By Frances M. Beal
While lawyers and political gurus tussle over pregnant dimples
and
chads and whether to count this or that absentee ballot, the real
chronicle of this election continues to be ignored: the cynical and
methodical disenfranchisement of Black voters in Florida and throughout
Dixie. What is so distressing is that even progressive voices have
missed the crux of the problem. While they debate changing the
structures of the electoral system, particularly assaults on the
winner-take-all rules that are in place in most of the 50 states, there
is a singular lack of passionate outrage that the most fundamental
expression of a democratic society, the right to vote, has
been denied to tens of thousands of people because of race.
This seemingly pervasive abuse of the 1965 Voting Rights ACT
(VRA)
prompted the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to demand of U.S. Attorney
General Janet Reno that she launch an official inquiry into the blatant
irregularities and discrimination in the African American and Haitian
precincts in the Sunshine state. The letter highlights similar
complaints in Virginia, North Carolina and Missouri. Now there is an
emerging groundswell of complaints coming from Black precincts ranging
from Hunters Point in San Francisco to Sunflower County in Mississippi.
Complaints of intimidation by white mobs outside voting precincts in
Mississippi, complaints of broken voting machines, complaints of a lack
of ballots in Black precincts from North to South, complaints of lack of
assistance, complaints, complaints, complaints.
While this drama has been unfolding, those who have been
concentrating
on proposing various reform measures designed to expand voter
participation have been delighted by the events in Florida, which have
opened up a plethora of questions about our heretofore sacrosanct
electoral procedures. The Green Party is a good example.
In a Thanksgiving Day message, presidential candidate Ralph
Nader
issued a statement with an agenda to revitalize "our democratic
processes." The agenda included a demand to (1) end legalized bribery
by publicly financing campaigns, (2) take back the airwaves to provide
free time for ballot qualified candidates, (3) Include everyone in
elections by adopting same day voter registration, (4) give voters
information by opening the presidential debates beyond the two major
parties, (5) adopt proportional representation, (6) initiate an advisory
referendum on salient national issues, (7) make every vote count by
allowing instant runoff voting, and (8) allowing a "none-of-the-above"
option. Taken as a whole, Nader asserts, facilitating "greater citizen
participation" will "strengthen our democracy."
There is nothing wrong with any of these proposals. Indeed, if
adopted, they would ensure that the winner-take-all schemes prevalent in
each state could enhance the voices of Black America, particularly in
the South. No, what is disturbing about this list is not what it
contains, but what it leaves out. Even amid one of the most egregious
attempts to disenfranchise Black voters in Florida and elsewhere, even
though these crimes have come to the fore during this election as never
before since the passage of the Voting Rights Act 35 years ago, despite
the obvious base for progressive politics as a whole, there is no demand
in this electoral agenda for the very fundamental right of access to the
voting booth regardless of race or creed or national origin.
To date, black complaints about voter fraud in this election
have not
had a public hearing from the Department of Justice, (responsible for
enforcing the VRA) or in the mainstream press (responsible for reporting
the news). One the other hand, those that wrap themselves in the
righteous banner of democracy, those who are prepared to go to the wall
to confront the corporate moguls that dominate our social, political,
cultural and economic life, have no excuse whatsoever for not condemning
white supremacy at the voting stall and in the counting booth.
Some African Americans held their noses and voted for Nader
because
that was the only way to express disgust with the globalization twins of
Bush or Gore. These same Black voters refused to participate in the
slander of blaming Nader for Gore's deficiencies in the election.
Surely, that critical Black support rested in the dismay at Nader's
refusal to see the racial lens through which Corporate America dominates
life in the USA today. However, the Florida experience is there for all
to see. Tale after tale, outrage after outrage has been committed
against the democratic right to vote in African American aand Latino
precincts. Yet, this salient fact appears
to have had no effect on Nader and the Greens who purport to lead the
struggle for democracy. Their voting reform agenda propagated on
Thanksgiving Day says nothing about the pernicious disenfranchisement of
African American voters in election after election, and which had such
disastrous results for Florida and for the nation this year. There is
not a single word. Shame on Ralph. Shame on the Greens.
Frances M. Beal is a columnist for the San Francisco Bay View newspaper
and National Secretary, Black Radical Congress. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
