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 AMY GOODMAN: Greg Palast, BBC investigative reporter, joins us here in our firehouse studio, author of Armed Madhouse, as well as The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Democracy and Regulation. Right now, he has teamed up with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to investigate this year’s election. They’ve just released a voting guide comic book called Steal Back Your Vote.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Greg Palast.
GREG PALAST: Glad to be here. Let’s see how many we can steal back.
AMY GOODMAN: And your piece is coming out in Rolling Stone next week. Just summarize what we just watched, what you found as you traveled the country, the most egregious problems of people taken off the voting rolls.
GREG PALAST: Well, that’s the problem, is that we have millions and millions and millions of people being purged off the voter rolls, like in the state of Colorado, it was stunning to find out that one in five voters had their names simply erased by the Republican secretary of state. And then George Bush found—picked her out and made her the head of the US Elections Assistance Commission, as—you know, our joke in the comic book is that Bush wanted to name her “purgin’ general,” but Rove said it was a bit too much. So, this is one of the big problems.
You’re going to have millions of people walk into the voting booth, if you’re in Colorado, especially in New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Michigan—if you have any foreclosure problems, anything, they’re going to tell you you can’t vote, and they’re going to try to either get you out of the voting booth or give you a provisional ballot. And what we’re trying to tell you is how you can, in effect, steal it back.
So, look, Kennedy and I are coming out with an exposé in Rolling Stone next week on the massive theft of the vote in November. And we were kind of shaken up about it, because—so, Jesse Jackson recommended to us, said, “Look, that’s so grim. You’re going to discourage people from voting. They’re going to say there’s no chance. So you’ve got to do something.” So what we did is we—you know, facing a democracy crisis in America, we did what you have to do, which is to create a comic book. And it’s twenty-four pages of full color with the idea that it tells you—it gives you the Rolling Stone story, with Ted Rall and other great comics laying it out, but then also telling you how you—you know, how you steal it back. And so, we have six ways that they’re stealing the election, but then seven ways you can steal it back.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, one of the things that we were talking as the film was playing, the—you’re not often getting Democratic leaders in some of these states really raising a ruckus about this issue.
GREG PALAST: Oh, yeah.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And why is that? In terms of your investigations, for instance, in New Mexico, you mentioned that some of the Democratic leaders were willing to go along with these kinds of purges.
GREG PALAST: Well, as—you know, why don’t Democrats stand up? For the same reason as jellyfish. They don’t—you know, invertebrates, but—or as my co-author, Kennedy, said, they’re cowards. But, you know, he’s true blue. I’m not a Democrat. And, by the way, the guide is totally nonpartisan, so you—which means you can take it into the booth with you, by the way, to protect yourself, the Steal Back Your Vote comic.
And why don’t the Democrats protect voters? Because they’re in on the game. As you saw in New Mexico, you had Democratic Party officials knocking off the Native American vote, which is huge in New Mexico. It’s a swing vote in New Mexico. And they’re all Democrats—Native Americans—almost to a one. But they wanted to stop a uranium mine locally, and so the local policy want their baksheesh from the uranium mine are knocking off Native American votes. We see this in Colorado, we see this in Florida, where local Democratic officials are in on the purge, in on the game, trying to block the low-income minority voters. There are so many dangers now for the new voter, for the minority voter, for the elderly voter. There are so many tricks that they’re using now. It’s not one thing.
You know, I think a lot of people remember me from busting open the Florida purge of 2000 when Katherine Harris said that thousands of black folk were felons, when their only crime was voting while black. You know, that was kind of the magic bullet they gave in Florida. Kennedy, my co-author of the comic book and Rolling Stone article, showed how they stole Ohio.
Now what we see is a nationwide kind of Floridation of the nation, under something called the Help America Vote Act, because, you know, Bush is now trying to help us vote. It’s under the Help America Vote Act, where it’s like a whole series of things. So we have the mass purges. We have new ID laws.
How many new voters in America that have just signed up and all of those Obamaniacs realize that if you mail in your ballot on a first-time vote, almost every state requires you to also include a photocopy of your government ID? Obama is going to lose a million votes from absentee ballots which are mailed in without ID. It’s a new requirement. They don’t tell you that. In some cases, like Kentucky, you’ve got to serve—you have to notarize it. I mean, it’s completely out of control, the mass purging.
But there are things—I don’t want—again, I got to go back to Jesse Jackson’s admonition: don’t be discouraged. In fact, you should be encouraged. You should have the courage to now protect your vote.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And what are some of the ways you can fight back?
GREG PALAST: Yeah. Well, in Steal Back Your Vote, we actually—besides the wonderful comic book, we have a pullout page, which you can get at stealbackyourvote.org, that we have print copies. Download copies. Download them right now, stealbackyourvote.org.
But some of the things you can do is, first of all, don’t mail in your ballot. There’s just too many ways that they can throw it out: you didn’t have your ID, you didn’t have your—you know, you’re not—you’re on some type of purge list, you don’t know it.
Vote early. Today, right now in Ohio, what are you doing after this program? You’re voting. That’s what you’re doing. In Ohio, in Indiana, you can vote right now. In Florida, you can vote right now, in many states, because if you are on a purge list, Amy and Juan, then you have time to correct it, to scream.
We also have the 800 number from Election Protection, so that—bring this in with you, by the way, please. Don’t leave the voting booth. And then we say things like—that’s number four.
AMY GOODMAN: Just go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
GREG PALAST: One, don’t mail in your ballot. Don’t go postal.
Second, vote early, vote now.
Three, register and register. What we mean by that is check your registration. We give you a place to go from our sponsor Voto Latino. We also have this in Spanish, Voto Latino.
AMY GOODMAN: You mean, you go online.
GREG PALAST: Go online to stealbackyourvote.org, and then you can check your registration and see if you’re valid, how you’re registered, because you better know how it’s spelled. You know, if you’re Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., you better have ID that says “Jr.” on it.
The fourth thing is vote unconditionally, not provisionally. Three million people were handed provisional ballots. Now, if you’re a white listener to this program, you may not know what a provisional ballot is. If you’re Hispanic or you’re black, you sure know what it is, because they gave out three million in almost all minority areas. Provisional ballots are what you get if there’s a dispute on your ballot or your ID. They challenge you. Some guy with a Blackberry from the Republican Party is challenging you. And I’m not being partisan. It’s just the Republicans that are doing this, challenging you. You get a provisional ballot, and then they throw it out. Don’t accept a provisional ballot. Demand adjudication. Go to stealbackyourvote.org for the steps on how you do it.
The fifth one is—I call it “occupy Ohio, invade Nevada.” What that means is you should be working, you should be working on Election Day. You should vote early now, and on Election Day help people get out the word, get out the comic book, get out—you know, get out the protection. You can’t win anymore by 51 percent. You’ve got to win by 56. I’m not an Obama supporter, but I do believe that every single vote should count.
Six, we call it date a voter. As our sponsor Jesse Jackson said, arrive with five. But, you know—and what we say is, like bowling and love, don’t vote alone. The reason is, you have to protect each other. And when you go in in a group, it’s a lot easier to have the courage to stand up to the vote thieves when they’re challenging you.
And then, of course, last one is, make the democracy demand, which is that if there is games with the vote, the election doesn’t end then on November 4th. It’s Wednesday that counts as much as Tuesday. We have to change the culture of America, where we stop shrugging our shoulders, like after 2000, 2004, and say we’re going to count the votes right now.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Greg Palast, I want to thank you for being with us. Greg Palast and Robert Kennedy, Jr. have come out with a new comic book, Steal Back Your Vote. “Hold it! Who said you could vote?” is on the front page, but they say you can, and they have ways to do it. Thanks very much for being with us. Look forward to your piece in Rolling Stone next week.
SOURCE: http://www.democracynow.org/
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