REWIND – ELECTION DAY 2004
PART ONE
Saturday, October 31
On the Saturday before the election – Halloween, as it turns out – I spent the early evening with about 400 other lawyers, law students and legal professionals in the Milwaukee teacher’s union meeting room on Vliet Street. We were there to learn about Wisconsin’s appropriately liberal election law and to get our directions for heading out to various polling places around the city and the state on Tuesday to protect voters – to make sure, as John Kerry himself put it, that every eligible voter be allowed to vote and that every vote is counted.
The Voter Protection program was created in response to two main forces created by the GOP: 1) the theft of the election by the Bushies from the Supreme Court on down in 2000 and 2) the enormous volume of the squawking coming from wingnut radio, cable and the Bush campaign about "voter fraud", a bright red herring that they had created in their effort to suppress the vote.
The Bushies in Milwaukee (as in Ohio and in other battleground states) had promised to be out in force on Election Day, especially in poor and minority areas, to "challenge" voters who they claimed were improperly registered, bussed-in for the day from Illinois to take advantage of Wisconsin’s same-day registration law and even rounding up illegal aliens (from where was not explained) to somehow defraud the election process and "steal" Wisconsin for Kerry. As usual, the actual facts don’t matter to the radio wingnuts as they try to stir up irrational reactions in their, er, vulnerable audience.
One of the more "successful" radio clowns in Milwaukee, the repellant Mark Belling, found himself getting so worked up over this non-issue that he warned that Milwaukee’s largely Latino near south side polling places would be invaded by illegal "wetbacks" for Kerry. After the Latino community reacted in justifiable outrage, Belling "apologized" in his nasal, snide "I-don’t really-mean-this" voice and spent the rest of that particular show making fun of the issue with his supportive (and apparently similarly racist) callers, eventually calling his audience "all wet". This was a bit too over-the-top even for pro-Bush mega-media conglomerate Clear Channel, especially after Latino organizers got several advertisers to drop their sponsorship of the program. For now, Belling has been sent somewhere for re-education; a refresher course in Rush Limbaugh’s "How to Send Racist Messages Without Being Called Racist" doctrine.
The Rove-inspired "claim voter fraud" scheme worked several angles for the Bushies, or so they thought. First, if the minorities think that big, burly Republicans would be sitting at the polls, checking voter lists (and who knows what else – arrest warrants? parking tickets?) they are less likely to show up. Also in this vein of intimidation, the county sheriff, former right-wing darling David Clarke (lost recent mayor’s race – badly), whose department has nothing to do with poll law enforcement, also let it be floated that his deputies just might be walking in with badges, guns, etc. Again, folks in Milwaukee’s minority underclass spend most of their lives trying to stay away from these people. They are less likely to face such a confrontation just for one lousy vote.
Second, the way the Republican’s talked, they were going to do on-site challenges to as many as 35,000 registrations in Milwaukee. "We have a list!" they shouted, like amateur Joe McCarthys. After the State Elections Board heard their case regarding the first several hundred on the list in the days before the election and found all of them just fine, they threw the Bushies out on their ear. But that didn’t prevent the storm-troopers from threatening to throw challenges around on election day itself. If they actually did that, they might have prevented some legitimate voters from voting, might have blocked some legitimate on-site registrations and certainly would have caused much confusion and long lines, resulting in some people giving up. Again, the goal is only to suppress the vote – although they beat their chests about how civic-minded they were, they were only concerned about too much democracy in Milwaukee.
Finally, the Bushies wanted something to complain about after the election if they lost. If they created this facade of massive voter fraud – even without naming one voter who voted, but shouldn’t have – they could say that Bush did not lose on the issues, the election was stolen, blah blah blah.
The local newspaper and empty-headed TV blobs pathetically assisted the vote suppression effort by legitimizing the GOP’s manipulative false squawking campaign, pretending that "voter fraud" was a "serious issue" that must be "dealt with". As Election Day approached, there was a serious possibility of chaos at the polls as the righteous right took their thuggery from the air waves and cable wires to the streets.
It was in this context that all of us found ourselves in a cramped union hall that Saturday. Lawyers of all ages and dispositions were there, serious about the importance of the election and dedicated to protecting the voters. A couple of Kerry staff lawyers and several local volunteer coordinators gave us the rundown on what was expected from the Republicans (who, while they squawked loud and long on the radio, were extremely secretive about what they were actually going to do on election day). Most important was the discussion and materials provided on election Wisconsin law.
We all left recognizing the seriousness of our situation and the value that our (now) expert assistance. We left with confidence in the pro-voter strength of Wisconsin law and the integrity of long-time poll workers. In the room, there was a definite feeling of Fear of the unknown GOP tactics.
We – alright, I – also realized that desperate, power-mad and shameless Republicans, ruling on the basis of Lies and Fear, will do anything, including shutting down the democratic process. Having got away with it in Florida in 2000, they would push the envelope further, as far as the timid and cowed mainstream media would let them. And that was very far indeed.
3:58:24 PM 
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