PESKY CYTRON MEMORY CARD
White
Hat's Back On, the finale of this second season, aired May 16, 2013. The
cabal of four fears that Billy Chambers, who they think now has the Cytron
memory card, will out them all for rigging the election in Defiance, Ohio.
Cyrus says they are all going to federal prison if they don't stop Chambers. What
a good place for them! Fitz now becomes part of the cabal, brought in by
Olivia. Talk about conspiracies.
Interestingly, when Billy
Chambers is trying to pry the memory card away from David Rosen, Billy says to
him: "You could get some justice for those thousands of Ohio voters who lost their fundamental right
of one man [sic] one vote. So come on, Rosen, wake up and smell the
justice." We don't know what David's plans are for the future.
Olivia says that if they
get the Cytron card back, they can put Defiance
to bed once and for all, the genie will be back in the bottle. Questions galore: Can they put Defiance to bed? Did anyone even read the memory card that
Cyrus now has? Was it real or blank like the one David gave to Billy Chambers,
one he had made? If blank, does David still have the good one or a copy of it? How many blank memory cards did David make?
His work table was littered with cards. Did Cyrus really bang the card to death
or could it be fixed?
EVERYONE SOLD OUT - BUSINESS AS USUAL
In an interview
of Kerry Washington with The Hollywood Reporter (THR) on May 20, this is the
end of the exchange: " THR: Looking at season three, would you like to see
a focus on Fitz's re-election? It's one thing that we've only seen thus far in
flashbacks.
Washington : It would be really exciting
because I feel like we've had some elections where there's been record-breaking
numbers of voter turnout in this country, and it would be really fun for people
to feel more invested in and familiar with the process than ever before. It
would be really exciting, not only for us, but for audiences to go there. If
not season three, then hopefully eventually."
It is strange to hear
Kerry Washington talking about the re-election of Fitz as if it would be a
"typical" and "normal" election, as if the rigging of his
first election had never happened! I don't think Defiance can ever be put back into the
bottle, as Olivia says it has been. Olivia, you think the rigging would all be
forgotten and we could/would all go on like it had not taken place? Collective
amnesia? Collective denial?
Everyone has sold out.
Fitz announces on TV what a hero David Rosen is and gives him an important job.
All is back to normal on Scandal. Or
is it? The rigging has not been exposed. Yes, Olivia as you say in an earlier
episode, "We all do terrible things." Agreed. But we don't all rig
elections and/or murder people. The ends do not justify the means. Even Olivia
finally says, "The things we did to get you [Fitz] here. We went too
far." I'll say!
The same is true in the
real life backstory because it is impossible that those in power do not know
what voting rights activists, including myself, and computer scientists have
been writing about election rigging since the presidential election of 2000 in Florida.
VOTER FRAUD VS ELECTION FRAUD
Finally, with all the talk
about the rigged election in Defiance,
Ohio, there is one error in the
script that surprises me in light of the fact that Scandal has been
well-researched. Reston says to Fitz,
""not when we're talking about the biggest case of voter [emphasis mine] fraud in the history of American
politics." Voter fraud is when a
voter deliberately votes more than once, e.g., in her or his own name and then
again in the name a dead person. It is rare, despite Republican statements to
the contrary, and it is fraud on a very small level. Election [emphasis mine] fraud, on the other hand, is the rigging
of elections via the electronic voting machines, which changes the outcome of
the election. That is what happened in Defiance.
BACK AT THE RANCH
On July 27, 2006,
President George W. Bush signed the latest
reauthorization of The Voting Rights Act of 1965. SECTION 1 says "This Act may be cited as
the 'Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act
Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006.' " It continues, "SEC.2
(a) Purpose - The purpose of this Act is to ensure that the right
of all citizens to vote, including the right to register to vote and cast meaningful votes,
is preserved and protected as guaranteed by the Constitution." One of the
definitions of "meaningful" is having validity. How can our votes be
meaningful and have validity if some of us who vote, do not have our votes
counted as cast?
On February 27, 2013, the Supreme Court heard arguments for and against Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires that the Department of Justice approve any changes to voting rules made by states that have a history of racial discrimination. During the hearing, Antonin Scalia said that the renewal of the Voting Rights Act by Congress was "the perpetuation of racial entitlement." Many excellent criticisms of Scalia rained down on him. Here is one by Roland Martin (who is also a great fan of Scandal). Ari Berman gives an important history of the racist voter suppression that Section 5's purpose is to prevent, and includes civil rights activist Congressman John Lewis' experiences and words. How can our votes be meaningful and have validity if some of us are not allowed to vote because of suppression of the vote of African Americans?
A decision by The Supreme Court is due in June. Let's hope we can smell the justice.
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