The DOJ Shows Some Empathy
The Department of Justice recently dropped a claim of voter intimidation that was brought after the last Presidential election. According to some of the DOJ attorneys who worked on the case, and who have been in the business for quite a while, it was one of the most blatant examples of intimidation they'd ever seen.
You'd think this'd be a good story for The New York Times, since they regularly crusade against notorious civil rights violations (Voting Right Acts (1965): "No person, whether acting under color of law or otherwise, shall intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for voting or attempting to vote..."). As far as I could see, they haven't reported on this.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:11 AM
4 Comments:
Were they accused of actually intimidating voters or electioneers. Still a problem of public thuggery but different from prohibiting voting
Their presence outside the polling station, holding weapons, could be intimidating. Just to add a note of realism though, I know where those projects are, and the white voters (maybe 1%) who would be assigned to that polling station are exceedingly unlikely to have been intimidated.
You don't really get clearer cases of voter intimidation than this.
A former aide to Robert F. Kennedy, and poll watcher in Philadelphia, said in a sworn affidavit this was the most blatant form of voter intimidation he'd ever seen, noting “In all my experience in politics, in civil rights litigation and in my efforts in the 1960s to secure the right to vote in Mississippi … I have never encountered or heard of another instance in the United States where armed and uniformed men blocked the entrance to a polling location.”
Three men, according to witnesses (and videotape) wore military style uniforms, stood right in front of a polling place, brandished a weapon, and used racial slurs, insults and menacing gestures against voters who entered. They were also warned by the police to stop.
This is the sort of case you pursue vigorously. Until now, anyway. The careerist DOJ lawyers on the case were moving for sanctions when higher ups ordered them to drop the whole thing.
BTW, there have been many claims of vote fixing and tampering in certain Philadelphia precincts, but I guess that's a separate issue (which no one will be looking into any time soon).
Wow, that is really bad. All I saw in the video was them standing there. If they really did say anything the least bit negative to any potential voter, that's a clear crime. Thanks for the additional information.
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