0 Comments · Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Speaking to about 60 people at the
Rockdale Baptist Church in Avondale, the Rev. Jesse Jackson talked about
the many “schemes” used to disenfranchise voters while encouraging
Cincinnatians to register to vote and take advantage of Ohio’s early
voting days.
by Andy Brownfield
10.09.2012
Appears on same day Husted petitions Supreme Court to strike down in-person voting
Speaking to about 60 people at the Rockdale Baptist Church
in Avondale, the Rev. Jesse Jackson talked about the many “schemes” used to
disenfranchise voters while encouraging Cincinnatians to register to vote and
take advantage of Ohio’s early voting days. “Dealing in this state, for example, you think so much about
the painful days in the deep South — the overt schemes to deny the right to
vote,” Jackson said on Tuesday, the last day to register to vote in Ohio.
“We saw Ohio as a kind of beacon of light, the beacon of
hope once we ran across the river coming north. This year we’ve seen
Ohio and Pennsylvania take the lead in trying to purge voters and
suppress the vote to determine the outcome.”
Jackson’s comments came on the same day Ohio Secretary of
State Jon Husted appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court the Six Circuit
Court of Appeals’ decision to allow early in-person voting on the three
days before Election Day.
The three days had previously only applied to military personnel and their families.
Republicans like Husted have cited cost as the reason to
not allow in-person voting on the three days before the election. But in
an Aug. 19 email to The Columbus Dispatch, Franklin County
Republican Party chairman Doug Preisse said “I guess I really actually
feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban —
read African-American — voter-turnout machine.”
Pennsylvania, meanwhile, tried to require voters take a
photo ID with them into the polls. A state judge blocked the law from
going into effect for the 2012 election.
Jackson said restrictions as to who can vote when and where undermine the purpose of democracy.
“Open access, free, transparent voting makes democracy real,” he said.
Flanked by a tapestry portraying President Barack Obama,
Jackson touted the president’s accomplishments in his first term and
urged those assembled to give him a second.
Jackson was in Toledo Oct. 5 pushing early voting. He said
he was in Cincinnati because “Ohio matters” and he saw it as a way to
penetrate Appalachia because “poverty is not just a black problem.”
1 Comment · Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Talking to scientists is always kind of crazy — you know they’re smarter than you but the slightest amount of eye contact makes them start talking so fast you can’t even pretend to be following. The AP today checked in with a group of extremely enthusiastic scientists on their own terms (by phone), reporting the details of a black hole eating a star 3.8 billion light years from Earth and then shooting matter out of its center at 80-90 percent of the speed of light (I know, right?!?).