Florida now suppressing Latino votes as well as Black votes.
A federal judge in California issued a ruling earlier this month that voting rights advocates believe will bolster their recent challenge to Florida's system for registering voters and ensure that thousands of Latinos in Florida will be able to register to vote for the 2008 elections.On October 10th, Judge Charles Breyer temporarily barred the federal government from implementing new rules that would likely lead to widespread layoffs if the government could not match the Social Security number on employee records to the federal Social Security Administration database. The match process is fraught with error, especially for Latinos, whose names and naming conventions can create special problems in matching systems that are not designed with the naming practices of Latino communities in mind. As Judge Breyer recognized, there are "numerous reasons unrelated to illegality that a mismatch might exist, including name change or typographical error."
Advocates for voting rights are going to court in order to put a stop to this Florida policy. The policy would prevent tens of thousands of Latino voters from going to the polls because Florida requires a match of your drivers' license or the SSN with the Federal Database. This would mean that tens of thousands of Latino voters could be disenfranchised thanks to minor errors that are not even their fault.
Advocates are especially concerned that Florida's voter law would have a disproportionate effect on Latino citizens, who use maternal and paternal surnames that may be entered differently in different databases. Gael García Bernal, for example, if listed in one system with "Bernal" as a last name and in another system with "García Bernal" as a last name, would be affected by the Florida law."In Latin American countries, having two last names is very common. However, in Florida this could pose a problem for a registration applicant whose name is listed differently in different databases," said Alvaro Fernandez with Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, one of the groups challenging the law. "My own name is Alvaro Fernandez Pagliery but in the United States I usually go by Alvaro Fernandez," he continued.
This is not surprising from a party that has engaged in vote suppression throughout the last several years. The GOP stole the election in 2004 because the Bush administration did not follow the law and register millions of people to vote who were coming in and applying for welfare. And now they are trying to steal the election in 2008 through the suppression of Latino votes.
However, there is clear legal precedent in other states that this is unconstitutional. In Washington, for instance, a judge threw out a similar rule in that state, meaning that the people who are filing this suit have very clear policy and precedent to go by.
But for us to have free and fair elections, we must have a system that protects everyone who is registered to vote. We should repeal stupid and dictatorial laws that deny ex-prisoners who have served their times the right to vote. Right now, what we have is a system that creates two classes of people -- those who can vote and those who can't. The latter are second-class citizens in the Brave New World of the Bush administration.
All of this runs afoul of the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, which requires the government to treat all its citizens equally. However, the Republicans think that the Constitution is simply a useless piece of paper. But if that is the case, then our Constitution and our laws have no meaning, and the only people who have the real power are the ones who are the strongest. In other words, we have a fundamental choice -- whether to live by the rule of law, or whether to live by the jungle, where might makes right.
But if the Republicans choose the latter, then by their own logic, the race riots of the 1960's were totally justifiable, as were the 9/11 attacks and Oklahoma City. A rejection of the Constitution is a rejection of the rule of law in favor of the doctrine of might. And since there is no rule of law, there is no justification against 9/11 or Oklahoma City or the race riots; the only problem with them is that they were not strong enough to topple the government.
And the Republicans, in scrapping the Constitution and engaging in vote suppression, also run afoul of the very Bible that they are supposedly trying to make the law of the land here. Back in the days of the Judges, before Saul became king, men did what was right in their own eyes. Consequently, there were always bouts of anarchy and chaos combined with periods of foreign invasion. It was only when Israel followed the rule of law as had been handed down to them that they prospered as a nation. But that does not matter for the Republicans - they are proponents of the New Morality - morality is always for the other person and not for them. It is never they who have to follow the Bible or the Constitution - it is always the other person that has to follow those documents. Acts like violating the Constitution and suppressing votes are, in this sense, symbols of power - in other words, because they are elites, they have moved beyond conventional rules of morality or inconveniences like the Constitution or the Bible.
Obamathon
