Greg Palast: Yes, in a
lot of places, and for example, one of our partners in Billionaires and
Ballot Bandits, if you look at the book we have action resources, and one
is Rock the Vote. In some states, they
will direct you to a place where you can register online. Just make sure that after you register you,
that have a notice saying that you are registered. In California, now here's
one of the GOP tricks. And again, Democrats do it, but the GOP has gotten
really good at this. In California (this
isn't Florida baby) forty-two percent of the voter registration forms were
rejected by the Republican Secretary of State. Forty-two percent, nearly half,
and whose registrations were rejected? Bobby Kennedy and I checked with the
current Secretary of State and she said "People with unusual names in the
Republicans opinion," and I said "What's unusual?" And she said, "like Mohammad, or
hyphenated names like Garcia-Marquez, or Philippino names." Asian names,
basically Democratic names, minority names, were knocked out. Forty-two [42]
percent, you're talking nearly a half a million voter registration forms thrown
in the garbage. People went to all these Hispanic rallies, registered to vote,
and don't know that they are not on the voter roles. That's one of the tricks
of the nine ways - we call that blocking.
Rob Kall: Is that
legal?
Greg Palast: Yes,
because, it's legal under an evil little law called the Help America Vote Act,
which was designed by Karl Rove and George Bush; Help America Vote Act. And
when Rove and Bush decide to help you vote, look out. It empowered and required
Secretaries of State to remove suspicious names from the voter rolls, and not
allow registrations by votes it considered suspicious, whatever that means. And
suspicious tends to be, Hispanic, African American, Asian, and really the worst
group in the United States in terms of, the number one targeted group in the
United States for vote suppression and wipeout are American natives. And you
might think, the Vote on the Res" they are concentrated in every swing state -
Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, and when I say swing states, I am
particularly talking about Senate races. I'm quite certain that the suppression
of the Native American vote in Nevada is going to cost the Democrats the U.S.
Senate: that's how it works.
Rob Kall: Why them,
how do they do it?
Greg Palast: Oo,
Native Americans... Many ways. Like we
don't send Native Americans blankets with smallpox anymore. We send them
(unintelligible) 22:23 voting machines, which jam and don't work. We send them electronic voting machines, and
by the way, people worry about, you know, with electronic machines that
Democratic vote get switched to Republican, and that's very, very fancy
Hollywood stuff. The votes are lost in the computers by unplugging the
computers so that they don't work. They just don't work; they break down. In poor settings, in poor neighborhoods. In
you know, in Atlanta, in black areas, the machines are put in high humidity
areas, you know (laughs) and they don't' work, and they're not supposed to.
Have you ever been to a native pueblo in New Mexico? It's dusty, they're not
set up for computers, so they know that they break down, and it happens
systematically. The chance that your vote
will be spoiled in an electronic voting machine because of a machine error,
just lost, not switched, just lost, is about 500% higher than if you're voting
in a wealthier white precinct. And, because of the cost of equipment and the
cost of maintenance and operation, and difficulty, but they know this in
advance. They know it. That's the trick.
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