All the noise being generated by the Republican campaign has made it seem to many like the accusations against ACORN are somehow a justification for the GOP's vicious voter-suppression efforts. There may be literally millions of Americans barred from casting votes because of registration purges, voter caging and other such tactics. The Republican party has been working round the clock for 8 years straight to make sure that this time, like in 2004, they would have the best chance possible of rigging the vote by frustrating it.
We will likely see at the very least hundreds, if not thousands, of cases of deliberate voter suppression, leading to the disenfranchisement of millions nationwide. We need to defend these rights in court, we need to make sure that any attempt of any kind, at any level, made by any Republican party operative be severely punished, according to federal law. I propose arranging for a team of lawyers to be read to file federal class-action lawsuits on behalf of us all, for even one case of deliberate vote corruption on the part of Republicans.
If one voter in one swing state is denied the right to cast a ballot, and that ballot turns out to be the difference in the winner of that state, and that state (as in Florida 2000 or Ohio 2004) turns out to be decisive, then my vote has been negated by the corrupt official behind that act of voter-suppression. Consider that usually these cases hit thousands or even hundreds of thousands of voters (again reference Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004, where in both cases the number of votes suppressed was far superior to the margin of victory), and you will see that one single sweeping act of voter suppression is enough to strip you or me or anyone of the right to have my intent as voter accurately recorded in history.
The Republicans have argued, starting in Bush v. Gore in 2000, that there is no constitutional right to have one's vote counted. I would argue this is as close as a proclamation of guilt as you will find any litigant make in court. It is an unbelievable disgrace to our nation that this remains an issue, and I believe firmly that if there is a credible risk of such crimes against our Constitution undermining the integrity of our process yet again, we need to see prosecutions at the highest level, precisely for crimes against the Constitution of the United States. I believe the evidence for those prosecutions can be gathered in the course of a civil trial, and that this process can begin literally on November 4, as soon as even one case has come to light.
Let's fight this to the end. There is no way we can expect salvation from the tragedies gathering around our nation if we do not defend this basic right.
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