Issue 122 Election Sabotage July 17, 2013

With the current Supreme Court ruling on the Voting rights act (see Issue 120 for details and reaction) I thought it best to show what some of the voting rights act seeks to protect against and punish. Let's begin.

Grand Father Clauses: This is an old method of abuse that requires a person to show proof that their grand father was a lawful citizen. However, many people especially Black Americans could not prove that because for a long time, their grandparents were slaves, and thus were not considered citizens. Such tests were also used to prevent immigrants and certain groups of whites along with people of other races colors and creeds from voting. It was a control mechanism to ensure only the interests of the residents of a particular area are represented.

Rigged voting: In this case, the people who are counting the votes add or subtract votes to insure that their candidate wins an election. It is mostly seen in totalitarian States like Iran today, but still does happen in America on occasion in certain voting districts (done by both Republicans and Democrats).

Moving the time and place: A time tested and proven way to manipulate the vote, the times and places for an election are purposely only given to one side while the other side is given the wrong information. Just by moving the polling place or giving the wrong day can obviously affect turnout of an election and guarantee a victory for the candidate.

Literacy Tests: A simple method of preventing people from voting, the test aims to use the basic English language (in the case of the U.S.) to make it almost impossible to pass for people with less than a high school education. This prevents the poor, and people who lack any form of proper education like immigrants from being able to vote.

Intimidation: The easiest form of voter manipulation is intimidation. Back in the late 60s Whites, Blacks and others were threatened that if their candidate did not win that they would be lynched. Similar happens today with threats of violence being the most easily seen. However, if the intimidation is coming from government such as with the recent IRS scandal targeting Tea Party, Libertarian and Pro-Israel groups, then it is harder to stop.

Conclusion: These are simple ploys used by both people and government to manipulate voting to ensure the success of their candidate’s victory. From there it is really up to the government to actually enforce the law.