Let’s start with the conclusion: We encourage people to work for regime change at home all day on November 2nd, Election Day, and then prepare to return to the streets on November 3rd (and perhaps beyond), at predetermined, symbolic, convenient locally-chosen sites.
Set your rallies now. Volunteer to help get-out-the-vote on Election Day, but also to help protect the vote count on the day(s) after. Go to www.nov3.us
We all remember what happened in Florida in 2000. A right-wing cabal stole an election, partly in the dark of night, partly in broad daylight. As has been traditional in U.S. politics, the key to the theft was the abuse of poorer African-American voters.
This is not the first time the Republican Party has stolen an election by warping the vote count in Florida. They also cheated in 1876, and their victory then led to the end of Reconstruction. In 2000 they cheated again, and their “victory” led to an unnecessary, illegal, immoral war; a declining economy for most working people, with a growing gap between rich and poor; an undeclared war on the environment, on labor unions, on the right to choose, and on civil rights; and open talk of Empire.
2004 is different. The Bush Administration’s attempt to govern from the hard right has ignited a massive, passionate, mobilized response from our side. Progressive forces have come together in both new and old ways for regime change at home. This time we’re on fire for change. This time we’re on alert for cheating. This time we’re watching.
We have two jobs in these final days of the 2004 election:
(1) We must help generate the largest turnout possible, on and before election day. The more people who vote, the more likely that George W. Bush will be retired. So volunteer to get-out-the-vote. Vote early. Vote absentee. Take your friends and family and co-workers to vote. Send personal messages to all your friends. Don’t just mass email them, write them individual emails-even better, write them personal notes. Give a few more dollars. Work on election day.
(2) We must also prepare to defend the vote. There is a wonderful election protection operation that has been put together by an alliance of civil rights groups, to defend people’s right to vote at the polls. (Go to www.electionprotection.org
But Florida also taught us that the battle for the right to vote may continue long after the polls close. We need to be ready. We must turn out the vote on November 2nd, then defend it on November 3rd and after, right up until a new President is sworn in.
Florida 2000 taught us that there are many ways to cheat. Some are time-honored and old-fashioned, but deadly effective (intimidation at the polls, knocking minorities off the voting rolls, throwing out valid ballots in heavily African-American precincts, extra holes punched in ballots in certain areas). Some are brand new, such as “black box” voting, brought on by the switch to new technologies.
To defend ourselves against all their potential tricks, we need people. We need eyeballs, watching every precinct. We need skilled techies, to look for the clues that will reveal black box cheating. We need organizers and grassroots activists, to provide support for voters at the polls, and to turn out so many new people that the would-be cheaters will be overwhelmed by the vote for change. We need lawyers. We need donors, big and small.
And we need bodies, to provide the “street heat” that may well be necessary to secure a fair vote count in the days and weeks after election day. (Go to www.nov3.us
In Florida 2000, in a major tactical mistake, the Gore campaign asked Jesse Jackson and John Sweeney to shut down their demonstrations in favor of counting every vote.
Reluctantly, they agreed to do so. In the vacuum that followed, Tom DeLay and his “bourgeois rioters” swooped in, organizing street heat that intimidated county officials while convincing the media that the conservatives felt more cheated than did progressives.
Sadly, because the fight in 2000 was seen as between two candidates, the right wing successfully seized a tactic that has been the foundation of progressive change forever-massive, nonviolent, public protests on the side of justice and fairness.
Not this time. This time we’re watching. This time, let’s use the same spirit and organizing tactics that worked so well for us on 2/15/03, when the whole world came together to say no to war, to put people in the streets for justice on November 3rd. We encourage everyone to come together with their local allies, schedule an event for the day after, and lay the groundwork for a public gathering.
When Kerry wins, we should gather together the next day. Some will want to celebrate regime change. Others will want to set down a strong marker for the new administration on ending the war, making clear to the new president-elect that this debate will continue. Many will do both.
On the other hand, if Bush and his cronies try to repeat the stolen election of 2000, whether in Florida or Ohio or elsewhere, we will be ready to come together in public in mass numbers to demand all the votes be counted, correctly and fairly.
Some may say we’re being too paranoid. Let’s hope so. Let’s hope we just turn out so many voters that regime change is assured. But this may also be one of those times when that old ’60s saying really fits-“just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that they’re not following you…” After all, we already know what they are capable of; they showed us in Florida in 2000.
So get your friends together, make phone calls, knock on doors, volunteer to work all day on 11/2, watch the returns that night, plan a local rally for 11/3, and stay ready for a viral alert that fraud has been spotted. Go to www.nov3.us
This time, we have to be watching.
Steve Cobble is a 30-year professional political strategist. Charles Shaw is the Editor-in-Chief of Newtopia Magazine (www.newtopiamagazine.net
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