http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/1 ... 71138.htmlDan Froomkin Become a fan
froomkin@huffingtonpost.com Minority Voters To Be Intimidated By Polling Place Vigilantes, Report Warns
Posted: 09/10/2012 1:33 pm Updated: 09/10/2012 2:12 pm
WASHINGTON -- Concerned that a veritable army of Tea Partyers will descend on polling places in minority neighborhoods to challenge and intimidate voters on Election Day, two public interest groups on Monday called for government officials to take extra steps to protect voters' rights.
A new report from Common Cause and Demos, titled "Bullies at the Ballot Box," describes efforts by right-wing groups -- foremost among them, a Tea Party spin-off group called True the Vote -- to train as many as a million volunteers in "poll-watching."
"I think we have seen a much more coordinated and well-funded effort than we've seen in years past, and that's why it's so concerning," said Jenny Flanagan, director of voting and elections at Common Cause and one of the report's authors.
"The message behind their tactic I think is what's most concerning to us," she said, because the groups appear to be "targeting racial minorities and others who have a past of being targeted."
The report notes that True the Vote official Bill Ouren has told volunteers they should make voters feel "like driving and seeing the police following you." And the president of True the Vote coalition partner Judicial Watch has accused the Obama administration of trying to mobilize "the food stamp army" and "steal the election" with the "illegal alien vote."
True the Vote officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
"There is a real danger that voters will face overzealous volunteers who take the law into their own hands to target voters they deem suspect," the report concludes.
Voter intimidation at the polls would be the final act in a series of moves by various conservative organizations intended to limit participation by traditionally Democratic demographic groups, most notably minorities and students, in 2012.
Monday's report focuses on 10 swing states where it finds a mixed bag of state laws regarding such things as voter challenges before Election Day -- based on such things are returned mail -- and voter challenges on Election Day -- including limits on interference by poll watchers.
Federal law prohibits intimidation of voters, but as with the state rules, "those laws need to be enforced to be effective," Flanagan said.
The U.S. Department of Justice has not announced any special precautions for the November election. Its standard procedure is to assign election monitors and observers to polling places around the country on Election Day.
This story has been updated to note Justice Department policy on election monitors.
http://www.wnd.com/2012/09/new-black-pa ... ths-again/WND EXCLUSIVE
New Black Panthers at voting booths again?
Group accused of intimidating white voters with racial slurs, billy clubs
Published: 21 hours ago
WASHINGTON – Malik Zulu Shabazz, national chairman of the New Black Panther Party, stated today in a radio interview that his controversial group may deploy at voting booths in the November presidential elections, claiming such a move is needed to ensure there is no “intimidation against our people.”
The NBPP was the focus of national attention after Eric Holder’s Department of Justice dismissed voter intimidation charges against the groups leaders related to the 2008 presidential election.
During an interview on WABC Radio’s “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio,” Shabaz was asked whether his group is planning to go to U.S. polling stations in the upcoming presidential election.
Shabazz replied: “I will say that as this election comes up in November, we will consider our options. And we will consider the fact whether we will legally and lawfully go to the polls again to make sure there is no intimidation against our people, which was our intent in 2008.”
Klein asked the NBPP leader whether his group is planning to bring batons or billy clubs to any polling stations as they did in 2008.
“No sir,” Shabazz responded. “And you’re not gonna bait me into that. I know what you are here to do. And that’s not true. We will be there. I mean, if we are there. If. We are not saying we will be there or not. But whatever we will do, it will be legal and lawful under the Constitution of the United States.”
Asked about the dropping of federal charges related to the NBPP’s activities during the previous presidential election, Shabazz stated, “I would like to deny voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panther Party in 2008.”
He continued: “We were not found that we intimidated anyone, and therefore we were not charged, and that’s why we are walking free today, happy as a bird, to the [dismay] of many.”
The 2008 case centered on two NBPP members accused of standing in front of the entrance to a Philadelphia polling station in uniforms that have been described as paramilitary, with one member wielding a billy club.
According to complaints, both men standing in front of the polling station pointed at voters and shouted racial slurs, using such phrases as “white devil” and, “You’re about to be ruled by the black man, cracker.”
The interview with Klein can be heard below:
Holder’s office was accused by Justice Department insiders of racial favoritism in dropping the charges against the NBPP.
In May 2010, J. Christian Adams resigned as a Justice voting department trial attorney, citing preferences related to trying civil rights cases only when minorities were the victims.
“I was told by voting section management that cases are not going to be brought against black defendants on [behalf] of white victims,” Adams said in testimony before the Civil Rights commission.
Adams was backed up by Christopher Coates, the former head of the voting section for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. Coats had led the original investigation of the New Black Panther Party.
Coates stated in testimony, “I had people who told me point-blank that [they] didn’t come to the voting rights section to sue African-American people.”
Coats further compared the NBPP case to an earlier case from 2006, where he claimed Justice attorneys expressed anger at having to investigate Ike Brown, a black democratic politician in Mississippi accused of discriminating against white voters.
Racism, anti-white activism
The NBPP is a controversial black extremist party whose leaders are notorious for their racist statements and for leading anti-white activism.
The NBPP’s official platform states, “White man has kept us deaf, dumb and blind,” refers to the “white racist government of America,” demands black people be exempt from military service and uses the word “Jew” repeatedly in quotation marks.
Shabazz has led racially divisive protests and conferences, such as the 1998 Million Youth March, in which a few thousand Harlem youths reportedly were called upon to scuffle with police officers and speakers demanded the extermination of whites in South Africa.
The NBPP chairman was quoted at a May 2007 protest against the 400-year celebration of the settlement of Jamestown, Va., stating, “When the white man came here, you should have left him to die.”
He claimed Jews engaged in an “African holocaust,” and he has promoted the anti-Semitic urban legend that 4,000 Israelis fled the World Trade Center just prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
When Shabazz was denied entry to Canada in May 2008 while trying to speak at a black action event, he blamed Jewish groups and claimed Canada “is run from Israel.”
Canadian officials justified the action stating he has an “anti-Semitic” and “anti-police” record, but some reports blamed what was termed a minor criminal history for the decision to deny him entry.
by Blaze Pascal » 08/ 20/ 12 10:14 am 
