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ELECTIONS IN THE U.S.A.
Alarcón proposes observers for Florida
•
“Miami is
one hour away from the Carter Center, from the OAS
office, and a couple of hours from the UN
headquarters,” the president of the Cuban parliament
informs Granma International • “The least they
should do is to verify the electoral process in a
country that prompted the scandal of the century
during the last elections,” he emphasized
BY
JEAN-GUY ALLARD—Special for Granma International—
THE
United Nations and the Carter Center, which send so
many observer missions throughout the world, need to
send observers to Florida to verify the electoral
process “ in the country that prompted the largest
election scandal of the century during the last
elections,” affirmed Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada,
president of the Cuban parliament, speaking to
Granma International.
“The
U.S. system is diabolical,” commented Alarcón, whose
extensive knowledge of the U.S. political world is
well known. “It is designed precisely to make it
very difficult to exercise the right to be
registered. It is impossible to know who is
included, who is not included. It’s going to be four
years since the last election and the issue of those
on the lists and that whole maneuver by Bush is
still being discussed... He is already preparing the
conditions for the next fraud.”
That is
why, Alarcón emphasizes, the United Nations should
respond positively to the request by a group of
Black congressmen: “A very simple one. That they
send an observer commission. Moreover, it is a very
cheap mission because the United Nations is in the
United States. There’s no need to travel to another
country. It’s there.”
Likewise, the OAS is in Washington, he added, as is
the case with the Carter Center, “which spends its
time traveling around the world, which is based in
Atlanta.”
“And
Atlanta is, I would say, one hour’s journey from
Miami. It is very easy. They can go and observe and
even go home to sleep at night. And that they should
carry out a verification process, but starting now.
Not just observing whether there are disturbances or
not during the elections. Begin with the electoral
rolls. With the right to be registered. With the
campaign, which is the dirtiest thing in the world.”
EXAMPLES OF BRAZIL AND VENEZUELA
The
president of the National Assembly of People’s Power
recalled how in Brazil, nobody criticized the last
presidential elections, which Lula won, but which
were organized by his predecessor, with computerized
voting machines.
“The
organization was excellent, the results were known
in record time, all with machines. But in Brazil,
every voter took away with him or her a little piece
of paper confirming his or her vote. That is in
Brazil, which is a Third World country, and using
Brazilian technology.”
Alarcón
also commented that during the last elections in
Venezuela, nobody said that fraud had been
committed. “Neither during prior ones. Nor in the
ones prior to that one. Nor during the last seven...
neither has the opposition claimed that Chávez had
not been elected by the votes. And now there is a
whole maneuver of verification and control for the
August 14 referendum.”
“So, a
minimum of consequence is needed,” he affirmed.
“They should at least verify the electoral process
in a country that prompted the scandal of the
century during the last elections.”
A
number of denunciations have been made by
individuals and groups in Florida who are taking
steps “because they fear that they’re going to do
the same thing again” in a state where Jeb Bush, the
brother of one of the main candidates, controls the
organization of the elections.
“They’re the same as during 2000.
The National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) and various groups are
calling on Black people to register to vote. The
same thing happened last time. In 2000, there was a
large increase in the number of Black people who
took all the steps to be able to vote and many of
them were prevented from doing so. Afterwards, there
were the traps, the maneuvers to rob them of their
votes.”
In
reference to the use of computerized voting
machines, Alarcón emphasized that in the case of
Florida, it is “a voting system that leaves no
trace.”
In
November, “not even those people with magnifying
glasses will be there, analyzing how the voter
wanted to vote. There will be no written testimony.
How is it that this vote is not going to be
controlled internationally when it is moreover the
country that dispatches the most missions to pass
judgement on the quality, decency and integrity of
electoral processes?” he asked.
“AN ABSOLUTE VIOLATION OF A UNIVERSAL PRINCIPAL”
The
fact that nearly 600,000 people are deprived of
their voting rights, in Florida alone, for having
legal records, is “an absolute violation of a
universal principal,” Alarcón observed.
“These
are not individuals who are serving sentences;
rather, they are people who have already completed
their sentences,” he emphasized.
The
president of the Cuban parliament commented that in
some southern U.S. states, including Florida, “We’re
not just talking about people who have served a
prison term in a penal institution, we’re talking
about people with a criminal record. It might mean
that someone has violated a traffic law which has
led to him or her spending a night in jail, or in a
police station or paying a fine, but he or she is
marked with a record.”
In
addition, he said, it should be considered who
creates the lists, who controls them and “who
guarantees me that I have been removed from the
lists if I have been erroneously placed on them.”
Alarcón
recalled how in the year 2000, the Florida Civil
Rights Commission certified 17,000 Black people who
were prevented from voting, “some because they
unduly appeared on the list, others because they
didn’t appear on the list as voters, according to
what they were told; others because they were not
allowed to approach the building where the polls
were where, in some cases, armed patrols blocked the
access.”
“As Michael Moore says in his
documentary, it is very simple: look at the skin
color. Let the white one pass. Not the Black one.
Because the immense majority of Black people vote
against the Republicans.”
He then
recalled how as a result of the Civil War, when
slavery was abolished, a number of Black senators
were elected, until the Southern states applied such
restrictive regulations that it never happened again
– with the sole exception of the state of Illinois –
until the Voting Rights Act that Johnson passed in
1964.
“With
the whole struggle for civil rights, one century
after the Civil War, it was acknowledged that they
had a federal constitutional right, and thus the
Southern states lost the possibility of restricting
the vote as they did up until 1964 – according to
income, education, and a whole series of excuses.”
But
even so, there continued to be traps, he said, “like
it was during the 2000 election, violence reported
by tens of thousands of people. We’re not talking
about an allegation, about what someone said, this
is something that everyone knows.”
Alarcón
recalled the case of Jews from Miami Beach voting en
masse for the only anti-Semitic candidate (Buchanan)
because the ballot was designed to be confusing.
“And those votes led to Gore winning.”
“That is why I am proposing a
one-hour trip, from Atlanta to Miami, including
President Carter and his experts. And that they go
now!” •
ELECTORAL “TRANSITION”
• “What
impresses me in the ‘transition’ plan for Cuba
published by the White House,” Alarcón commented,
“is when they speak of the electoral system: the
priority, the central element, is to eliminate the
system of automatic, universal and free registration
by which everyone, upon arriving at voting age,
becomes a voter, and instead apply the U.S. system.”
“It seems like a bad joke,” he added.
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