March on Baton Rouge State Capitol

[Anita Garcia]

March 28, 2006
12 - Noon
Operation N.O. Justice
NAACP
Everyone urged to attend.
We must support our Brothers and Sisters.
They are not here.
If we do not stand for them, who will?

[markus]

1. I am deeply conflicted about any suggestion the elections be postponed

Everybody who registered with FEMA should be getting an absentee ballot application.

We have an opportunity to vote out the corrupt assessor system

I don't think the city can wait. If it does, it will die, and I've just gambled the rest of my life on coming back home.

Nobody is doing anything to prevent anyone from casting their absentee ballot. Anyone how hasn't registered or voted in another state is eligible.

I think everyone's time in NGOs would be better spent on massive voter education for displaced survivors, rather than threatening to hold up any further progress until everyone is guaranteed a ticket home.

[Anita Garcia]

2. You need the facts

It is harder for displaced voters to vote.
If a displaced voter registered to vote after September 25, 2005, that voter can NOT vote absentee. That voter must vote in person at the Registrar's Office in New Orleans during the early voting period or at the normal polling place on election day assuming their normal polling place is not one of the 300 destroyed polling places out of 442.

There will be NO satellite voting on election day.

This is not about politics and whether or not it good or bad for a politician if the election is held on April 22nd or another date.
This is about the disenfranchisement of votes.

The Secretary of State is charged with educating displaced survivors/voters about how to vote. Please check out their website here - <http://www.sos.louisiana.gov/elections/elections-index.htm> I think you will find that it is NOT EASY to vote in the election.

[markus]

3. It may not be good Dem or liberal politics but I have to ask again

what prevented them from registering to vote before The Thing?

What prevents them requesting and completing an absentee ballot?

You don't have to explain to me about African-American disenfranchisement. I had a folder an inch thick in 1986 on the subject, when they moved their focus to Louisiana to try to defeat Breaux. (Also, Louisiana was a great lab for the techniques they were trying to perfect).

Yes, this is probably the most important election in Louisiana since Reconstruction. For that reason, people need to get up off their lazy asses and figure out how to vote, wherever they are. Voting is a right, not an entitlement. If a person can't manage that on their own, or with a little help from somebody who wants your vote, the perhaps it's better if they didn't come home, but took an interest in the local politics of whevever they're going to settle.

Trying to block the election based on identity politics is just going to further split the city at a time it desperately can't afford it.

Harsh words, but true.

[Anita Garcia]

4. "get up off their lazy asses" is more divisive than a fair election

It is not that people are prevented from registering to vote or voting.
It is that the franchise is being made more difficult.
The federal and state governments had the opportunity to enact a voting policy that would eliminate the hardship in registering and voting that displaced voters face after being evacuated.
The governments failed to enact such a policy.
Instead, the governments have acquiesced in the voting policy proposed by the Louisiana Secretary of State.
Providing satellite voting on election day; providing satellite voting outside of Louisiana; providing requests for absentee ballots without the requirement of an Affidavit; and providing easy access to information explaining what polling places have been destroyed and where polling places now exist would have helped.
Arguing that "people need to get up off their lazy asses" will do more to split the city than providing a fair election.

[markus]

5. Get up off their lazy asses

does not apply exclusively to any race in NOLA, as anyone who lives or has lived there long enough to need to register their car or deal with the S&WB would know.

I am simply arguing that a better investment in time would be to work on getting displaced voters' ballots in, rather than filing an identify-politics based lawsuit. We can't afford a delay.

The affadivit is actually an absentee ballot request, used in just about every state and jusrisdicion in the U.S. You have to request an absentee ballot before you get one.

If the progressive/left NGOs aren't helping people to get this process done--telling them they will win in court--and they lose in court, then the NGOs will have done as much to disenfranchise the displaced black electorate as any GOP field drone since the 1980s.

Pay attention: the damn government isn't going to help you: black or white. If you haven't figured that you, you have missed the critical lesson of The Flood. We have to rely on Ourselves Alone. That means making sure everyone who plans to return gets their affafdavit/request in and returns a ballot.

[Anita Garcia]

6. You still don't know the facts.

The affidavit is not an absentee ballot request.
Take this test:
Can you vote at satellite polling places?
How many satellite polling places are there?
Where are the satellite polling places?
Are there satellite polling places in Houston or Atlanta?
Are the satellite polling places open on election day?
Are the satellite polling places open during early voting?
What days and times is early voting?

Can you vote at your original polling place?
How many of the 442 polling places are still intact?
If your polling place was destroyed where do you vote?

Who has to vote at the New Orleans Registrar of voters office in person?

If you want an absentee ballot, who has to sign the affidavit?
Who do you request the absentee ballot from?
Where do you mail the absentee ballot?
If you get an absentee ballot, do you have to send in an affidavit?

Go ahead, use the internet to help you answer the questions. Good luck.
If you can answer these questions correctly then your vote counts and your opinion regarding the election is valid.
If your answer to any one of these questions is incorrect, then your vote does not count and your opinion regarding the election is suspect.
Or, maybe you just have a hidden agenda for your opinion and you really don't want all the votes to count.