James Rucker and Color of Change have been tireless advocates when it comes to combating voter suppression and disenfranchisement. Rucker released this statement on the Women’s Voices, Women’s Votes issue:
There have been clear errors in planning and execution on the part of Women’s Voices Women’s Votes, and those errors have led to a situation where Black voters in North Carolina may be dissuaded from voting in a hotly contested and important primary election. This is a major problem and point of concern. To continue in the important role they’ve played in past elections, Women’s Voices Women’s Votes must fix the damage done and prevent it from happening in the future–working to restore the faith of the community protecting access to the vote by all people. It is essential that groups doing voter registration operate within the law and that they ensure that they do not confuse voters in to the process of doing their work.
At the same time, the accusations that the errors made by Women’s Voices Women’s Votes are part of a conspiracy to help Senator Clinton, appear to be false and reckless. Women’s Voices Women’s Votes has a history of registering voters of color, and the facts as we understand them, simply don’t point to such a conspiracy. As Women’s Voices Women’s Votes takes deserved heat for whatever damage they’ve caused, it’s not productive for them to be unfairly maligned as working to harm or help one of the presidential primary candidates.
As an organization that is tirelessly fighting voter suppression in the Black community where a history of disenfranchisement necessitates a raised level of scrutiny, we must take any accusations seriously, but in doing so rely on the facts.
There were 20 million single women who were not registered to vote during the 2004 election. They are reliable Democratic voters and had they been registered, it could have changed the outcome of the election. WVWV has taken on the task of trying to reach them. There were certainly mistakes made here and WVWV need to provide answers about how and why they happened. But feeding them (and anyone associated with them) through the wood chipper of candidate advocacy right now will have bad consequences for all of us down the road.
There are real, serious concerted efforts to disenfranchise voters, as with the recent Indiana Voter ID act that was waved through the Supreme Court. There is no evidence at this time that what happened in North Carolina falls into that category.
Come November, we’re going to need every vote we can get.
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SO?
My friend Julia is working phones & door-to-door on this issue with a group called RoadWomen in Houston.
the best DEMOCRACY …MONEY can buy
And we are still waiting for Hillary to announce that her decision to go on the Orally Fuctor was a joke, and hopes they can get zero the monkey boy/girl to come on and talk about politics to someone that truly understands him/her, and their agenda.
the bigotry runs deep.
im gonna go make cup cakes,or a pancake with REAL maple syrup and butter
its hard tryin to be prezeldent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4abvxtpa08
The economy is going to kill the Republicans in November.
We need every vote we can get to send an irrefetable message to the.
HAD ENOUGH.
Them, as in them varmints.
yea sure is killing us NOW…SIGH
I find it strange that the WVWV false voter info happened in not only one state. complaints were made and they promised not not do it again…..so what happened? i understand a mistake happening once but this many times? Can’t blame folks for being suspiscious, can you?
A very sane response… thanks Jane.
I was promoted to the news headlines once before. So here is one, I thought was important
http://www.chicagotribune.com/…..5733.story
Mary Gade, EPA was forced to quit, for trying to get Dow Chemical to clean up the toxic, Dioxin.
I am grateful that I did not watch that. Others have recounted it but …blech. I didn’t like it when Obama went on there either.
Sisters, McBu’ush wants Roe v Wade overturned, and Huckabee (who I think may well end up on the McB’ush ticket) additionally favors a “Human Life Amendment,” about which I’ve just posted some thoughts I’ve had in draft of late.
Critical commentary welcome.
Well said, Jane.
you’ve been craving that pancake all day, but since it’s the evening,
how about satisfying your caking urges with a couple chocolate mint mini cupcake?
I gotta go run to the nursing home and see my Ma. Carry on, peeps. Later.
What about that pancake this morning? Like I said then, Belgian waffle with strawberries.
Additionally, WVWV needs to undo any harm they did by reaching out to the registered voters they contacted by mistake and ensure those people know they can vote (where & when). The Obama campaign erred in Nevada by telling a group of people the wrong date for the caucuses, and went back and re-contacted all those people with the correct information at their own expense.
Goodwill requires at least this much be done.
WVWV does great work, but someone messed up, repeatedly. The organization needs to continue to be transparent as they uncover what happened, and they need to account for the repeated errors, if errors they were.
I will happily read it in a bit but McCain, Shrub, Hucky or any other man needs to grow a uterus and some ovaries, then they can talk to me about a “Human Life Amendment” Where do men get the idea that they can dictate what a woman is allowed or not allowed to do with her own body?
See ya bro.
I agree completely.
Outta their ass.
Don;t you think that’s why BG posted it?
1,829 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen Hamsher:
” At the same time, the accusations that the errors made by the Women’s Voices Women’s Votes are part of a conspiracy to help Senator Clinton, APPEAR to be false and reckless.” (emphasis mine)
Why should we take this qualified statement as fact? What has Mrs. McClinton done in the past 4 years to push back against the phony “voter fraud” movement and voter suppression efforts of the fascists? What has Mrs. McClinton done in the past four years to support efforts to expand the Democratic Party voting base through new registrations? And, finally, wasn’t it Mrs. McClinton and her apparatchiks who tried to restrict students and young people from participating in the Iowa caucuses?
No, Sister Jane, we don’t hafta believe that this latest scandal is NOT a conscious effort to disenfranchise a voting block that stands opposed to McClinton’s candidacy. As a matter of fact, I believe that McClinton was ready ta call “voter fraud” if this thing had not been exposed.
Wake up woman, Mrs. McClinton is runnin’ offa the Karl Rove playbook at the behest of the folks who have made her rich over the last few years.
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, YOU’RE NOT STUPID BUT SOME A THESE FOLKS THINK YOU ARE!!!
GAWD BLESS HILL cause shes rich i tellya
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..4?detail=f
We’ve worked with WVWV in the past. They’re a good organization. I’ve argued before — you don’t kneecap progressive institutions for political gain, and people need to be very careful about the accusations they level when it’s an outfit that has previously operated in good faith and is an important brick in the progressive infrastructure.
The onus is on WVWV and their board now to be transparent about what happened. If that’s not forthcoming people can draw conclusions then, but based on their history they deserve that opportunity.
o/t but I think I get a firepuppy biscuit:
I was listening to Angie on Green 960 here in SF who had Brad of Bradblog on and a videoblogger from Politico. She wanted listeners to call or email which blog they first go to, and I called to plug FDL for the factchecking the bright contributors here do as well as for the supportive community.
Keep on truckin’ Jane and firepups!
oh wow nice site,ill digup this other for you……”g”
O/T: See, this is what kind of campaigning we need to do (per TPM)
On Hillary’s side, we have this (per TPM):
What’s wrong with this picture? Why not attack McCain too? I tell you, never underestimate the power of a small group of stupid people
rhetorical question *g* and age long debate
And hurray to Color of Change, a wonderful organization of motivated excellent progressives, for getting this message out.
Biscuit for dosido too!
http://chocolateandzucchini.co…..e_cake.php
scroll down
roger that
Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t brought out the tar and feathers but I remain a bit skepticle because this same type of thing happened back in February.
But as you and Teddy said, transparency. I also agree with teddy that they should be doing everything in their power to contact these folks back
*woof*
*g*
How about a big firepuppy Greenie. Better for ya.
http://www.greenies.com/en_US/dogs/
http://www.greenies.com/en_US/Cats/
1,829 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen Hamsher:
“…and people need to be very careful about the accusations they level when it’s an outfit that has previously operated in good faith…”
What was it that “NARL” stands for, again? The WVWV could very well have been actin’ in good faith but ya ken bet that McClinton campaign was not gunna tell ‘em about their problem.
KEEP THE FAITH AND BELIEVE NONE A WHATCHA HEAR AND ONLY HALF A WHATCHA SEE!!
My pups are lovin these bully sticks but damnn $$$$$!
skeptical, that is. I can spell. Really.
Keep your eyes on the road
and your hands upon the wheel. . .
I thought you we talking about a certain senators “testicles”!
Capitalism. Junk costs nothing, the good stuff beaucoup bucks.
Can we please stop the Rovian tactics?
http://southernstudies.org/fac…..ead-nc.asp
http://southernstudies.org/fac…..rk-for.asp
ohhh ewwwwwwwww
http://images.quickblogcast.co…..0fries.jpg
When the Rapture hits we’ll make sure you get a new keyboard.
Big Balls in Cowtown We’ll all go down!
the letters WVWV look like a series of alternating forward- and backward- slashes.
they are busy dealing with the back(s)lash to their mistaken tactics.
mMmm… that’s a persuasive argument for planting zucchini!
I don’t know what it is, but I’m thinkin’ somebody’s hungry.
Thanks for the photo! Cracked me up and you made my night.
i ate at 5,i should just do a snack huh?
My comment at #52 was in response to Sadlyyes’ hysterical photo at #46. ;-)
Thanks, I feel so violated
well mebbe a small pancake for dessert
potatos still edible,and SOMEWHAT reasonable,no?
LMAO! Need some catsup?
And people rag me for being off topic!
MMmmmm. greenies!
Well, at least now I know what I’m making for dinner. geez. Or maybe a waffle. From scratch. Molasses on one half, maple syrup on t’other. Real butter. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Not those greenies!
WVWV needs to hire an expert in these issues. It’s hard enough to keep up in one state, much less 50. I’m still curious, though, about why they wouldn’t identify their organization on the robo call. Doesn’t square up.
that’s where my mind had gone too.
I believe you’re talking about this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hajBdDM2qdg
Believe half a what you see, son, and none a what ya hear….
or these…………..
http://www.bealeonbroadway.com…..-rings.gif
lol.
back to topic. this robocall thing is just so onerous. I hope it gets fixed immediately.
Yea, that’s what they need maybe Carville is free.
yes its my favorite vegetable,thanks St.Ronnie
Well, it’s kinda hard to add to what Jane said. Sorta falls in the simple cut and dried category. Make calls, write letters, send emails. Keep the heat on.
Casualties in Iraq for April now at 52 and counting…
The next three months are critical to the election climate in the fall- the price of gas/oil- the figures on the economy- the “progress from the surge”- will all be primarily decided before August- later numbers won’t much affect perceptions….
You’re just evil. Evil, I say.
I’m witcha bro, I go off when there IS a topic. Clownin over here.
Pancakes!?
Every single time I see MarioninSavannah’s name in the morning, I want a pancake.
This morning I made ‘em. From scratch. With bananas.
Love ya Marion. :)
I’f I’m Al Queda in Irak I stand down this summer to get their best friend elected. That and a little terrorist attack and John’s da man.
Kitteh med time. See ya upstairs.
Watch yer topknot.
i absolutely love em with banaans…and a bit of brown sugar…..
WASHINGTON DC (CNN) — A new poll suggests that President Bush is the most unpopular president in modern American history.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll shows 71 percent disapprove of President Bush’s job performance.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Thursday indicates that 71 percent of the American public disapprove of how Bush is handling his job as president.
“No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating in any CNN or Gallup Poll; in fact, this is the first time that any president’s disapproval rating has cracked the 70 percent mark,” said Keating Holland, CNN’s polling director.
“Bush’s approval rating, which stands at 28 percent in our new poll, remains better than the all-time lows set by Harry Truman and Richard Nixon [22 percent and 24 percent, respectively], but even those two presidents never got a disapproval rating in the 70s,” Holland said. “The previous all-time record in CNN or Gallup polling was set by Truman, 67 percent disapproval in January 1952.”
While Gallup polling goes back to the 1930s, it wasn’t until the Truman years that they began surveying monthly approval ratings.
CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider adds, “He is more unpopular than Richard Nixon was just before he resigned from the presidency in August 1974.”
President Nixon’s disapproval rating in August 1974 stood at 66 percent
Don’t Miss
Bush pushes 3 nations on nuclear issue
The poll also indicates that support for the war in Iraq has never been lower. Thirty percent of those questioned favored the war, while 68 percent opposed it.
The poll also indicates that support for the war in Iraq has never been lower. Thirty percent of those questioned favored the war, while 68 percent opposed it.
reply
so?
Marion started it!
I just got here, catching up.
Was in the garden. Gardening.
Now, there’s a new thread…
(Shaft voice: But, I’m talkin’ about Pancakes.)
Oh, alright. Upstairs it is.
“Where do men get the idea that they can dictate what a woman is allowed or not allowed to do with her own body?”
Because they can? I mean, like, they’ve been getting away with it for centuries. (Not saying they should, though…)
Bob in HI
Sorry, Jane, but many people, looking at the timing of these events, the states in which they occurred, the people who were called, and the person on the tape doing the calling can’t help but come to the conclusion that this was an attempt at voter suppression aimed at helping Clinton. When you then see who runs WVWV, the conclusion gets stronger.
The defense that these were just the same mistakes made randomly over and over again is laughable. And I’m really sick of smart people playing stupid.
You might want to protect WVWV because “we” might need a Karl Rove in November and you’re welcome to that anti-Anmerican and anti-democratic position. I can’t accept it and this isn’t because I enjoyed listening to NPR connect the dots back to Clinton this evening. I can’t accept it because, while I’d like to win in November, it’s more important that any win come by honorable means. It’s not “our” turn to rule the country. It’s time for a return to democracy.
I’m willing to consider that this stuff was done by a third (unfriendly) party using the name of WVWV without their knowledge or consent.
But eleven states where the same thing happens is neither accident nor coincidence, IMO. WVWV needs to find out what was going on at the operational level to make sure that they’re as clean as their board claims.
Agree,
Nobody answers the specific charges, they just tell us that “these are good people doing good work so shut up”.
It did not happen just once. It is a series of improbable “mistakes” improbably repeated and all to the advantage of only one candidate.
I see good people lookin the other way. I suspect it is because they don’t want to know what they’ll find if they look too hard.
I have a number of good liberal (or somewhat liberal) women friends that support Hillary. When asked why, they usually have no real answer. I think they supported Bill Clinton, but there support for Hillary seems to be mostly based on gender. I absolutely understand the desire to see a woman elected, but that is not an adequate reason for support. When I hear about an effort to register single women voters that uses a fictitious name just before a primary, then it appears as gender-based groups seeking to get a woman elected. The fact that there are key persons in the organization connected to Hillary raise serious questions. If this group is professional, why would it make such a mistake that had a great opportunity to suppress votes. If Hillary had been an honorable candidate, it would be difficult to beleive she could be involved in such a tactic as this. However, her campaign has beoome so negative, and so destructive for a Democratic victory in November, that I strongly suspect her involvement. I think the evidence will show that this was an attempt to suppress African American voters. These folks once supported her, but now that they support someone else, they are the enemy. WVWV should pay big money to run adds in NC (and in any other state where suppression was done) to correct or apologize for their mistakes. I hope they will be prosecuted for clearly illegal activity.
Telebro
Jane, I’m sorry – but they’vce done the same thing before and been called on it and promised to shape up, and here they are again. Same “oops” act, this time with “Lamont Williams.” It’s classic voter suppression.
So how to reconcile this with past “good” work?
Well.
What if there’s a WVWV inside the WVWV?
Over at MyDD:
Bob in HI
Sorry, PJ, but they already admitted that they did it. And then they played the same game as they did the last five times: “Oh, my, did the deadline already pass? Oops. Our bad. And, oh my, did we actually call many people who (a) are already registered and (b) are black instead of unmarried and female? Double oops. And, golly, did we break state and federal laws when making these calls. Mea cupla! So verrryyy sorry. We promise. We won’t do it
againa seventh time. Really. Trust us.He’s doing the same thing Jane did.
He’s vouching for the character of the organization, not addressing the questions.
Repeatedly making the same mistakes after assurring authorities more than one that they would stop the illegal activity. All of which favored one candidate.
I could be all coincidental. It would be easier to believe if people would stop vouching for the character of the organization and start addressing the facts.
It’s even worse than that. This group has a great track record of doing what they aimed to do. They know how to get people to register and then vote. And I’ve not seen a previous example of them breaking state and federal laws when working positively on the targeted group (i.e., single women). So these five or six total screw-ups, all in states that are playing an important role in this primary, all having the net effect of suppressing votes by likely Obama supporters, stinks to high heaven.
To win by increasing the number of people voting for you is democracy.
To win by decreasing the number of people allowed to vote for your opponent is Rove.
They have been cited for violations in several states according The Institute for Southern Studies. Repeated mistakes raise the question if these were mistakes at all. You shouldn’t make the first call until you know the laws in the state your operating in. Some of the mailings they claimed to be sending may have never been sent. Why did they use a fictitious African American sounding name? Why are the principals listed Clinton contributors. These questions need answering.
Again, you are giving them way too much credit on the stupidity defense.
When they are actually calling single women and providing accurate information on how to register, they obey the local and federal laws, including those concerning self-identification. Even more, they use their real name (i.e., WVWV) instead of some BS cover.
The only way in which they seem to be living up to the stupidity defense is by thinking that no-one would trace the voter-suppression activity back to them.
Jane, I was contacted by this group in 2004. Their voter registeration drive was a total waste of money. I say that having managed campaigns for over 25 years, all of which had a voter registeration component. Rule one of any such drive is to know the local community so you can properly target, and use only volunteers or part time employees who have been well trained in the laws and processes of each state. In 2004 they didn’t know a thing about the election laws in Minnesota — and apparently they still have not learned the importance of that knowledge.
If they want to raise money to register single women, the best thing they could do would be to fund a committee in each state, give them the tools to plan a targeted campaign which can be done at very low cost, and let it play out.
You don’t do voter registration over the phone, certainly not impersonally with robo-calls. Period. You do it in a situation where you can hand someone a card to fill out, a pen, a place to write, and the person handing out the cards knows how to quickly scan them for errors before the new voter moves on — and then transports the cards to the Board of Elections in a very timely way. The person offering registration should inspire a little confidence in a new voter, by being able to answer normal questions, such as where do I find my polling place — the most normal of all. You can’t do that with robo-calls, you just bug people particularly if they are already registered.
I made my complaints clear in 2004, and in fact a number of local women candidates asked they to quit doing what they were doing. They clearly thought up even more ways to screw up. Just because they have a Progressive Board of Directors is no indication that they know anything about how to maximize effort in any local area. For instance, my State Legislative District contains about 2/3rds of the University of Minnesota, where there are — lots of single women. From one election to another, about 50% of them move from one address to another. Student Population is at least 9000 votes around here, heavily DFL, and those of us who have done campaigns around here know the laws, and know how to get maximum number of cards filed using trained student volunteers to get the job done. Women’s Voices Women’s Votes were not even aware that Minnesota had same day voter registeration at the polls on election day, and thus what information needed to be conveyed about using that provision of our law. When the script they use says — you can’t vote if you aren’t registered — they are giving wrong information. That is not a good idea, in fact it is a huge negative. What the potential voter needs is knowledge about how to register on election day.
There are really only two scenarios here:
(1) WVWV is, or has become, really really bad at doing what they are supposed experts at doing — and what they are paid big dollars to do. During this primary season, they have been screwing up a whole lot more than “timing”; they have been sending out anonymous robocalls in state after state — which anyone in the biz knows is prohibited in just about every state — giving out false and misleading information right in the thick of a hotly contested primary campaign season. Not only that, they’ve been caught at it and promised that, nationally, they would stop doing it. But they kept doing it.
(2) WVWV has been hijacked during the primary season to do a black-bag job for the Clinton campaign in key states (like VA and NC, where WVWV broke the law and did so in a way that would inure to Clinton’s benefit). To be sure, the only evidence for this is purely circumstantial, but there’s quite a bit of it (and don’t tell us that circumstantial evidence doesn’t count — I will refer you to the legions of prisoners in the U.S. who were convicted on such evidence).
Either way, I don’t see any compelling reason to leap to WVWV’s defense because they’re “good people” and we’re going to need them in the future. The former defense is weak and off the merits (plus it sounds exactly like Brian Williams’s defense of his friends the Propaganda Generals) and even if all that has happened here is egregious negligence, I don’t think wee “need” such rank incompetents doing our GOTV. If they’re that bad at what they do, they need to get the hell out of the business, and progressive dollars should go to organizations that are competent at GOTV.