|
Voting in the South Bronx, Names Not on
Lists, Few Choices on Paper Ballots
Byline: Matthew R. Lee of Inner
City Press: News Analysis
SOUTH BRONX,
November 4 -- The grandeur of the
right to vote, at least for some in New York's South Bronx on
November 4, was tawdry,
disorganized and gave little confidence even that votes would be
counted. A
long-time polling place in a public school on Southern Boulevard was
locked
shut, with no signs directing those who arrived to vote as they had in
past
years to any new location. A security guard ambled over and pointed
across a
parking lot at another school.
"It's there this year," he said. But
there were two locked fences between the two schools, requiring a
search for
two sets of keys. The excited chatter about Democratic nominee Barack
Obama was
quickly changing to complaints about the NYC Board of Elections, even,
against
Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The
previous day at City Hall in Manhattan, speaker after speaker
excoriated
Bloomberg for overriding term limits to seek the Mayoralty for a third
time
next year. Brooklyn Councilman Charles Barron called it a "disgrace,"
and told the nonplussed Bloomberg "I'll see you on the battlefield."
A pedi-cab cyclists trashed both Bloomberg and the treatment of
carriage
horses. A rabbi was wheeled out to praise the Mayor. In these times of financial
crisis, it was said, we need him. In this case, apparently, the
Change We Can
Believe In is just four more years of the same.
This machine, seen in primary, was denied to
some Bronx voters
Once in the
second school, in a gymnasium with basketball hoops without nets,
numerous
long-time South Bronx voters were told that their names "were not on
the
list this year," and to vote by affidavit. This was to be filled out in
a
pseudo voting booth constructed of three pieces of cardboard, a mere 11
inches
high.
The
paper ballot offered very few choices: a long-time Assemblyman
getting rubber-stamped to return to Albany, two judges few had ever
heard of,
and at the top the presidential contest. Would Bob Barr get even a
single vote in this
South Bronx district? Would Ralph Nader? Would these paper ballots even
be
counted.
"Oh,
definitely," a matronly poll watcher assured. But how were the voters
to
know?
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
UN Office: S-453A, UN, NY 10017
USA
Tel: 212-963-1439
Reporter's mobile (and
weekends):
718-716-3540
Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright
2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at]
innercitypress.com -
|
