Hoaxes, Jokes & Other Election Blunders
By Zayda Rivera
November 05, 2008
Keywords: Barack Obama,
election 08, hoaxes
Deceptive practices are almost
synonymous with election campaigns, but this historic presidential election drew
in more hoaxes, jokes and other election blunders than ever before. The target:
young, new voters and voters from traditionally underrepresented communities.
But the hoaxes failed.
"We can't wake up [Nov. 5] and the
only thing on our minds as Americans is who won or who lost," says Barbara
Arnwine, executive director for the Lawyers' Committee on behalf of Election Protection, the nation's largest nonpartisan voter-rights
coalition. "The question must be in our minds: 'What about the thousands
of voters who wanted to vote and were not allowed to vote? Who wanted to vote
and were wrongfully denied to vote?' We know we can make our system fail-safe
and keep voters and votes from being derailed by partisan operatives,
overzealous officials and bureaucratic snafus."
President-elect Barack Obama
inspired many young voters in a way no other presidential candidate ever has.
Unless you were living under a rock for the past 22 months, it was no secret
that voter registration within the demographic of 18- to 29-year-olds rose
drastically. As a direct result, this group became a target for fraudulent
attempts at directing them away from the polls on Nov. 4. Colleges and
universities were especially vulnerable--especially in Virginia and Pennsylvania.
"The number of reports where
students are having a hard time casting ballots today are coming in mostly from
Pennsylvania and Virginia," says Heather
Smith, executive director of Rock the Vote. "It's in Virginia where we're
actually seeing an attempt to keep students from casting a ballot. In Radford,
[Va.], the
registrar was telling students that if they registered with a P.O. box instead
of their dorm name, their registration would not count. In Pennsylvania, the reports
have been of long lines."
In addition, students were targeted
through text messaging and social-networking sites such as Facebook and
MySpace.
"Students are getting text messages
that say 'Due to long lines today, all Obama voters are asked to vote on
Wednesday. Thank you for your cooperation,'" Smith says. "There was also someone
that hacked into the George Mason
University e-mail system
and sent an e-mail indicating that voters should vote on Wednesday."
"On the issue of voter intimidation
and deceptive practices, what we're seeing this time is predatory, deceptive
practices based on the election problems," Arwine says.
"They're using the systematic
failures to justify these deceptive practices, which makes them even more
realistic-sounding to voters."
Traditionally underrepresented
groups were also targeted with deceptive flyers and robo calls stating that
Republicans vote on Tuesday and Democrats vote on Wednesday, as well as other
fraudulent messages.
"I want to be very clear that in
Virginia, Louisiana and Florida, where we've seen some of these robo
calls and flyers, they really have been targeted at African-American
neighborhoods and some at Latino neighborhoods," Arwine
says.
Other fraudulent messages included
indications that if you had unpaid parking tickets, you'd be arrested at the
polls and would not be able to vote.
"The difference is in the scale
between 2004 and 2006 and now in 2008 that's most dramatic," says Jonah Goldman,
director of the national campaign for fair elections at the Lawyers' Committee
for Civil Rights. "The biggest problem is while they continue to be targeted at
minority communities, they're more and more targeted at this new generation of
voters. It's understandable that if you're going to do something as insidious as
this, you're going to those who are less prepared because they're more
infrequent voters or they're new to the process."
Send Your Comments About This Article Now
©DiversityInc. Reproduction in any format is absolutely prohibited.
|
