Mississippi "poll watchers"

I have two problems with this:

1) The lovely assumption by the poll watchers that because he is courting African Americans, and they might come vote for him, obviously they are going to try to illegally cheat the vote. Because we all know how untrustworthy minorities are!

2) The fact that this is almost certainly actually a way to try to intimidate said minorities from voting in the first place.

I'd really like to see people vote in droves for this candidate and basically deliver a big "fuck you" to the tea party guys who are running this.

Also, isn't it illegal?

there's nothing illegal about it and, thus far anyway, there's nothing suppressive about it, despite the OP's pairing of a mississippi story and a "precis on the history of voter suppression."

in an open primary state, people can cross party lines to vote in primaries, provided they haven't voted in their own party's primary.

if evidence emerges that there are attempts at intimidation, the justice department should come down on them like a ton of bricks.

absent that, there's nothing particularly insidious about this, in my view.

As long as they don't send armed members of the Black Panthers to "watch," ... oh wait, that's legal...

If the people watching the polls are black men in berets, it's voter intimidation.

If they're white guys, it's democracy.

William Haskins said:

own party's primary. if evidence emerges that there are attempts at intimidation, the justice department should come down on them like a ton of bricks.

absent that, there's nothing particularly insidious about this, in my view

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Sending poll watchers to black voting districts to sit right behind voters casting their ballots (in Michigan, I believe they're allowed to stand 3 feet behind the voter -- that's close enough to touch someone) is intrinsically intimidating.

The reason for doing this is abundantly clear -- to make people nervous and discourage them from voting. Specifically, black people, who the poll watcher groups believe are intending to vote for a candidate they do not support.

The irony that this is occurring on the 50th anniversary of the Mississippi freedom summer, where people actually died in the effort to encourage, not discourage, African Americans from voting should be lost on no one.

jeffo said:

As long as they don't send armed members of the Black Panthers to "watch," ... oh wait, that's legal...

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Wait, they were all armed? With what? Their blackness? Deadly berets?

rugcat said:

Sending poll watchers to black voting districts to sit right behind voters casting their ballots (in Michigan, I believe they're allowed to stand 3 feet behind the voter -- that's close enough to touch someone) is intrinsically intimidating.

The reason for doing this is abundantly clear -- to make people nervous and discourage them from voting. Specifically, black people, who the poll watcher groups believe are intending to vote for a candidate they do not support.

The irony that this is occurring on the 50th anniversary of the Mississippi freedom summer, where people actually died in the effort to encourage, not discourage, African Americans from voting should be lost on no one.

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JACKSON, Miss. — Conservative groups’ election monitors must remain outside polling places during the Republican Senate runoff in Mississippi on Tuesday unless one of the two campaigns authorizes a representative to be inside, state election officials said.

Some election experts have expressed concern that the monitors will suppress the black vote, which the incumbent, Thad Cochran, has courted in an effort to defeat State Senator Chris McDaniel. The United States Justice Department said Monday that it was aware of “concerns about voter intimidation.”

The Senate Conservatives Fund, a political action committee that has endorsed Mr. McDaniel, has said it will send observers to monitor voting on Tuesday. But state election officials said Monday that its representatives must remain at least 30 feet from polling places unless they are casting a ballot themselves. “There is no authority in state law for a PAC or other outside group to place ‘election observers’ in Mississippi polling places,” the offices of the Mississippi attorney general and secretary of state said in a statement.

Candidates are allowed to authorize a single poll watcher inside each polling place, but PACs and campaigns cannot coordinate such moves.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/25/u...t-stay-outside-mississippi-officials-say.html

sounds like relatively safe environs for casting a vote.

William Haskins said:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/25/u...t-stay-outside-mississippi-officials-say.html

sounds like relatively safe environs for casting a vote.

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Ah. So the state is not allowing the Senate Conservatives Fund (headed up by Ken Cuccinelli) do whatever they want.

That's helpful, but it's still a crock of shit. Whether it succeeds or not, the intent is the same -- to reduce the number of African Americans going to the polls.

You really see no irony here?

The only reason the Republicans are sending "poll watchers" is not to protect the integrity of the vote but to intimidate Black voters. On the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer where Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner lost their lives buried in the Mississippi mud, this is a repulsive act of Good Ol' Fashioned Southern Racism.

Mississippi Goddam, anyone?

As regards Sen. Thad Cochran, if he isnt isn't cut from the same dirty cloth as James Eastland, John Stennis, Theodore Bilbo, Trent Lott and the other undistinguished gang of losers, idiots and bigots Mississippi keeps sending to the upper chamber in Washington, he's only a more genteel and low profile version.

He's been there a long time (36 years), is a committed supporter of pork barrel politics and has accumulated a horrid record on social issues.

Cochran is received an 11% rating from the NAACP, indicating an anti-affirmative-action stance, but that's positively sparkling compared to his 0% rating by the ACLU, indicating an anti-civil rights voting record and 0% by the Human Rights Campaign, indicating an anti-gay-rights stance.

Not that the challenger (and almost certainly the next U.S. Senator from Mississippi) is any sort of prize. In fact, McDaniel is even less appealing than Cochran.

McDaniel, who surprisingly led Cochran by 1,400 votes in the June 3 primary, has been able to mask how far right he really is. Investigative magazine Mother Jones in 2013 reported that McDaniel was featured speaker for a neo-confederate, pro-secessionist conference in Jones County where many attendees wore Confederate uniforms.

Last Saturday, The New York Times, which has sent two reporters to cover the runoff, interviewed Carl Ford, a 77-year-old lawyer in McDaniel’s hometown of Ellisville. A staunch McDaniel backer, Ford admitted being active in the county’s Sons of Confederate Veterans.

What The Times didn’t know is that Ford had been a Klan lawyer who in 1998 served as a defense attorney for the late Sam Bowers of Laurel. Bowers was Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan during the civil rights era. The White Knights was a Mississippi-born group which the FBI charged with plotting several brutal murders.

Bowers was three times prosecuted as the mastermind for violent racial crimes. A state jury in 1967 deadlocked by one vote on convicting Bowers for the firebomb slaying of respected Hattiesburg grocer Vernon Dahmer, an NAACP voting rights leader. Retried in 1998, with Ford on the defense team, Bowers was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the Dahmer murder. Bowers died in prison in 2006.

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I have no doubt a Tea Party prick like McDaniel will do his best to get that NAACP rating down to zero and make the dead and damned souls Stennis, Eastland and Bilbo smile on whatever rock in hell they're squatting on.

If there were a way for both Thad Cochran and Chris McDaniel to lose, the U.S. Senate would be better for it. It's equal parts laughable and contemptible that Cochran is looking to Black Democrats to save his worthless old ass.

This is some real "the devil you know" shit.

If I were a voter in Mississippi tonight, I'd hold my nose, pull the lever for Cochran and tell any "poll watcher" to bacdafucup off me.

No matter who wins nothing good is coming the way for Black Mississippians from either of these two good old boys.

Black Democrats Help GOP Sen. Cochran Quash the Tea Party in Miss.

Longtime Senator Thad Cochran beat Chris McDaniel by just over 6,000 votes in the GOP runoff election yesterday in Mississippi. He did so by convincing black Democrats to vote for him and increasing voter turnout overall — in the 24 Mississippi counties with a majority black population, turnout was up almost 40 percent.

In some counties, that trend was even more stark. Jefferson County saw turnout increase by 92 percent, according to Nate Cohn at The New York Times. African-Americans make up over 80 percent of the voting population in Jefferson.

Predicting an increase in Democratic voters, Tea Party organizations deployed poll watchers yesterday to intimidate black voters. In response, the NAACP dispatched its own poll watchers to look for intimidation and other problems. No monitor on either side reported any illegal activity.

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http://gawker.com/black-democrats-help-gop-sen-cochran-quash-the-tea-par-1595787437

Has Texas had their primaries yet? I fully expect to see people from the Open-carry groups flanking the doors of the courthouse (or just about anywhere else people can vote) complete with their AR-15's. Of course, they're just "reminding people of the issues" and it's not their intention at all to intimidate people...

you actually vote in texas by shooting at the lever of your chosen candidate, so i'm not sure how intimidating that will be...

You get to do mail in votes with a bazooka.

So some people came to watch, then some more people came to watch them, and it's somehow intimidating?

Meh. I'd rather take my chances with the Texans. That might at least be exciting.

The Tea Party's lurch from being activists concerned about being taxed too much into radicals openly engaged in racist voter intimidation and suppression is no longer a matter of dispute.

The Tea Party's true colors have been revealed. A bright shade of red neck.

Thad Cochran survives thanks to Democrats

Take a look at that flyer pictured at the bottom of the story.

I would not be surprised to learn that many thought Thad was actually a Democrat himself, after reading that flyer.

I'm doubting that there is any need to worry about Mr. Cochran surviving in the November election. Those votes won't be there again.

The picture at the top of that Dailykos link is just begging for a "caption this" contest.

Synonym said:

Thad Cochran survives thanks to Democrats

Take a look at that flyer pictured at the bottom of the story.

I would not be surprised to learn that many thought Thad was actually a Democrat himself, after reading that flyer.

I'm doubting that there is any need to worry about Mr. Cochran surviving in the November election. Those votes won't be there again.

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Cochran will have no trouble at all holding onto his seat.

In 2008, the year Obama energized black voters and Democrats did well all across the country, Cochran won against his Democratic (black) Challenger 61% – 38%.

I think the idea that tea party conservatives are angry enough to allow a Democrat to win a senate seat in Mississippi is wildly optimistic. Or pessimistic, depending on one's personal politics.

In either case, not going to happen.

"Poll watcher" found dead, apparent suicide.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/mark-m...rty-leader-dead-in-apparent-suicide-1.2689782

He was the one who posted images of Cochran's bedridden wife in hospital.

where does it say he was a poll watcher?

I'm sorry, but I can't look at this thread without thinking of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raJWuz7qQVc

William Haskins said:

where does it say he was a poll watcher?

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I checked a few other places, and all the articles say that he was a Tea Party official, but that's it.

Apparently, one engaged in some pretty scummy politician shenanigans, but not one word about poll watching. If there's a link, I'd like to see it, too.

William Haskins said:

where does it say he was a poll watcher?

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It doesn't. He isn't. Just a leader of a group that was being accused of bringing out poll-watchers.