Tag: vote

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News News Blog

Half of Tennessee Voters Voted Early

Tennessee Secretary of State

Half of Tennessee’s registered voters have already cast their ballots in this year’s presidential election.

Early voting ended Thursday, October 29th. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3rd.

Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett said in the 14 days of early voting, 51 percent of registered voters here cast their ballots. In six counties — Cheatham, Davidson, Loudon, Rutherford, Williamson, and Wilson — early voting turnout surpassed all voting totals from the 2016 election.

“County election commissions across the state have worked diligently to administer a safe, sensible, and responsible election during early voting, and we will see the same thing on Election Day,” said Hargett.

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Opinion The Last Word

The Lies I Tell: The Election, My Niece, and Voter Suppression

CREDIT: Peter Pettus, Library of Congress

Last week, I took my 6-year-old niece with me to early vote. As we walked into the polling place, hand in hand, I lied to her. I didn’t intend to. I just wanted to make the short walk from the parking lot to the building a quick lesson on voting rights.

What we’re about to do, I told her solemnly, is very, very important.

Slipping into the same voice I use to read bedtime stories, I began: A long, long time ago, there were people who fought really hard to keep people like us  —  Black people  —  from voting. But Black people and some white people worked really hard to make sure we could. To make those Black people proud, I said, we have to vote in every election. And, I added as a happily ever after, that’s why we were going to vote today.

Peter Pettus, Library of Congress

Participants in the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965

No sooner had the words left my mouth when I realized I had not been honest. Why had I placed voter suppression in the distant past? Why did I feel compelled to leave out the violence, the blood spilled, the murders? Why did I obscure the villains, leaving them colorless as if their identities aren’t known?

The truth is this: Voter suppression, intimidation, and systemic disenfranchisement wasn’t long, long ago or in a place far away. It’s happening now, here, and all around.

Since the 2010 elections, 24 states have passed laws making it harder to vote, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. From shrinking the number of early voting locations, cutting back the early voting period, enacting strict voter ID laws, and purging infrequent voters from the rolls, Republican-led attacks against the franchise seem unrelenting.

Recently, the Memphis branch of the NAACP sued the Shelby County Election Commission after it limited early voting locations to the Agricenter, which is outside the city core and closer to parts of the county that are majority-white, even though Shelby County is predominantly Black.

The NAACP won its suit, but the commission still managed to open late a key early voting site in the city’s core. The commission blamed it on a miscommunication with poll workers, but it read as spiteful, as if election officials were thumbing their noses at voting rights advocates.

The NAACP and the Tennessee Black Voter Project have since sued the commission again, “for its refusal to allow voters who submitted timely, but allegedly deficient, voter registration applications to correct any deficiencies in those applications on or before Election Day and then vote regular ballots.” A judge ruled against the commission this week.

In Houston, Texas, there have been allegations that volunteer Korean translators were being kicked out of polling places. In Kansas, the lone polling place in the majority-Hispanic town of Dodge City has been moved into the county, a mile from the nearest bus stop.

Ever since the Supreme Court overturned parts of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, Southern states previously required to get federal okay before changing election laws rushed to make it harder for Black and brown people to vote.

“The decision in Shelby County opened the floodgates to laws restricting voting throughout the United States. The effects were immediate. Within 24 hours of the ruling, Texas announced that it would implement a strict photo ID law. Two other states, Mississippi and Alabama, also began to enforce photo ID laws that had previously been barred because of federal preclearance,” said the Brennan Center.

But I didn’t tell my niece about the Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder case that took the teeth out of the Voting Rights Act.

I didn’t tell her about Mississippi voting rights advocate and all-around badass Fannie Lou Hamer, an Indianola, Mississippi, tenant farmer who was fired by her plantation owner after she tried to register to vote in 1962. Undeterred, she opposed the state’s all-white delegation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Four years later, she was chosen as a delegate for the party’s presidential nominating committee in Chicago.

If I close my eyes, I can see the horrifying image of a battered John Lewis, beaten by a state trooper on Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 for the crime of being a Negro trying to register other Negroes to vote. I know the names of martyrs Andrew Goodman, Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney, Rev. James Reeb, and Viola Gregg Liuzzo, all slain because they sought voting rights for Black people in the South.

None of this brutal, gruesome, painful, wretched history did I share with my beautiful, cornrow-wearing, baby teeth-missing, still-needs-a-nap niece. These American stories are the stuff of Black nightmares. So I lied. I turned the fight for the ballot into a fairy tale, where in the end, the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice. And while I hope that comes to pass, I’m not sure that’s true either.

I’m not proud of my lie. I was simply trying to shield my niece from what she’ll see soon enough: That the mean people who didn’t want Black people to vote then are still with us now.

Wendi C. Thomas is the editor and publisher of MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, where a version of this column first appeared.

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Politics Politics Feature

Judge Orders State to Allow Universal Mail-In Voting During Pandemic

To anyone who watched the hearing on Wednesday by Zoom, the denouement was obvious: Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle was going to allow statewide voting by mail for this year’s coming elections.

Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle

First, it was obvious that Steve Mulroy, attorney for the Up the Vote 901 group of Memphians who filed suit to suspend existing state restrictions on absentee voting in view of the COVID pandemic, had mastered the subject and was prepared to demolish the arguments presented by assistant state Attorney General Alex Rieger.

Mulroy, with an assist from co-counsel Jake Brown and Angela Liu of the American Civil Liberties Union, systematically refuted such claims from Rieger as that expanding absentee-voting rights would cause costs to spiral out of control (the state has millions of unspent HAVA Act funds to offset election expenses), that the error rate of mail-in voting would be dramatically higher than on-site voting (any differential, as Mulroy demonstrated, would be infinitesimally small), and that voting officials would be overwhelmed with new tasks to the point that on-site voters could not  be sufficiently taken care of.

It was equally obvious that Judge Lyle had steeped herself in the details of the case and was skeptical of the state’s claims — particularly the implication that Tennessee was incapable of making adjustments that several adjoining states had already made to accommodate mail-in voting during the course of the pandemic.

“I don’t see clarity here,” she admonished Rieger at one point, and she made short work of the state’s contentions that a survey of local election officials in the state had produced a negative reaction from them to the idea of relaxing the restrictions imposed on absentee voting under current state law. The survey, as she noted, had been skewed, asking the officials to react to the prospect that 100 percent of the state’s eligible voters would exercise the franchise and that all of them would do so by mail.

In her ruling, Chancellor Lyle not only discounts the state’s allegations but notes that the Tennessee constitution is “more explicit than the federal Constitution” in guaranteeing the right to vote and that the state’s “restrictive interpretation and application of Tennessee’s voting by mail law” constitutes “an unreasonable burden on the fundamental right to vote.”

The state’s election authorities are therefore mandated to accommodate “any eligible Tennessee voter who applies to vote by mail in order to avoid transmission or contraction of COVID-19.”

The Judge does not require the state to automatically provide the state’s entire voting population with mail-in ballots, merely those voters who apply for them.

There was universal rejoicing on the plaintiffs’ side of things. But state Attorney General Herb Slatery frowned on the outcome, saying, “It is yet another court decision replacing legislation passed by the people’s elected officials with its own judgment.”

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Opinion Viewpoint

The Sound of Change

CREDIT: jb

PITTSBURGH — The three young black men, dressed to the nines, were the first in line to receive media credentials for presidential candidate Barack Obama’s climactic rally at the University of Pittsburgh’s Peterson Events Center Monday night.

Or make that Monday afternoon, since the old military system of hurry-up-and-wait is how it works these days for the seemingly endless — and increasingly tense and dramatic — series of Democratic primary contests between Obama and rival Hillary Clinton.

The day was still bright and balmy when J.C. Gamble, Darnell Drewery, and Cornell Jones, all representing a new media enterprise called blacktieradio.com, showed up at the designated glass door. But it would be getting on to 10 o’clock, with a long line strung out behind the three men, before the building’s doors would finally be unlocked. And even then, all successfully credentialed entrants would have to undergo a screening process that would put the most cautious airline’s procedures to shame.

A similar, though not quite as fastidious, drill had been in effect for attendees at an afternoon rally downtown featuring Hillary Clinton and her husband, the former president. Things have changed since the primary season began and all it took to get to an event featuring one of the dozen or so Democratic and Republican hopefuls was the willingness to shoulder through a modest-sized crowd for the sake of some immodest bloviation.

With only three candidates left — Obama, Clinton, and Republican John McCain — all of them potential and plausible guardians of the Free World, the public attention is keener now, the rhetoric is sharper, and the stakes are higher.

While they waited, Gamble, Drewery, and Jones dilated on every subject under the setting sun — on the relative merits of barbecue served up in the Pittsburgh ‘hood, for example, vis-à-vis the heavily ballyhooed product in Memphis, where the three had just visited during the recent week of Martin Luther King commemorations.

“I gotta tell you, it don’t compare,” said Gamble of the fare offered by one celebrated Memphis eatery. In a more serious vein, Gamble took credit for having started the round of boos that greeted candidate McCain’s admission at the National Civil Rights Museum that he had originally opposed the creation of a national holiday in King’s honor.

Regardless of whether race was an issue in the presidential campaign before it surfaced during the South Carolina primary or whether it was there all along, the subject — along with the associated one of historical justice — was very much on the minds of Gamble and his friends. All of them are keenly aware of social issues, and Jones, who serves as a chaplain in the Pennsylvania penitentiary system, attended the annual April 4th Foundation dinner in Memphis as a representative of the Gathering, an activist organization concerned about issues of juvenile incarceration.

At one point, Drewery gave voice to a thought that increasingly is on people’s minds. And not just Democrats. And not just blacks.

“I honestly don’t know how people are going to react if Obama doesn’t get the nomination,” he said, and everybody was aware that, by “people,” he meant those in the aforesaid ‘hood. The larger one that transcends the geography of Pittsburgh. African Americans as a national group, he meant.

And then each of them described his own vision of what the immediate voter response would be.

“I think most of ’em would just stay home and not worry about voting,” Drewery offered. “I’ll tell you what I’d do! I’d go vote for Ron Paul!” said Gamble, indicating the Republican/libertarian heresiarch who could end up running as an independent.

“Naw,” said Jones, reluctantly and somewhat sadly. “I’d be there for Hillary. I couldn’t just not vote!”

Each of these three amigos spoke to a different likely viewpoint — one that, for that matter, is not limited to a particular ethnic group. The fact is, the rock-star-like celebrity of Barack Obama and the passion of his supporters are only partly related to his charisma, public positions, or oratorical skill. Whether he intended to or not, the Illinois senator has come to symbolize the near-miraculous prospect of resolving America’s antique racial divide, that which some have called its original sin.

That feeling was what caused the deafening roar when, in the course of introducing Obama, Teresa Heinz Kerry later spoke to the large and diversified crowd inside of the hope of electing “the first African-American president.” It was a roar that, like most sounds of that amplitude, is lasting and multidirectional.

Jackson Baker is a Flyer senior editor.


jb

Obama enthusiasts J.C. Gamble, Darnell Drewery, and Cornell Jones at the University of Pittsburgh

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

Here’s the thing about our friend Tim Sampson, who fills this space most weeks: He knows what he’s talking about. He reads all about the politicians, forms detailed opinions, then writes his columns secure in the knowledge that he is well informed. You’d think that’s a good thing, but the problem is so many of the rest of us are completely uninformed and therefore don’t fully understand what he’s talking about. Although I have figured out that he stays pretty pissed off.

Yes, I am one of the deliberately unaware. There may have been a time when the whole politics thing seemed groovy to me and I kept up to date, but those days ended sometime around President Clinton’s Hummer-Gate. All of those old white guys getting squeamish while trying to make political hay made me find other ways to keep entertained. I’ve been very busy deciphering the instructions to my new cappuccino-maker. Hours of my life have been filled laboring to teach my cats tricks. This is important work, people.

Still, I try to read Tim’s column because he’s an old friend. In fact, the dissolute misanthrope was once my boss. (Wrap your head around what that was like.) Now, I open the Flyer and wade my way through his screed, often baffled at who the players are and what their agenda may be. Tim knows his local politics, and there, I’ve got nothing. There are a whole lot of Fords, and they seem to get folks awfully riled up, but I don’t like getting riled up. We’ve had the same mayor for a really long time, and whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing isn’t for me to say.

On the national front, as far as I can determine, the Republicans are apparently going to run Fred Thompson, Rudolph Giuliani, or the Mormon guy who doesn’t want to always be referred to as the Mormon guy. I understand his wishes on this, but the only name I have for him is the Mormon guy. I will give him this: He has majestic hair. If we elected presidents solely on their sartorial splendor, he’d already be measuring for drapes. Or one of his wives would be. (It’s a joke, son.)

Giuliani seems pretty cool to me. What I love is that at one point while he was mayor of New York City, he was living in the mayor’s residence with both his soon-to-be ex-wife and his mistress. That’s not bad for a squirrelly guy with a bad comb-over.

I’ve met Fred Thompson, and he was very actorly. When you meet someone who is actorly, you know it. They’re very well spoken, have a practiced conspiratorial wink, and know how to wear makeup. Unfortunately, I can’t shake the fact that I know lot of actors and they’re, um, not that smart. They can memorize words really, really well, but you don’t want one doing your taxes.

On the Democrat side, they seem destined to run Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, or Barack Obama. There’s also that crazy little elf, Dennis Kucinich, but this country will never elect a President Dennis. Damn it.

John Edwards seems like a genuinely nice guy, but it’s hard to get past the whole fighting for the poor while having a house the size of an airport thing. Obama is a very charismatic guy. The few times I’ve seen him on TV, he’s come across as totally prepared to be president. You know who also seems totally prepared to be president? Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. Yeah, that’s not going to happen either.

Hillary. If you noticed that I saved her for last, it’s mainly because I’m afraid of her. We can quibble about whether her eight years of icily smiling at her husband while she was first lady qualifies as “experience” or whether it even makes sense that she’s a senator from a state she had never lived in before, but the truth is, most every American is scared of the woman. I don’t mean that we fear that she’ll do something crazy as president. I mean we’re afraid that if she got angry at one of us, she would personally kick our ass.

Between now and whenever we’re supposed to vote — which I think is probably sometime next fall — I’ll do some actual research. Or I’ll just keep reading Tim’s column. And do the exact opposite of whatever that lunatic advises. Like I said, I know the guy.

Dennis Phillippi is a Memphis writer, comedian, and radio host.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Idol Fancies

Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon,

Going to the candidates’ debate.

Laugh about it, shout about it.

When you’ve got to choose,

Every way you look at it you lose.

— “Mrs. Robinson” by Paul Simon

These traveling roadshows called debates have increasingly taken on the air of a TV reality program. I watched one Republican debate, but after seeing a majority of the candidates admit, en masse, that they questioned the validity of evolution, I didn’t need to watch another.

The Republican debates are equivalent to the summer replacement show America’s Got Talent. (The Democrats shade toward American Idol.) The contestants are carefully scrutinized as to appearance and confidence levels, and expectations run high each week over who will stumble and who will rise to the challenge. They even have judges posing as questioners. They critique the candidates’ answers and attempt to build rivalries within the group. The role of the intemperate asshole judge is played by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer (alternately, Chris Matthews). The flaw in the concept is that we can’t phone in each week and get somebody booted in order to thin this herd and maybe hear something of substance.

I took an online poll in which you were asked to match your opinions with the candidate who most closely holds your views. Mine came out Dennis Kucinich, which is good and bad.

I admire the congressman’s courage to call for impeachment openly and often. (He nearly got a vote to the floor last week.) I agree with him on ending the war in Iraq and holding the planners accountable. And he has been the single most consistent liberal voice in all these dark Bush years.

But I also know Kucinich hasn’t got a chance to win the nomination. I’ll happily vote for him in the Tennessee presidential primary to make a statement. Hell, I once voted for Prince Mongo for county mayor. I also voted for LaToya London on American Idol.

But once again, machine politics and corporate cash rule over procedure, and even though Kucinich’s rousing debate performances rival the American Idol appearances of Bo Bice, he’s going to lose to the blond lady who was mistreated when she was younger.

Before Hillary gets measured for crown and scepter, however, it would be well to remember that not a single vote has yet been cast and that the American voter is a famously fickle animal who will turn on you in an instant. How else can you explain Taylor Hicks winning American Idol, or George Bush winning anything, for that matter?

I’m sure Kucinich is at least as deserving as fellow ugly duckling Clay Aiken was. But if I had to review Hillary’s debate performances thus far, I would say, à la Randy Jackson, “It was just aw’ite for me, Dog. You’re a little pitchy.”

While this lite operetta continues, President Zero is neglecting some serious issues: The Chinese are trying to date-rape our children; Wal-Mart has been discovered taking out life insurance policies on its aged workers and collecting benefits when they die; Laci Peterson has morphed into Stacy Peterson; a discovered statement left behind by the still-deceased Saddam Hussein said his flim-flammery about WMD was not to threaten the U.S. but to fool Iran.

Barack Obama has promised to take off the gloves this week. And did I fail to mention our troops are in the middle of a foreign civil war with no end in sight? Too bad we can’t just vote the troops off the island.

Al Gore may have won his Oscar and his Nobel Prize, but Carrie Underwood and Daughtry kicked major butt at the AMA’s, and Fantasia was up for an award, too. With the current television writers’ strike, the mid-January start of the new season of American Idol might have to be moved up, just like those nervy upstart states want to do with their Johnny-come-lately primaries.

Then we could have five nights of nothing but American Idol and debates. But if the debates are going to compete, they have to really want it, Dog. This is, after all, a singing competition. And there is one lonely voice singing in the corner, crying, “Impeach now. Impeach now.” Can you hear him? It’s Dennis “The Dark Horse” Kucinich, and his spouse is better looking than Hillary’s any day.

Hey, no one believed Ruben Studdard could win either. Seacrest out.

Randy Haspel is, among other things, a Memphis musician and wit. He writes at bornagainhippies.blogspot.com.