ACLU Gets Voting Declared Illegal
Yesterday the US Supreme Court declared that all voting, whether by paper, or electronic, even the act of voting itself, was unconstitutional since it inherently disenfranchised people of color."This has been a real coup for us," said Jeffrey Gamso, Legal Director of the ACLU of Ohio. "All we were trying to do is make sure Republicans were not allowed to vote, and then this happens. It's like getting an early Christmas present.
"In Ohio, people of color reported having to stand in line in order to vote. Some people left the line and went home rather than wait. It's not their fault they got out of line, those people were disenfranchised. If there were no lines they could have voted. Democrats lead busy lives, they can't wait in line for an hour to vote.
"In Florida, we sued over the electronic ballots, because people were asked to show identification. Can you believe that? Identification! To ask for identification is racist. Many people can't get identification: some of them are illegal aliens, some are felons, and some are dead. Why should that keep them from voting?
"We had gotten two state supreme courts to declare both paper ballots illegal, and asking for identification illegal. But we needed a ruling at the federal level. That's when we turned to Joe Lockhart."
Lockhart explained the argument he helped the ACLU come up with, "You see, there is no perfect counting system, all of them have a margin of error, you simply can't count all the ballots. We used to call this 'acceptable margin of error.' But I told the ACLU to argue that even if the margin of error is as small as one person, then that shows unacceptable systemic disenfranchisement.
"The only way to make sure to count every vote is to ask for identification and verify everyone is who they say they are. But of course that is inherently racist, so you can never count every single vote. If only one vote goes uncounted, then all voting inherently violates people's rights.
Stuart Comstock-Gay, Executive Director the National Voting Rights institute, that participated in the lawsuit, told us "As long as any votes are miscounted, misplaced or misdirected, our elections cannot be said to be properly working.
"If even one vote is missing, the election is a sham. Since in every election votes go missing, all votes are shams. Therefore, we are suing to make all votes be declared unconstitutional and have us appoint leaders and judges for our country that we determine the people want and need. That is the only way the people's right to vote can be protected.
"We won by a slim margin. We are lucky Rehnquist got cancer."
"This is a great day for America," Gamso said, "We thought we'd have to settle for allowing only Democrats to vote, but now we don't even need the Democrats - we can simply appoint rulers and judges we decide on, and so liberty is finally secured - in the capable hands of lawyers."
posted by Pluto's Dad @ 12/17/2004 11:15:00 AM
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