George W. Bush delivered his “victory speech� almost a week ago even though the recounts were still ongoing. So much for the will of the voters.
Bush announced, “We have responsibility to honor our constitution and laws …� It is obvious that the 19,000 voters in Palm Beach County, the 26,000 in Duvalle County and thousands of other Florida voters are not protected under these laws. And what about the voters in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Nassau counties whose votes were tallied during the manual recount yet ignored by Florida Secretary of State and Bush campaign co-chair Katherine Harris.
All the developments over the past weeks have resulted in mass actions across the nation. These actions have called on youth, labor, immigrants, seniors, women’s rights activists, civil rights organizations and those who would have not otherwise been involved to speak out. Why have all of these different sectors formed a united front to preserve and improve democracy?
Standing outside the Palm Beach County Governmental Center with a sign that read, “Bush concede to popular vote,� Florida native Josef Faulkner, 24, told Dynamic, “Al Gore won the popular vote ... I’ve never been politically active before but this is history in the making and I want to be part of it.� Faulkner later explained his own experience with the “butterfly ballot.� “I’m one of [those] who is not sure I voted for Gore,� he said. “I may have inadvertently voted for Buchanan.�
During the Nov. 13 demonstrations in Palm Beach, Republicans crowded around the stage where Jesse Jackson and others were scheduled to speak. They were chanting and waving Bush-Cheney signs. At the Palm Beach Board of Elections, Bush supporters, carrying signs with racist and anti-gay slogans, swarmed around peaceful protesters.
In Miami-Dade, provocateurs stormed a meeting of the county canvassing board. If this is what democracy looks like in Florida post-election, you can only imagine what it looked like for voters on election day.
As young people concerned about voting rights, we are outraged by the tactics used to steal the vote in Florida. Fraud is not new in U.S. electoral politics but this is more blatant than ever. This battle is not about Democrats or Republicans – it’s about civil rights and democracy. It’s about the masses of working people recognizing the bully tactics used by the Republican Party against racially oppressed people, seniors, lesbian and gay people and students.
The future of democratic rights in our country hangs in the balance in this presidential election, or as some like to call it the “un-election.�
Students in Tallahassee recognized the need for justice and organized over 1,000 to sit in at the Florida state capitol. Students, mostly from Florida A&M University (FAMU), occupied the capitol for hours chanting, “What about the students?� With help from the FAMU student government and the local NAACP chapter and others, the issue of racial profiling and the unannounced relocation of campus voting sites gained national attention.
Youth, students, and young workers are taking a stand with the thousands of Floridians. Protests have taken place from Los Angeles to New York, Anchorage to Chapel Hill – and everywhere in between. A network of activists have set up a series of Internet message boards and chat rooms to discuss and promote actions across the country. Trustthepeople.com and geocities.com/countercoup are the main initiators of these “e-protests.�
The battle for justice is not over. We cannot allow Bush and the Republicans to steal the election. For thousands of senior citizens and others who received a flawed ballot, their votes have been stolen. For African Americans, victims of racial profiling at the polls, their right to vote has been denied.For students, who registered but whose names were not on the rolls, their faith in democracy is further undermined. For the tens of thousands whose ballots are not being included for a variety of reasons, the right to be counted is at stake.
Susan Bucher, a newly elected member of the Florida legislature representing West Palm Beach, said, “Bush is opposed to a hand recount. But I have right here the text of a Texas law he signed in 1997. It states and I quote, ‘If more than one petition is filed and more than one method of counting is requested, a manual recount takes precedence over an electronic recount.’ So why is this good for Texas and not for Florida?�
We must not allow the same fascist types trying to steal the election in Florida to run our country for the next four years. We must defend Josef Faulkner in his quest to be counted and the students at FAMU who were outright denied their constitutional right. Our mission is clearer now than ever. We must ask ourselves, will we let the will of the people be blatantly ignored? Or will we hit the streets to demand that the manual recounts continue and all votes be counted?
As Jesse Jackson said in Palm Beach, “The crisis in Florida, the collapse of the electoral infrastructure, has brought us to the brink, to the river’s edge.�
Progressive groups, locally and nationally, are taking to the streets around the issue of preserving democracy. Wherever possible, we should join these efforts.
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Dynamic Magazine
