Jesse Jackson, Jr: "The Election Ran Smoothly, Didn't It?"

[G_j]

The Election Ran Smoothly, Didn't It?

by Jesse L. Jackson, Jr., TomPaine.com Exclusive

Why we need a Constitutional amendment that secures an individual's right to vote.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/the_election_ran_smoothly_didnt_it.php

The judgement is now in from the advocacy groups who monitored the 2004 election. A new report released last week substantiates many of the concerns raised on TomPaine.com and elsewhere. To see the report, click here. Today, Jesse L. Jackson, Jr., D-IL, argues that the lesson of 2004 is that our right to vote is not secure—we need a federal right to vote with standards and the enforcement of those standards by the attorney general of the United States, rather than the patchwork, chaotic and unequal administration by states that we now have.

Jesse L. Jackson, Jr., is a Democratic congressman from Illinois.

It was a heated campaign and George W. Bush handily defeated John Kerry. America demonstrated that its democracy is still the best in the world. And it was a relief 2004 wasn't a repeat of 2000. The 2004 election ran smoothly—didn't it?

Well not quite. A preliminary review issued by a coalition of groups—including People for the American Way, the NAACP and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law—concluded, "the myth that the 2004 elections ran smoothly has become conventional wisdom for pundits and politicians, but nothing could be further from the truth."

Shattering the Myth: An Initial Snapshot of Voter Disenfranchisement in the 2004 Elections argues that "In addition to the long lines and unreasonable waiting times that kept many people—disproportionately urban minority votersvfrom being able to vote, the top five problems overall were registration processing, absentee ballots, machine errors, voter intimidation and suppression and problems with the use and counting of the new provisional ballots mandated under new federal law."

..more..

[burythehatchet]

1. So smooth that we're ready to take our show to Eye-Rack

[elehhhhna]

2. He's a sleaze. His district has lost proggrams & $$$ to BA policies

(including the destruction of Green Thumb) and he won't even return constituents letters & calls on it.

$$$$$$$$$$$$ talks.