Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

Despite growing political interest among Americans, this November millions of people who "live, work and raise families in our communities" will be denied the right to elect our next president  as a result of a past felony conviction. Felon disenfranchisement has raised concerns among advocates and legislators that such laws further perpetuate disparities not only in the electorate, but also in society.

Funny I can't help but think of how shocked we dems were when Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000, but lost the election due to delegate allotment.  These things happen every once in a while and demonstrate the utter sham of representative democracies.  These elaborate facades filled with the superrich and  designed to control the will of the people or direct democracies.

Now it's 2008. Once again a slight majority of the people supported one candidate, but the system so designed to recode the errors, changed the results.

Does the end (disenfranchisement  of voters in two states,character assassinations, misogyny, ignoring popular vote) justify the means?

Today's outcome at the Rules and Bylaws meeting was completely predicatable, but outrageous nonetheless.

Democracy used to mean something in this country. Counting votes fairly, having results that were fair representations of the votes cast, making sure that an election process was unimpeachable used to be foundations of our republic. Those precepts were cast off at the RBC meeting today.

The committee could have counted the votes from Michigan and Florida. They could have rejected them. Either of these options would have been legitimate, even if one was less preferable than the other. I have a problem with half seating of delegations, but that was by far the lesser of the errors that came out of this sham of a meeting today.

Assigning delegates to someone who received no votes (of his own volition) is an assault of every basic tenet of democracy as we know it in this country. It is a violation of the rights of voters. It diminishes the already too-complicated process into a free-for-all. It has all the appearance of the DNC working (further) to assure their desired outcome. It is in no way the way that politics should work in this nation. I am appalled, outraged, and disgusted in a way that I have not been in a long time.

Would Obama have won if Michigan and Florida had counted the first time? We'll never know. Momentum is a strange and coveted thing in politics. The facts are the facts. But the process still matters. This makes a mockery of the entire deal. This "resolution" forever places an asterik next to Obama's nomination. The DNC intervention on his behalf is a nefarious enterprise which I reject. I will continue to support Democrats, but not the DNC. Not with my money, not with input, not in any way- ever. I am voting with my feet, and my feet are walking away.

I will never again carry water for these people with my conservative friends and family.  

To me, this caps off an the entire nominating process nicely. It has been an edifying experience. I thought that the "party boss" mentality has kind of gone away sometime post-1940. But they still lurk. The smoke-filled room still exists- smoking is banned indoors now- but it is still there.

What happened today is not Barack Obama's fault. I don't fault him. But I refuse to acknowledge any argument that these delegates from Michigan rightfully belong to him in any way. He chose to get zero votes in Michigan. For him to get even one delegate is totally illegitimate. If some of the uncommitted delegates drifted his way, fine. But to have a governing body officially allocate delegates to him even after he removed his name from the ballot in that state is both theoretically and practically illegitimate.  

The only silver lining is that it cements Clinton's status as the popular vote winner. But that is small consolation. But, alas, this is about more than Clinton v. Obama for me, anyway. Today is the day that I totally lost confidence in the Democratic National Committee, and their leadership of this once-great party.

The question of whether or not the Florida and Michigan compromises are fair will resonate between now and the end of the campaign.

It's a difficult question to answer, since the nature of the primaries themselves muddle the question. How many people would have voted if they knew it was going to count? Does the vote accurately reflect the will of the people in those states? Is the compromise fair to the voters, the candidates and the other 48 states?

A simple, but imperfect, answer is to look at the number of votes cast in the primaries versus the number of delegates that have been alloted. Blue represents Obama, magenta represents Clinton, light blue circles show the compromises. I left the Obama and Clinton dots at 0 in MI/FL (where they were before) so people could track which compromise point was for each candidate.

The black line represents the best fit for all primaries (both candidates), with a fairly decent fit (R-squared is .85 out of 1). For the sake of display, I cut off the far primaries (California, for instance), but the fit was generally pretty close out there as well.

I wanted to take a minute to acknowledge the blatant and outright disrespect- nay, disenfranchisement- Obama supporters have been shown on this site. And I want to thank Senator Clinton for the courage and strength to give me the right words to use to frame this very important argument.

There's a reason why so many have fought so hard and sacrificed so much this primary season. It's because they knew that to be a citizen of this country is to have the right and responsibility to help shape its future. Not just to have your voice heard but to have it count. People have fought hard because they knew their rec/rate ability was at stake, and so, by proxy, was their children's futures.

Those people refused to accept their assigned place as second-class citizens. Men and women who saw America not as it was, but as it could and should be, and committed themselves to extending the frontiers of our democracy into the blogosphere. Just like the abolitionists, and all who fought to end slavery and ensure freedom came with the full right of citizenship. Just like the tenacious women and a few brave men who gathered at the Seneca Falls convention back in 1848 to demand the right to vote.

We're seeing a situation occurring just like this, right now in Zimbabwe. Tragically, an opposing viewpoint was held, the site moderator lost it, and then refused to abide by the will of the people.

So we can never take for granted our precious right to rec and rate. It is the single most important, privilege and right any of us have, because while rec'ing and rating, we are all equal. You're equal to a billionaire. You're equal to the president, every single one of us.

Why, Jerome? Why are you disenfranchising us? It's unconstitutional. Sure, you may say, this blog would constitute a private organization, and as such abilities such as "voting" are entirely at organization's behest, but really- this transcends such legalities, because it's so important. Sure, Obama supporters apparently "broke" the rules, but those rules were unfair to begin with, and even when we agreed to them, when the situation changed, we all know we no longer have to agree with them or abide by them.

Don't disenfranchise us, Jerome, or we may not show up in November to click on links and drive site traffic for you to remain profitable with. I'm not bandying that about as a threat, mind you- we'll all have very valid reasons for not showing up come November. In no way is this an episode of "stamp feet, take ball, go home"- this is serious. And you should take it seriously.

Thank you.

Cross Posted at: Pagan Power

Today's New York Times Editorial cut right to the chase. They wasted no time whatsoever in throwing Hillary Clinton right under the bus. After all she has done for the city of New York it would seem that the very least they could do is have a little grace and dignity. But they apparently don't understand what it means to have respect.

According to the New York Times Editorial Board Hillary continuing in this race can is contingent upon two ridiculous requirements.

First of all she is not allowed to use the phrase White voters. Because apparently this is offensive to black voters and we sure as hell can't have that.

Sen. Clinton and the Campaign

But we believe just as strongly that Mrs. Clinton will be making a terrible mistake -- for herself, her party and for the nation -- if she continues to press her candidacy through negative campaigning with disturbing racial undertones.

I'm writing this diary to help disperse some of the noxious spin clouds occluding a precise understanding of the rules and procedures governing the seating of the Michigan and Florida delegations.  Many left-leaning blogs, contributors, editors, armchair pundits, and columnists have promulgated flawed analyses that proceed from the false assumption that suppressing the votes in these two states is mandated by some unflinching authoritarian set of rules that, in reality, the authors either failed to read or failed to understand.  The popularity of this distortion is further supported by fake delegate counters showing a race to 2025 by incorporating this bankrupt assumption, now littering the blogosphere like locusts.  Although it has become fashionable to mischaracterize suppression of Michigan and Florida voters as a foregone conclusion, the result has been a plethora of dishonest accounts of the race's state of that impede sincerity in our dialogue.  So I want to clear a few things up.  

By Elizabeth Westfall, Advancement Project
Wendy Weiser, Brennan Center for Justice
Michael Slater, Project Vote

In the past three weeks, Florida courts and election officials have dealt three blows to Floridians who want to cast their ballots in this year's presidential election. In three separate cases, the Florida Secretary of State, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and a federal District Court each issued decisions that will collectively block tens of thousands of eligible Florida citizens from getting on the voter rolls and voting in the 2008 elections.   In an election season with thousands of voters trying to take part for the first time, Florida is creating new bureaucratic obstacles, rather than knocking them down.  Fortunately, it is not too late for the Governor, the Secretary of State, or the state legislature to intervene.