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Last Updated: May 12th, 2008 - 13:32:34 |
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| Photo:BlackAmericaWeb.com |
“The hardest working man in radio” has not stopped yet. Tom Joyner, the nationally syndicated radio host, is speaking out about voting irregularities in hopes that a solution can be found before the general election.
“The Tom Joyner Morning Show” and the NAACP are sponsoring 1-866-MY-VOTE1, a voter alert hotline where people can register to vote, locate polling sites and report problems at the polls.
“The best way to empower our listeners is by registering them to vote,” said Joyner.
As of April 24, more than 21,500 people registered to vote through the hotline and another 17,000 called to find poll locations according to Infovoter Technologies, a voter protection and election administration technology service that tracks the hotline’s calls.
The hotline also received more than 4,800 calls from people complaining about voting irregularities. The state with the most complaints was Texas, then Georgia and Ohio. Also on the list was Pennsylvania, where Sen. Hillary Clinton defeated Sen. Barack Obama by roughly 55 percent to 45 percent, in the primary election on April 23. Listeners to Joyner’s show on the morning of the Pennsylvania primary heard him give a live report of complaints to the hotline about polling places with broken machines and about alleged intimidation of Obama voters.
Earlier this month, Joyner and other voter rights activists testified on Capitol Hill before the Committee on House Administration. Rep. Robert A. Brady, (D-Pa.), Chairman of the House Administration Committee, ordered that a clip of the complaints be played at the hearing before the committee, which manages elections and the daily operations of the House of Representatives. The clip revealed many callers to the hotline complaining about malfunctioning voting and identification verification machines and insufficient numbers of machines to service the immense voter turnout. In other cases, there were not enough paper ballots. Some said that the poll workers were unable to adequately rectify the problems.
One caller was told that he was unable to vote and was currently inactive because he had not voted recently. When he refuted their claim, the poll workers attempted to put his name through and he was able to vote.
These issues and more have led to long waiting lines of an hour or more during the primary contests.
Joyner said that these voter irregularities either prevented people from voting or made the procedure much more difficult than it should have been.
“Sadly, we don’t know how many people were turned away and how many will not return to the polls in November because of their negative experience,” Joyner said.
“Many of them start believing that these problems are designed to keep them from voting. They look back at the presidential elections in 2000 and 2004 and wonder what kind of trickery is going to steal the election this time around.”
The presidential election in 2000 led to a Justice Department investigation of alleged voter irregularities, including denied voting rights to minorities, in Florida. Democrats and other officials demanded a recount in Florida after President George Bush was judged to have defeated Vice President Albert Gore Jr. by a narrow, controversial margin.
That same year, an analysis by The Washington Post reported that in many of Chicago’s African American precincts, one of every six ballots were thrown out, while nearly every vote was counted in the city's suburbs.
Alleged voter fraud and discrimination played a major role in Bush’s 2004 presidential reelection win in Ohio, over Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. The federal commission charged with proposing election reforms, revealed that as many as 1 million ballots nationwide were spoiled by defective voting equipment, nearly one for every 100 cast, reported Rolling Stone.
Joyner expressed great concern with maintaining the voter perception. Although he has not received many calls regarding perceived election fraud or intimidation he said “the suspicion of voter fraud is there. It is perceived and that and perception is everything.”
He said people call him frustrated and angry with the voting system, adding that those most affected by voter irregularities are young new voters, age 18 to 34.
“My listeners are counting on me to do something about these irregularities and I’m counting on you,” said Joyner addressing Brady and the committee.. He said in the hearing that he was surprised the local elections were not prepared for the increased number of voter and proposed that the committee increase the number of voting machines and train poll workers so that they are better equipped to deal with machine malfunctions. He also suggested the establishment of national voting standards so that the system is the same everywhere to minimize confusion. Finally, he addressed the need for more voter identification verification machines in Georgia.
“It is our call to action and we try to come up with a cause of action,” he said in an interview after the hearing.
Joyner has been an active voter rights advocate since 2004.
Brady commended Joyner during the hearing or afterward. “Tom Joyner’s leadership as a national media partner presented a model for other media applicants to educate and engage voters,” said Brady.
“Mr. Joyner has been a strong voting rights advocate on a national level and I uphold and share his goals.”
Joyner hopes to affect change by the general election. He said, “If we want the election process to be exciting, it has to be an exciting experience. In keeping with the spirit of the election year, let me just say I’m Tom Joyner and I approve this message.”
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