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Civil Rights groups rally voters for Nov. 4 Elections
By Freddie Allen, NNPA Senior Washington Correspondent WASHINGTON, D.C. (NNPA) – As voters prepare to cast ballots in the first federal general election since the U-
nited States Supreme Court shredded a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) with the Shelby County v. Holder decision, civil rights groups are gearing up to make sure those voters can still cast
ballots. Under Section 5 of the VRA, states and jurisdictions with egregious histories of racial voting discrimination were prohibited from changing any voting laws without “pre-clear-
ing” the changes with the Department of Justice. Section 4 of the VRA determined the preclearance formula and which states, most of them in the South, were covered. During a press briefing with reporters, Penda Hair, co-director for the Advancement Project, a multi-racial civil rights group, said that protecting voters from discrimination under Section 5 was a really effective practice and it stopped states from moving the ball all the time as they attempted to block poor and Black voters away from the ballot box. Hair said that Section 5 resulted in many objections over the years, but it also trained the states to do things right because they knew if they submitted some questionable voting law change that they would be rejected. In last summer’s Shelby County v. Holder decision, even though the Supreme Court acknowledged that racial discrimination in voting still existed, it ruled that the formula (Section 4) that was used to determine which states were covered was unconstitutional, effectively ending protection for voters under Section 5. (Cont'd on Page 12)
These are the candidates that have been caught in our WEB for goodness sake From the Westside Gazette Editorial Board (WEB) If you don’t vote, please remember how you have caused others to suffer and when you do vote think about the progress you made possible. When it comes to politics and those that partake in this endeavor as players with “skin in the game”, it is a cumbersome task for those of us who are on the outside looking in to critique them fairly. However, we will either suffer or move forward with progress based upon their deliverance of the promises made to achieve being elected. To judge them on how they will represent the issues that will affect us and move us to the forefront of their equaled concerns is a dutiful task that we do not take likely. As we did not include all of the races for fear of misinforming and the understanding that our actions may very well be misconstrued by those who would rather hurt than heal. After consideration of the individuals and their abilities to represent us with vigor and with equal concern as FULL CITIZENS with all inalienable rights, We support the following candidates: STATE WIDE RACES · Governor/Lt. Governor - Charlie Crist/Annette Taddeo · Attorney General - George Sheldon · Chief Financial Officer - William Rankin · Commissioner of Agriculture - Thaddeus Hamilton (Cont'd on Page 15)
Four simple ways to help get out the vote Ebola: A long and ugly tradition of treating Africans as savages cracy in their favor, it doesn’t do us any favors when we then turn around and try to tell those most-affected by the laws to go out and vote. Put simply, the harder voting is made to seem, the less likely a marginal voter is to decide that it’s a worthy investment of their time and energy. In the run-up to Election Day, we should be pointing out that while it’s absolutely true to say the GOP is stating in plain, bureaucratic terms that they’d rather you didn’t vote, you can stick it to them via one of the many channels still available to you to cast a ballot.
By Jon Green We’re one week out from Election Day, and the smart money says that it’s not going to be a fun day for Team Blue. The FiveThirtyEight Senate forecast gives Republicans an approximately 60/40 chance of gaining control of Congress’ upper chamber, and no one is seriously considering large Democratic gains in the House. That means Republicans would control the House and Senate. The one saving grace for Democratic Senate hopefuls is that the polls showing them trailing are based on likely voters. And, as we have seen in the last few election cycles, Democrats have the potential to overperform relative to polls by turning unlikely voters into actual voters when it counts. So in other words, the polls aren’t skewed, but they can sometimes be beaten. Here’s how to do it, and here’s how you can help: “What’s your plan to vote?” In both academic and political settings, getting voters to make a plan for voting before
Election Day has been shown to raise turnout by roughly four percent. Just as athletes boost their performance by visualizing success on the field, voters are better voters when they have visualized where, when and how they will cast their ballots. It doesn’t matter what the plan is, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s written down. What matters is that voters think ahead of time about the logistics involved with breaking their usual Tuesday routine and showing up to vote. You’d be amazed at how many voters don’t know where their polling place is. Or, if you live in a state with early voting, go vote today and send other people over to do the same. “Voting is easy” While all of the talk about the new slate of voter ID laws set to go into effect this year has been useful in pointing out how cravenly political the Republican Party has been in trying to re-engineer the rules of demo-
Pleading Our Own Cause
(Cont'd on Page 13)
By Lekan Oguntoyinbo NNPA Columnist
Civil Rights advocate and longtime Call and Post Newspaper Associate Publisher and Exec Editor, Constance “Connie” Harper, died Friday at a Dayton, Ohio hospital where she was on life support after suffering a heart attack. She was 81. (See story on Page 12)
Of the nearly 10,000 people who have been infected by the Ebola virus, fewer than 20 have been outside of the African continent. But you wouldn’t know it from much of the alarm that’s being raised in some European news outlets and by the outrage of some American politicians who can’t understand why President Obama hasn’t banned flights from the affected West African countries. The Obama Administration’s announcement last Tuesday requiring anyone flying in from Ebola affected countries to come through one of five designated screening airports has not quieted critics who accuse him
of not doing more to “protect Americans.” The New York Times reports that Africans living in Russia and in many parts of Western Europe have been the objects of suspicion and heightened scrutiny. In Texas, Navarro College, a community college with several campuses, rejected international students from countries with “confirmed Ebola cases,” including Nigeria, which has been declared Ebola free (The college later claimed that the rejection letters had gone out in error and apologized for “any misinformation that may have been shared with students.”) To be sure, the paranoia is not unique to Europe and in North America. Jamaica has banned flights from African countries battling the pan-
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demic. Mauritius took a similar step a few weeks ago, barring entry for 60 days to anyone who had been in one of the affected countries. Before the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Nigeria Ebola free, the country’s president lamented the fact that some hospitals were refusing to admit patients suspected of having the virus. It’s easy to understand the paranoia about this horrific disease. Despite claims from medical experts, we still know little about the origins of the virus or what triggers outbreaks. And medical experts are still struggling to understand how else the disease is spread besides contact with bodily fluids of infected individuals. (Cont'd on Page 13) MEMBER: National Newspaper Publishers Association ( NNPA), and Southeastern African-American Publishers Association (SAAPA) Florida Association of Black Owned Media (FABOM)