and they (African-Americans) probably won't go [to the polls] and they probably won't ask for assistance, said Bland, who spent the last week in Florida.
"It is going to turn them off totally and I want that to stop," said Bland, who also serves as a spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Public Accuracy, which predicts that "several million voters" may be "deprived of voting rights again" in 2004.
When asked if she preferred low-tech punch-card ballots that produced the controversial hanging chads in Florida in 2000, Bland responded, "Now that was low technology to who? People that have been privileged to learn technology? There have been lots of changes in the United States, but if you look at the statistics, our biggest block of voters would be between 40 and 80, so when did those people have access to any kind of technology?"
As an 11-year-old in 1965, Bland took part in the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She has just concluded a speaking tour on the history of the civil rights movement in the Miami area.
"I got the hell out of there Saturday, and I would suggest you do, too. Until we get rid of those Bushes (President George W. Bush and his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush), we're going to have a problem in Florida," Bland said.
GOP political operatives were quick to denounce Bland's comments.
African-American GOP consultant Tara Setmayer, who has worked on Florida congressional campaigns, called Bland's remarks "insulting" to black Americans.
"I think it's insulting to imply that African-Americans are unable to comprehend or assimilate modern-day technology," Setmayer said.
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewSpecialR...E20040930a.html
Blacks Afraid of Electronic Voting
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