Right-Wing Attempts to Suppress Votes

By Caleb T. Maupin
Cleveland

Published Oct 23, 2008 10:25 PM
A mass movement in Ohio among students, oppressed people and the working class has resulted in 600,000 people registering to vote for the first time. The Republican Party, the right wing of the corporate ruling class—which is overwhelmingly aware that these new voters will most likely not be voting for them—has responded with one of their well-practiced methods: the disenfranchisement of poor and Black voters.

A massive voter purge of 200,000 people in Ohio was attempted by the Republicans and blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court. These 200,000 people would have been prevented from voting merely because their forms did not match the Secretary of State’s records exactly.

A similar tactic was carried out in 2000 in Florida, where thousands of mostly Black registered voters were kept from voting. In order to avoid the ugly scenes of oppressed people being dragged away from polls by police, a new method of disenfranchisement has been developed in Ohio.

Voters whose names have been purged from the rolls will be given “provisional ballots.” However, these second-class ballots are not likely to be counted.

In 2004, voters in highly-Democratic areas in Ohio such as inner-city Cleveland faced long lines and a lack of voting machines, while machines were plentiful in rural conservative areas with smaller populations.

Clearly, it seems that when the rich are not satisfied with the election results, the votes of the oppressed, who fought so hard merely to win the right to cast them, are expendable.


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