Michael Moore's video cameras poised to focus on dirty tricks

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Sun, 31 Oct 2004 20:51:15 -0800

Subject:Michael Moore's video cameras poised to focus on dirty tricks

 

 

 

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1340556,00.html>

 

Michael Moore's video cameras poised to focus on dirty tricks

 

Movie maker declares war on intimidation

 

Oliver Burkeman

Monday November 1, 2004

The Guardian

 

The filmmaker Michael Moore has announced a large-scale effort to combat

dirty tricks during tomorrow's US election by stationing hundreds of

people with video cameras outside polling stations.

 

" I'm putting those who intend to suppress the vote on notice: voter

intimidation and suppression will not be tolerated, " Mr Moore said in a

statement, wading into a controversy in which Democrats accuse

Republicans of planning to reduce turnout, especially among ethnic

minorities, by employing thousands of people to stop voters at the polls

and challenge the validity of their registrations.

 

Mr Moore, the director of the documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, said 1,200

professional and amateur videographers would descend on polling stations

in Florida and Ohio, the two battleground states that have been the

focus of the most serious allegations. The last few months have seen an

unprecedented drive to register new voters, especially in black

neighbourhoods of Florida and throughout Ohio.

 

But the new registrations could be deemed invalid as a result of errors

made on the forms, from corner-cutting by workers paid to sign people

up, or from deliberate fraud.

 

In Milwaukee, in the swing state of Wisconsin, Republicans produced a

list of 37,000 voters whose addresses they said were questionable. They

argued that all voters should be required to show identification at the

polls tomorrow, otherwise they would instruct thousands of poll workers

to challenge people.

 

But Milwaukee's city attorney, who represents no party, said hundreds of

addresses on the list had already been confirmed as valid, and local

Democrats warned that voters could be disenfranchised simply for failing

to include their apartment number as part of their street address.

Meanwhile, continuing chaos seemed inevitable in Broward County, Florida

- home of the notorious " pregnant chads " of the 2000 election - where

thousands of voters are likely to end up without a vote after their

absentee ballots went missing.

 

Some replacement ballots were sent last week by courier, but 2,500 were

only posted at the weekend - and by regular mail.

 

Legally, if the voter lives in the US, the ballots must arrive back at

Broward County, whether by hand or by post, by 7pm tomorrow.

 

The US postal service told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel it was " really

asking a lot " to expect the ballots to reach voters in time.

 

" There's nothing we can do about those, " countered Brenda Snipes,

Broward's election supervisor. " Those were last-minute requests that

just came in this week. "

 

More widespread problems could result from a nationwide shortage of at

least half a million poll workers, the US election assistance commission

said yesterday. It pleaded with businesses to give volunteers the day

off work so that they could help operate polling stations and count votes.

 

" If the criminal justice system didn't have access to jurors, the

criminal justice system wouldn't exist. Poll workers are just as

important as jurors, " said DeForest Soaries Jr, the commission's chairman.

 

Around the country, scattered reports of suspicious campaigning

activities continued to surface.

 

In North Carolina, Republican party officials distanced themselves from

a Washington-based group, the College Republican National Committee,

which was reported to have been targetting elderly people with confusing

fundraising calls, prompting several to give money without knowing how

much, or to whom, they had donated.

 

Across the border in South Carolina, the Democratic party said a letter

was circulating which wrongly informed voters that they could be

arrested at the polls if they had outstanding parking tickets or

child-support payments.

 

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