Racial Blind Spot Continues to Afflict Greens.

• Author: Beal, Frances M.
• Position: Brief Article

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 US Attorney General Janet Rena 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...