Talk:Voter suppression

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To-do list for Voter suppression: edit · history · watch · refresh

Here are some tasks you can do:
  • Expand: expand the article to include more forms of voter suppression. Each section needs a lead that describes the tactics used by the various groups and their motives.
  • Other: globalize the article to make it less USA centered. How does voter suppression happen in other countries?

Contents

[edit] Bias

I felt that the sentence "traditionally, the republican party has suppressed african-american voters and lower class white voters" was baised. A far as I know, the GOP has never made it official policy, although it has happened. In fact, the GOP originally was for increased african-american freedom and was progressive. Any one have a problem? Jonked Nov. 8, 2004

I think your paraphrase of the article was exaggerated, but I have made changes to be clearer on the role of the Republican Party in this issue. Zulitz, November 8, 2004.

I think I got the gist of what the sentence said, even if I got the wording a little wrong. By the way, don't you think we should stick to a less debatable example of voter suppression, perhaps something from elections in Columbia where voter suppression was very obvious? Just a thought. Jonked Nov. 8, 2004

I am more concerned with the practice of making insufficient voting booths or machines available to selected precincts likely to 'vote wrong'. If people in Precinct 228 have plentiful machines and those in precinct 231 have few enough that they must wait in lines that take 5 hours to vote, then that is a form of voter suppression.

So is the chicanery of rigid, time-consuming challenges to all voters that causes delays likely to create long lines or misrepresentation of bars to voting (as in, if you are behind in your rent, or if you have ever received a speeding ticket, then you are denied the right to vote and may be arrested and imprisoned for any attempt to vote).

--66.231.38.91 03:10, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If the neutrality issue in this article has been resolved the tag should be removed. Thank you! William (Bill) Bean 20:31, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Questionable additions

I removed the following new additions (parts in bold) as they are not NPOV or they lack sufficient cititations to back them:

"It is also fairly common to allege voting suppression with very little evidence to attract attention to one political party or cause or cast aspersions on another. For instance, prior to the 2004 elections in the United States, one party issued instructions to local party officials to allege voting suppresion even if no evidence was available, simply to get news coverage."
You should have discussed this here without deleting it. There's nothing in the paragraph that casts a bad light on any particular party. When asking for cites one should place a cite tag in the text, but leave the body of the article alone. Thank you! William (Bill) Bean 20:29, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

A citation supporting this claim should be presented if it is to be added back. Also it should clearly specify which party issued the instructions. .

See above. William (Bill) Bean 20:29, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
"Failure to deliver absentee ballots in a timely manner, especially to military personnel stationed overseas."

Generally, from what I have seen it's more likely for such alligations to be made regarding absentee votors in general and not specifically military votors..

"Misrepresentations of the right to vote of eligible voters, such as warnings that persons who are behind in their payment of rent or have received a traffic ticket are ineligible to vote. It should be noted, however, that all of the warnings that were circulated were hoaxes, perpetuated in ways such as through chain emails."

Thi seems to falsely imply that such a hoax would not be a part of votor suppresion, which is not necessarily true as such hoaxes could indeed be used for such purposes.

"Deliberate under-allocation of voting machines or booths to certain precincts; it should be noted that the counties involved were almost always run by officials of the complaining party, casting doubt on the claim's veracity."

This seems to make certian certian claims and assumptions about how the distribution of voting machines is decided that need to be backed up such as:

  • Where the county voting officials indeed of the complaining party?
  • Even if true, we can't simply assume there was not some deliberate restrictions, say on a statewide level, in regards to the resources the county officials had at the disposal in addressing this issue. Also this does not consider the possibility of a wolf in sheeps clothing (i.e. a members of a party whose loyalty is not with that party but with other interests.).

--Cab88 10:49, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)


I chose to distinguish voter suppression from other efforts to manipulate the vote; having seen the topic appear and disappear, I concluded that it needed to be addressed in a more decisive manner than simply removing the needless passage. Attempts to change attitudes of voters, including 'negative campaigning' are part of the game. To prohibit such a tactic would be contrary to free speech; furthermore, it would ensure that no politician ever had the chance to call attention to a shady record, suspect affiliations, or inexperience of an opponent. It's up to voters to decide whether negative statements against an opponent are true and relevant. I chose also to exclude such blatant frauds as bribery of voters or manipulation of machines, ballots, or tabulations; they deserve their own treatment in vote fraud.

As a rule, we are discussing questionable efforts to suppress the vote. Some attempted votes, as by underage persons or non-citizens who have no right to vote, persons not legal residents of the place in which they vote, or attempts to make multiple votes, are rightfully suppressed as attempts to commit vote fraud. Persons qualified to vote in a specific district who are kept from voting through some official chicanery are denied a basic right; if enough potential votes are denied, then electoral results may reflect the will of some political hacks instead of the will of the people.--66.231.38.91 01:22, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Balance

I added a well sourced example of voter suppression by campaign organizations, namely, the tire slashing of GOP vans during the 2004 election. This is one of the very few examples where people were actually convicted in a court of law for these kinds of activities, and certainly should be in the article.Crockspot 16:07, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Crockpot, thank you for clarifying how the vans were involved in voter suppression. Also, thanks for correcting the references in the article. Kgrr 01:19, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
My pleasure. - Crockspot 01:22, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

I am removing the NPOV tag on the article based on significant revisions of the article. If the CURRENT language is still NPOV, please feel free to put the tag back up AFTER you note SPECIFIC problems on the talk page. Please document what exact line of text violates NPOV rather than tagging the whole article.Kgrr 01:37, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] USA

This only has examples from the USA. What about some examples from other nations? Contralya 06:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I think there would be no harm in renaming the article United States voter suppression or something similar. -- Yellowdesk 18:06, 23 October 2007 (UTC)