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Johnson urges Congress to ban false election fliers
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Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler looks on as Prince George’s County Executive Jack Johnson holds up a fraudulent flyer.
WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Prince George’s County Chairman Jack Johnson urged a U.S. Senate panel Thursday to outlaw deceptive campaign fliers like those distributed during the November 2006 election.
Johnson testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee with Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., a co-sponsor of a bill designed to prevent deceptive voting practices.
“Citizens must be informed,” Johnson said, “but they should not get false and deceptive information that serve to undermine the values that hold our republic together.”
The committee examined recent elections in which campaigns deliberately attempted to disenfranchise black and Hispanic voters by sending official-looking literature that gave the wrong date for the election or suggested the people could be arrested at the polls if they had unpaid parking tickets or overdue rent.
Johnson described a voters guide
that was distributed in Prince George’s County on Election Day suggesting that Johnson and two other Democratic Party leaders endorsed the Republican candidates for governor and senate.
Under their pictures was the statement: “These are OUR choices.”
The fliers were passed out at polling places by homeless men who were bused in from Pennsylvania to the black-majority Prince George’s County. The men were promised meals and $100.
Johnson called the tactic “offensive.”
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., testified that he asked the U.S. Department of Justice to look into the Prince George’s County matter, but was told that authorities had no legal basis to investigate.
Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said the pattern to try to dissuade voters from going to the polls was similar to the Jim Crow-era laws designed to make it nearly impossible for blacks to vote.
“This is the poll tax of our time,” he said.
The Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention bill bans the distribution of false and deceptive information intended to prevent a person from voting. Punishment would include jail time.
smccabe@dcexaminer.com
Comments from Examiner Readers
2:16 PM MST on Sun., Jul. 6, 2008 re: "Vote tallying could present another fiasco"
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11:55 AM MST on Wed., Jun. 6, 2007
re: "Virginia primaries open to all voters, regardless of party"
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2:07 PM MST on Fri., Apr. 20, 2007
re: "House passes District voting rights bill"
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Jiminy Cricket said:
What a wicked we weave !!!- The Supes were warned not to buy these bogus systems - but except for Ammiano and Daly, they did it anyway .. The shame !! Now SF is the biggest fool as they too are in the HAVA trap - Bob Ney paved the way for the big $ vendors to skim the cream - billions of our tax dollars sent to the boys in the back. We must make a stand against the black hats and take back our democracy- He who counts the votes must not be allowed to skate away- JC
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Steve Rankin, Jackson, Mississippi said:
The Virginia Republicans' lawsuit against their open-primary law is now in the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond. It's based largely on the US Supreme Court's 2000 ruling in the California case that you noted. The lower court held in the Virginia case that, when a party is forced to nominate by primary, the party decides who votes in that primary. This was the first time any court had ever said that there is a situation in which the state may not require a party to hold an open primary. The Mississippi Democrats' similar open-primary lawsuit will be heard by the US District Court on July 30. If the courts outlaw state-mandated open primaries-- as I believe they will-- each party will be free to determine who votes in its primaries. Utah, e.g., registers voters by party. The Republicans there invite independents to vote in their primaries, whereas the Democrats invite ALL voters into their primaries.
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Zeadman said:
mmmmmmmmmm interesting. i am a republican populist moderate. i think that most people in the us are now that. any way i believe that the district should be treated as any other district in any state in the Union. it is a district just like the first district of Utah. or Iowa or Idaho...... so yes it is good that they now have a vote even thow they have always had a vote because of what they are. they are a district out side of a state. thats is all they deserve a vote just like us. thanks -Zeadman
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