What the Sanders campaign wanted is essentially a beauty contest that, given the situation with the public health emergency, seems to be unnecessary and, indeed, frivolous.
– Douglas Kellner, co-chair of the New York State Board of Elections
Democracy is not a beauty contest. The “unanimous” vote of two co-chairs (both Democrats) of the New York State Board of Elections should not trump the votes of millions of New Yorkers. The provision they cite, empowering them to remove candidates from the ballot that have publicly suspended their campaigns, was shoehorned into the NYS budget bill passed days before Sanders suspended his campaign. Sanders made his intention to stay on the ballot absolutely clear when suspending the campaign:
On a practical note, let me also say this: I will stay on the ballot in
all remaining states and continue to gather delegates. While Vice
President Biden will be the nominee, we must continue working to
assemble as many delegates as possible at the Democratic convention,
where we will be able to exert significant influence over the party
platform and other functions. Then, together, standing united, we will
go forward to defeat Donald Trump, the most dangerous president in
modern American history. And we will fight to elect strong progressives
at every level of government, from Congress to the school board.
The NYSBOE is arguing that the presidential primary is unnecessary, since Biden is the only candidate left on the NYS primary ballot, but it was BOE that removed Sanders and all other candidates from the ballot just prior to canceling the primary itself. Circular logic. Anti-democratic. Are you kidding me?
Taking Sanders off the ballot is likely a strategy to lower voter turnout, benefiting Democratic incumbentsfacing primary challenges from progressive candidates.So much for the DNC critique of Bernie not helping candidates up and down the ballot. Where does the DNC stand on this action? Are they really willing
to allow the disenfranchisement of millions of New York State voters whose
votes will be essential to defeat trump in November?Have they learned nothing from 2016? This action sets a dangerous precedent. BOE cites the current health crisis as the reason for canceling the presidential primary, despite an executive order announced by Governor Cuomo last week to insure all New Yorkers can vote absentee in the June 23rd primary (if they request to do so). If Democrats are willing to engage in this kind of voter suppression, what will their response be if/when trump takes similar emergency action to postpone/cancel the general election in November?
The Sanders campaign has demanded the New York presidential primary be reinstated, and circulated a petition to the DNC to strip the state of its delegates if they violate party rules regarding delegate selection. Andrew Yang is suing New York State for “voter suppression.” Perhaps the ACLU or the Center for Constitutional Rights will file a suit on behalf
of all New Yorkers disenfranchised by the NYSBOE.
Design for Awareness produced a video
to raise awareness of the action BOE has taken. The first version of
the video focused on the wholesale cancellation of the primary, as the
action was initially reported. The video has been revised to reflect
that ONLY the presidential primary has
been canceled. Circus music was added to reflect the absurdity of two
officials “unanimously” deciding to cancel our presidential primary
(democracy). Call/contact New York State Board of Elections to let them
know you would like your right to vote back.
So the proverbial blue wave, all but dismissed by the main-stream media on election night, keeps on rolling in. Now at +39 in the House, recounts and run-offs, oh my.
No illusions that we are free of two party duopoly, but still deliciously satisfying to see the GOP drowning in their own misogynist bile. For the first time in herstory, 100+ women have been elected to Congress. It would seem that Senator (future presidential contender) Flake’s compassionate intervention was not quite enough to pacify the rage women rightfully feel.
The arrogant adherence to patriarchal privilege, so shamelessly on display throughout the Kavanaugh hearings, revealed just how routine the subjugation of women is within their fold. But perhaps even more tellingly, it showcased an utter lack of ability (and a lack
of desire) to communicate with women in any way that does not subjugate
them.
This repulsive realization has left the GOP barely able to eek out single digit “victories” in states
where they control the election process from top to bottom. It has inspired millions to reject the Party’s entitled abuse of power, to mobilize en-masse to vote, to run for office, to take democracy into their own hands.
Notably, Kansas denied “voter fraud” champion Kris Kobachhis
shot as governor, despite being overseer of his own election. Along similar lines, now infamous (now
former, he resigned the day after declaring victory) Secretary of State Brian Kemp will become the next governor of Georgia, having engineered a vast campaign of voter suppression in the state.
Prioritizing “victory” over democracy is short-sighted and desperate,
but it’s all they got. We are seeing that Republicans no longer have the numbers to win without gaming the process. Every time the GOP gets their way through subjugation and suppression, it presents an opportunity for the people to rise. They are, in fact, sowing the seeds of their own demise.
This election in Georgia should mark a turning point in the voter suppression vs. (statistically nonexistent) “voter fraud” debacle. Stacy Abrams’ no concession speech and the subsequent legal action/mobilization: another model of people taking democracy into their own hands, mobilizing not just for restoration, but for expansion of our democratic process. No concession, no compromise with those who would deny democracy to stay in power.
It might be a good time to reexamine (retire?) the whole red state/blue state
polarization narrative, and who benefits from it. Harder to engineer a fraudulent 1% “victory” if the
state isn’t already in your column to begin with.
Not surprisingly trump and his corporate cabal circle back the news cycle with the ouster of Jeff Sessions the very next day, seeking to send a brand new slate of progressives into a doublethink death spiral. Yes, this is Nixon 101, and yes, trump’s new AG appointment is illegal, but Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Cognitive dissonance or doublethink? The former comes up often referencing trump, implying there is actual truth being overwritten by lies, that one chooses to believe the lie over the truth. There are certainly plenty of Republicans (and Democrats) caught in the throes of cognitive dissonance, but I don’t believe trump is concerned with truth vs. lies. He intentionally contradicts himself at every turn, to make us incapable of discerning one from the other, to get us to accept contradictory positions simultaneously, to make us susceptible to suggestion. That’s doublethink.
This is why it’s so important not to get swept up in the trump spectacle. It’s like struggling in quicksand – you just sink that much faster. The entire spectacle is a trap. Reactionary resistance is a trap. Formulating a rational response is a trap. You can’t get out once you are in, and that is the point.
So what do we gain/lose by doubling down to focus on the longevity of the Mueller investigation? What if the investigation is endless, like the fictional war in Nineteen Eighty-Four, the perfect soma distraction for a conflict narrative obsessed Democratic Party?
Fortunately, that’s not what the people voted for – it’s not what this new slate of progressive representatives ran on. I don’t think they’re gonna buy what trump’s selling, but it’s up to all of us to see beyond the distraction and help them stay true. We’ve opened a door for all of us to walk through, a crack to let the light in. The GOP will continue to divide and demonize, so start walking,and take a crowbar to that crack on your way through. Throw the door open and put out the welcome mat.
I have read multiple articles reporting on the purge of 126,000
Brooklyn Democratic voters, but I have yet to see anything that explains how this specifically impacted the vote in Brooklyn. Brigid Bergin quotes Mayor Bill de Blasio in her WNYC article,
“This number surprises me,” said de Blasio, “I admit that Brooklyn has
had a lot of transient population – that’s obvious. Lot of people moving
in, lot of people moving out. That might account for some of it. But
I'm confused since so many people have moved in, that the number would
move that much in the negative direction.”
Of
62 counties statewide, 61 saw an increase in total voter enrollment
since November — including Hamilton County, the smallest in the state.
And then there was Brooklyn — the state’s single most populous county.
The borough lost an off-the-charts 8% of its active voters (102,717) and
6.5% of its total voters over that brief period.
A statement
released from the Mayors office on primary day begins “It has been
reported to us from voters and voting rights monitors that
the voting lists in Brooklyn contain numerous errors, including the
purging of entire buildings and blocks of voters from the voting lists.”
It ends with the line, “The perception that numerous voters may have
been disenfranchised
undermines the integrity of the entire electoral process and must be
fixed.”
NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer sent a letter
to Michael J. Ryan, Executive Director of the New York City Board of
Elections, expressing his “deep concern over widespread reports of poll
site problems and irregularities as New Yorkers headed to the polls on
Primary Day, ranging from faulty ballot scanners and polling locations
that opened late (or not at all) to poorly staffed polling sites and
voters whose registrations were seemingly purged from the rolls without
any effective notification.”
The voter hotline set up by the NYS Attorney General’s office received more than 1000 complaints on primary day, compared to 150 on the day of the 2012 general election. AG Eric Schneiderman also issued a statement concerning voting irregularities, and will be launching an investigation.
And
the cherry on top? NYC Board of Elections sent out a registration
confirmation notice to some 60,000 newly registered voters with an
incorrect September primary date. Then they sent out postcards with the
corrected September 13th date, but didn’t bother to mention the April 19th presidential primary. William Neuman at the New York Times writes,
Officials
initially played down the contretemps. But on April 5, Mr. Schneiderman
sent a letter to Michael J. Ryan, the election board’s executive
director, saying that the mix-up “may have misled eligible voters and
could prevent their participation” in the primary. He asked for
“immediate corrective actions.”
Ultimately, this
isn’t really about who won or lost for me. As much as I might have liked
to see Bernie continue his winning streak in New York, I am much more
concerned with the disturbing pattern
of voter suppression that seems to grow more acceptable with each
passing
caucus/primary. The New York Post is suggesting a single individual is
being “scapegoated” for the Brooklyn voter purge. Certainly not the first time I have seen voter disenfranchisement disappeared through a campaign of distraction.
My partner and I were excited to finally have the opportunity to vote for
Bernie Sanders. Over the weekend we had rallied and marched in Manhattan with
thousands of other New Yorkers who were feeling the bern. Our favorite sign of the day simply read: “FINALLY A REASON TO VOTE.”
On
election day, I was frankly amazed how light turnout seemed at my
Brooklyn polling place. The calm trickle of voters stood in stark
contrast to the tens of thousands of cheering Bernie supporters we had
witnessed at multiple NYC rallies over the last weeks. We knew that a
Sanders win in New York was all about turnout. We knew there was a surge
of new voter registrations across the state, my partner just one of the
many volunteers registering new voters for weeks prior to the March
25th deadline.
We knew that a huge number of Sanders supporters
would not be able to vote for him, because they were not registered
Democrats. Election Justice USA filed a lawsuit on Monday asking for an emergency declaratory judgment that would
make Tuesday’s primary open, allowing independents (some 27% of New Yorkers) to
vote in the primary. They pressed
the lawsuit as a remedy for a group of New Yorkers whose saw their
party affiliations mysteriously switched and would therefore not be able
to vote for the candidate of their choice in the primary.
The morning of the vote I spent
some time consoling folks online who felt they had been forced into
voting for Clinton delegates. For example, our ballot listed 7 Clinton
delegates and only 6 for Sanders, instructing us to “vote for
any 7.” Our poll worker told us we could vote
for less than 7 if we wanted, but he didn’t really know why that was the
case. My understanding is that this is a preference vote:
delegates go to convention only if the candidate they are pledged to
gets a large enough percentage of the vote to send them. So, while voting for a
Clinton delegate without voting for Clinton may increase the
likelihood of that particular delegate going in place of another Clinton
delegate, it doesn’t cause that delegate to go in place of a Sanders delegate. Make sense? That’s ok, it’s not supposed to.
I
mention this to demonstrate how opaque the voting process actually is
in New York. There are only two things on this ballot to vote for, yet
one would be hard pressed to find folks who can explain how the delegate
vote actually works. What is the
minimum percentage of the vote your candidate needed to receive any
delegates at all? Do they need that percentage statewide, or just in
your district? If your candidate gets 100% of the vote in your district
do they get all their district delegates regardless of their percentage of the vote statewide? Shouldn’t we know all this before going to the polls?
Even
before I went to vote, I had already heard Mayor de Blasio and Comptroller Stringer “demanding” answers from the New York
Board of Elections. I couldn’t help but think
of Arizona – again.
Maricopa County – the
largest in Arizona, with over 60% of the state’s population. The
largest county in the United States to contain a capital city (Phoenix).
The fourth most populous county in the United States: Los Angeles County, Cook (Chicago) County, Harris (Houston) County, Maricopa. For comparison: Kings (Brooklyn) County, the most populous in New York State, comes in eighth.
Maricopa County is home to the 5th largest
Hispanic/Latino population in the United States, approximately
1,250,000 people (in a state of 8 million). By comparison, the Bronx
(County, the only majority Hispanic/Latino borough in New York City) has
a Hispanic/Latino population of approximately 750,000 (in a city of 8 million, in a state of 19 million).
In 2008 there were 400 polling places in Maricopa County.
In 2012 there were 200.
On March 22, 2016 (primary day) – there were 60.
In other counties there was, on average, one polling place for every 2,500 voters.
In Maricopa there was, on average, one polling place for every 21,000 voters.
As if this isn’t bad enough, within Maricopa itself, the breakdown appears even more extreme. In a letter requesting a U.S. Department of Justice Investigation Into Disparate Distribution of Polling Locations in Maricopa County, Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton writes,
For
example, in Phoenix, a majority-minority city, County officials
allocated one polling location for every 108,000 residents. The ratios
were far more favorable in predominantly Anglo communities:
In Cave Creek/Carefree, there was one polling location for 8,500
residents; in Paradise Valley, one for 13,000 residents; in Fountain
Hills, one for 22,500 residents; and in Peoria, one for every 54,000
residents.
The limited number of polling places, resulted in 5 hour lines. Ari Berman at The Nation writes,
Previously,
Maricopa County would have needed to receive federal approval for
reducing the number of polling sites, because Arizona was one of 16
states where jurisdictions with a long history of discrimination had to
submit their voting changes under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
This type of change would very likely have been blocked since minorities
make up 40 percent of Maricopa County’s population and reducing the
number of polling places would have left minority voters worse off.
Republican Governor Ducey issued a statement
calling the long lines “unacceptable,” but then, Ducey did sign that
budget cutting election funding. Similar to the New York statements,
Ducey goes on to say, “Our election officials must evaluate what went
wrong and how they make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell apologized
(repeatedly) to the voters and took full responsibility for her error.
But as it turns out, “sorry” is not democracy, so no one that lost their
vote will be getting it back.
On April 14th the DNC released a statement concerning a joint lawsuit over voter disenfranchisement and voting irregularities in Arizona,
The Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign
Committee are filing a joint lawsuit in the United States District
Court of Arizona on Friday on behalf of voters affected by voting
irregularities resulting from the actions of state officials. The suit
is a response to decisions that caused extremely long lines and
needlessly disenfranchised voters, especially minority voters, during
the state’s March 22nd presidential primary election, and
includes affected voters, Former Chairman and First President of the
Navajo Nation Peterson Zah, the Arizona Democratic Party, and the Ann
Kirkpatrick for Senate campaign as plaintiffs.
The
Clinton and Sanders campaigns joined the lawsuit after it was filed on
the 15th. Bernie’s lawyer, Chris Sautter, was on the ground in Arizona
immediately following the voting “fiasco.” According to the Washington Post,Arizona will be the fifth state that Marc Elias, Clinton campaign general counsel, has sued.
Wow – Democrats are all over this shit. Or are they? All but the Arizona lawsuit, were filed before this primary cycle. These lawsuits seek to “fix” problems in the future, not to make sure that every voter gets to vote and every vote is counted now.
While our elected officials express their “deep concern” over “voting
irregularities,” and the DNC positions itself as fighting the good fight
against Republican voter suppression, the votes lost in this primary
cycle go uncounted.
And this brings me back to what I mentioned earlier – the normalization of disenfranchisement.
I’ve written frequently about the patriarchal (matriarchal), defensive posturing of
the Democratic Party; protecting all of us from Republican efforts to
strip us of our rights. Throughout this election cycle, we have seen two
dramatically different outlooks. While the Clinton camp adheres to this
pragmatic protectionist ideology, a hallmark of the Obama
administration (and DNC election strategy), the Sanders campaign looks forward
to what we can accomplish when we come together for the common good.
When the DNC goes after Republican voter suppression, are we expecting
outcomes that will insure free and fair elections, or is this just
another “fighting for us” talking point? Is the public “outrage” of the
Clinton endorsers I cited earlier – the NYC Mayor, the NYC Comptroller,
the NYS Attorney General, and even the Mayor of Phoenix – meant to
satiate our thirst for justice?
Thank goodness someone is doing something.Be prepared.
