LIBERADIO(!)

Election Reform Needs Media Reform

Thank you, Mark Crispin Miller, for succinctly writing what I have been fuming about all day. In an introduction to an incredible piece in OpEdNews called, “The False Narrative of ‘Voter Fraud,’” by Kenneth Anderson, Mark writes: “Amen, amen. And what it makes entirely clear is that we need not just election reform (and campaign finance reform), but also sweeping media reform.”.

This whole thing about McCain grabbing the moral high-ground on the Election Integrity issue by hopping on the “voter fraud” bandwagon is really getting my goat. Those of you who ask those of us in the reality-based community to put on our tin-foil hats when we talk about a vast right-wing media conspiracy, need only look at what is happening right now for the truth…Election Integrity activist and independent journalists have been trying to get the media and the punditocracy to talk about this issue for FOUR YEARS and yet it only takes 3.5 seconds for “ACORN” and “voter fraud” to be on everyone’s lips? Really?!? At this point you have to ask yourself, “Why IS that?” and “HOW is that?”

The False Narrative of ‘Voter Fraud has some answers. Here are excerpts:

A false election narrative of “voter fraud” is currently under construction in various swing states and being built by the Republican party and their media organ, Fox News. The narrative, that the Democratic party and, more specifically, Barack Obama, will steal the election through fraudulent voter registration, is being fleshed out by various state Republican party organisations, Republican Attorneys General and the McCain campaign. A false equivalence is being made between fraudulent voter registration and voter fraud.

GOP-led vilification of the grass roots community organization, ACORN, is now in full swing, after state police in Nevada raided the office of ACORN in Las Vegas in a desperate attempt to paint the organisation as rife with voter fraud intent. The only evidence that voter registrations gathered by ACORN were problematic were actually provided by ACORN itself, which flags potentially invalid voter registrations and submits those registrations to state election authorities. The raid has been describe as a “stunt,” a stunt designed to do bolster the voter fraud narrative. More raids in other critical swing states are expected. And let’s be clear about one thing: ACORN actively canvases low income — usually inner city — neighborhoods throughout the country in an effort to get more low income citizens involved in the electoral process. This is exactly not the demographic Republicans want to see enfranchised in elections.

These GOP driven state-level efforts have attracted the attention of Fox News, which is now in full propaganda mode, breathlessly pronouncing the phrase “voter fraud” and “ACORN” at every possible opportunity. During one broadcast, a Fox News host pondered recent events:

“Barack Obama is ahead right now in many of the battleground states — the same states where investigations are under way for voter fraud. Is this a coincidence?”

Clearly, this is not a coincidence. These “investigations” are being triggered by local Republican agents. They represent a direct response to the looming electoral defeat of John McCain and are occurring in conjunction with GOP-orchestrated challenges to new voter registration. But the Fox News implication is exactly reversed from reality, ridiculously claiming that pre-election polls of an Obama surge in swing states must be somehow be the result of fraudulent voter registrations.

Fox News, in the middle of their Brit Hume panel discussion (Brit wasn’t there), didn’t “bat a TV eye,” nor mentioned a word about the news conference, but-after a commercial break-continued with an “ACORN” report (and alleged ties to Obama) throughout the entire time that Paulson was speaking to the nation, and to the world, about one of the worst financial crises we have ever faced.

After years of known electoral fraud, of Republican-linked corporations and their daft voting machines, after numerous, anomalous election results, suddenly and in a matter of days, the Republican machine has pressed the issue of “voter fraud” to the front and center of this election. It is a case that demonstrates the power centers of American politics, where GOP-connected corporations rig elections and are rewarded for their efforts, while humble, community organizations that encourage the poor and the dispossessed to vote are lambasted on the national political stage. This is a disgrace beyond measure, and it must be stopped.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Spread the truth about ACORN far and wide. Refute “voter fraud” with real stories of “voter suppression” to everyone you know.