December 10: Stand For Freedom March in NYC

December 10: Stand For Freedom March in NYC

This year, two-thirds of state legislatures (Southern AND Northern) have introduced laws that undermine the right to vote. Early voting and Sunday voting are under attack, photo ID requirements will introduce the first financial and document barrier to voting since the poll tax, and racially-motivated bans on ex-felons will wipe tens of thousands off the rolls.

This effort is unprecedented, it is coordinated, and it is targeted. African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, students, working men and women, seniors and immigrants of all colors will be disproportionately affected.

The right to vote is the heart of our democracy. Throughout our history Americans have been murdered for defending this basic human right. We will not let it be taken away from millions today.

IN NEW YORK CITY:
Join us on Saturday, December 10th—The United Nations’ Human Rights Day—to proclaim to America and the world:

It’s time to Stand for Freedom. We must protect our right to vote.

11 am: March from the NYC office of the Koch brothers, major funders of anti-voting rights measures, at 61st St. & Madison Ave, NYC.

12 noon: Rally at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, United Nations East 47th Street & 2nd Avenue, NYC

Project Vote Decries GOP plans to disenfranchise African-American voters

From Market Watch: "Project Vote Denounces GOP Plans to Foreclose on the Voting Rights of Low-Income Michigan Residents"

It is terrible to lose one's home to foreclosure. It is additionally terrible to be disenfranchised of one's right to vote by virtue of having one's home foreclosed.

The Macomb County, Michigan Republican Party (or "GOP") revealed that it planned to disenfranchise African-American voters that have lost their homes to foreclosure.

James Carabelli, chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Michigan, has announced plans to assign "election challengers" to polling places to question the eligibility of home foreclosure victims based on residency. "We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren't voting from those addresses," Carabelli told the [Michigan] Messenger . . . .

As the Messenger reports, Macomb County is in the top three-percent of counties in the U.S. hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis -- and African-Americans, as the primary victims of sub-prime lending practices, make up the majority of these cases. African-Americans also tend to vote democratic, which is why it's not surprising that the GOP would target these voters for suppression.

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This is clearly a racist maneuver, and so, it is a violation of the 14th and 15th Amendments. Also, we have full adult suffrage; it is not the 1820s any more. You don't need to own property in order to vote. Democracy-minded voters should denounce the Republicans' plans. Lastly, the government should not permit private, non-governmental groups to assume powers of deciding whom should receive the franchise (the power to vote).

It is fortunate that the chicanery has been uncovered earlier. We must be vigilant against these disenfranchisement maneuvers continuously, through the end of the election. We must mobilize to make sure that people are not prevented from voting as they were in 2000 and 2004.
The September 11, 2008 Market Watch article on the GOP anti-franchise plans and Project Vote's protest.

UPDATE:
By the end of September 11, the Michigan GOP withdrew the maneuver disenfranchise voters that had lost homes to foreclosure, but planned other vote-thwarting maneuvers, as this post from "Michigan Messenger" indicates: "Republicans recant plans to foreclose voters but admit other strategies"