News Release Archive - Electoral Issues

ALEX MAIN, [now in Haiti]
Policy analyst with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Main said today: “These elections were already highly problematic before the cholera epidemic began to spread. Haiti’s electoral authority — the CEP [Provisional Electoral Council] — suffers from a lack of credibility; legitimate parties have been excluded from participating in the legislative elections, and very few effective measures have been taken to ensure that Haiti’s over 1.3 million displaced people would have access to the polls. As a result of these problems, there was already a high probability that voter turnout would be very low and that the elections would be widely seen as illegitimate. Now, with an uncontrollable and fatal epidemic further complicating the lives of Haitians, it is patently obvious that the elections should be postponed and measures should be taken to correct the current flaws in the electoral process.”

NICOLAS ROSSIER
Rossier is a documentary filmmaker whose work includes “Aristide and the Endless Revolution.” He recently interviewed Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the Haitian president who was ousted in 2004. Video excerpts at Grit TV

See also transcript of interview at “An Exclusive Interview With Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide”

EZILI DANTO
Danto is president of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network. She said today: “Obama denounced the recent ‘elections’ in Burma as ‘neither free nor fair.’ The Haitian ‘elections’ are also neither free nor fair. The largest party, Fanmi Lavalas, is excluded, as it has been in every election since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in 2004. Who will be able to vote is not clear — over 1.3 million earthquake victims are displaced, many don’t know which polling place to go to, don’t have their IDs and the country is in the middle of a cholera outbreak that the CDC says is non-Haitian and originated from South Asia. This environment will minimize the voice of most of the people while amplifying that of the Haitian oligarchy, mostly sustained by NGO and U.S. aid funds, living in the luxurious Petionville hills, who have their IDs and are not displaced.

“Another issue is that whoever is elected will have so little power. The UN, Bill Clinton and other foreigners through the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission largely run the country but are not accountable to the Haitian people.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

McClatchy reports: “Under a cloud of intimidation and suppression, Egyptians will vote Sunday in parliamentary elections that already have been denounced as a charade aimed at prolonging the three-decade rule of President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party.

“Egyptian authorities have jailed Mubarak’s opponents, blocked rallies, clamped down on independent news media and angrily rejected calls by the United States and others to allow international observers to monitor the vote.”

Dr. AIDA SEIF AL-DAWLA
Al-Dawla is a psychiatrist with the Nadeem Center for Victims of Torture, which will be monitoring human rights violations during the election via their web page as well as Twitter.
She has been profiled by Time magazine.

PHILIP RIZK
Rizk is an independent blogger and filmmaker based in Cairo. See blog and Twitter feed

JASON BROWNLEE
Brownlee is currently a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center. He is working on a book on U.S-Egyptian relations. He recently appeared on an Al-Jazeera English segment on the Egyptian elections.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

MarketWatch is reporting: “Illinois Democrat Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who is a member of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, on Tuesday offered up her own proposals for budget cutting that relies on defense spending cuts and corporate and estate tax hikes.”

CARL CONETTA
Conetta is co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives at the Commonwealth Institute. He said today: “Earlier this year the president established a bipartisan National Commission for Fiscal Responsibility and Reform and asked it to recommend a plan for bringing the federal deficit into primary balance in 2015. …

“The defense budget has been responsible for more than 60 percent of discretionary budget growth since 2001 and almost a quarter of the growth in total federal spending. The rise in Pentagon spending since 1998 has been without precedent in all the years since the Korean War. …

“In March of 2010 the Sustainable Defense Task Force was formed in response to a request from Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), working in cooperation with Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.), Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), to explore possible military budget contributions to deficit reduction efforts that would not compromise the essential security of the United States. The Task Force reported back with nineteen options that in total would save nearly $1 trillion over ten years. For the year 2015 the savings would be $111 billion.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

NANCY ALTMAN
Altman is co-chair of the Strengthen Social Security Campaign, a coalition of over 215 national and state organizations representing more than 50 million Americans. She said today: “An angry electorate last week expressed its frustration with a Washington political class that does not appear to be listening. Now, the Fiscal Commission Co-Chairs’ Social Security proposal totally ignores the will of the people. Poll after poll has shown that Democrats, Republicans and independents reject the punitive cuts in America’s economic security that the co-chairs have proposed. The chairmen say that Social Security does not and cannot contribute one penny to the deficit. We agree wholeheartedly. Why then are they, charged with reducing that deficit, … proposing massive cuts to Social Security?” Altman wrote the book The Battle For Social Security: From FDR’s Vision To Bush’s Gamble.

JANE SLAUGHTER
Slaughter is with Labor Notes and just wrote a piece titled “Why does a billionaire want to take away your Social Security benefits?” which states: “Peter Peterson is 84 years old. He’s old enough to relax and enjoy the fruits of the years he was well paid for managing other rich people’s money. Why is he spending his fortune to convince politicians they should ruin the average guy’s retirement?

“[Tuesday] Peterson announced the next facet in his long campaign to hack Social Security, including a joke presidential candidate named Hugh Jidette (‘huge debt’) and a website called Owe No. His aim is to convince Congress to raise the retirement age, cut Social Security’s cost-of-living increases — and raise the payroll taxes we pay for Social Security and Medicare.

“It wouldn’t matter what one cranky octogenarian billionaire had to say if he weren’t putting $6 million into ads, funding ‘expert’ commissions, and spreading lies designed to panic the populace.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

California’s Proposition 23 sought to suspend a 2006 law (AB 32) intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

DAVID CHENG
Available for a limited number of interviews, Cheng is a senior manager at the Cleantech Group, a research and advisory company focused on clean tech innovation. He is also a member of E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs), a national community of individual business leaders who advocate for good environmental policy while building economic prosperity.

He said today: “California voters overwhelmingly looked ahead towards a clean energy future by voting down Prop 23. As a good barometer, I look to the smartest people in the room and learn from them. In this case, the ‘No on 23′ campaign recruited a large tent of Republicans and Democrats, capitalists and environmentalists to this cause. I look forward to the wave of innovation and jobs that will stem from California’s clean energy policies, most notably AB 32.”

LARRY FAHN
Fahn is president of As You Sow and member of the board and past president of the Sierra Club. He said today: “California voters saw through the special interest deception and showed their determination that California remain a leader in the transformation to a clean energy future.” Fahn says he realized that the “No” side would likely prevail when the Palm Springs Desert Sun became the 50th California newspaper to publish a “No on 23″ editorial, joining the L.A. Times, San Diego Union Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee and most of the other major papers in the state.

ABEL HAPTEGEORGIS
Haptegeorgis is with the Ella Baker Center, which released a statement: “Early polling showed that many of California’s ethnic minority communities were more supportive of Prop. 23 than white voters, but polls released in late October showed a marked shift against the initiative. … Much credit may belong to a massive grassroots effort to educate voters of color … through door-knocking, phone calls, direct mail, radio ads and ethnic media outreach. The campaign was mounted by Communities United Against the Dirty Energy Proposition, a coalition of over 130 organizations representing low-income communities and people of color in California.”

GABE ELSNER
Elsner is campaign director of Power Vote California. He said today: “The California Student Sustainability Coalition’s Power Vote Campaign united thousands of young Californians behind a creative grassroots campaign that exposed Big Oil’s dirty ploy, and mobilized thousands of voters to defeat it. The campaign partnered with student networks across the state to turn out the youth vote, worked with a community coalition to launch the Clean Energy Tour, a music tour merging arts and activism, and directly confronted oil interests bank-rolling the initiative, like the Koch brothers.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Public Citizen has just released a pair of reports assessing the election:

DAVID ARKUSH, via Angela Bradbery
Arkush is director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch, which just released the report “Outside Job.” The group writes: “Of 74 contests in which power changed hands in Tuesday’s congressional elections, independent groups engaging in a spree of secretive, corporate- and wealthy- individual-funded electioneering in the wake of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission spent predominately on behalf of the winning candidate in 58 contests, according to Public Citizen’s initial analysis. Just 14 of the losing candidates received more help than their opponents from independent groups.”

LORI WALLACH, via Bryan Buchanan
Wallach is director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, which just released the report “Election 2010: The Best Defense Was a Fair Trade Offense.” The group states: “House Democrats that ran on fair trade platforms in competitive and open-seat races were three times as likely to survive the GOP tidal wave than Democrats who ran against fair trade.”

Wallach said today: “That Democrats and the GOP alike ran against the trade policy status quo highlights the intensity of public ire about our job exporting trade policy — a phenomenon also seen in national polls. It also reveals the trouble that the White House and GOP leaders will face if they try to pass the leftover Bush trade pacts with Korea, Colombia and Panama.” See PDF: “Election 2010: The Best Defense Was a Fair Trade Offense”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

BILL FLETCHER Jr.
Fletcher is editorial board member of The Black Commentator and co-founder of the Center for Labor Renewal. He recently wrote the piece “Enthusiasm?: I Am Not Interested in Things Getting Worse!”

JOHN R. MacARTHUR
MacArthur is publisher of Harper’s Magazine and author of the book You Can’t Be President: The Outrageous Barriers to Democracy in America.

He said today: “Many in the Tea Party blame Obama for many things. I think we should blame Obama for the rise of the Tea Party. He could have struck a populist position with the banks. He could have at least reinstated Glass-Steagall (which separated higher-risk investment banking from regular commercial banking).”

MacArthur, who writes for French publications as well, added: “Contrast the passivity of many liberals and the left in the U.S. with what is happening in France.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

QUENTIN YOUNG, M.D., via MARK ALMBERG
Young, national coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization of 18,000 doctors who support a single-payer, Medicare-for-All approach to reform, said today: “Health care reform was botched. People wanted serious reform and didn’t get it. What was adopted was so defective that ultra-conservatives were able to seize on it and use it against the Democrats and, more fundamentally, will use it against real health reform. A recent Associated Press poll shows twice as many people say the reform should have gone farther than say government has no role in health care. We know from multiple surveys over the past two decades that two-thirds of the population would support a single-payer Medicare-for-all plan. That’s the only way to assure universal, high-quality, affordable care.” Almberg is communications director for PNHP.

BENJAMIN DAY
Executive director of Mass-Care: The Massachusetts Campaign for Single Payer Health Care, Day said today: “The health care law Obama signed is largely modeled on the Massachusetts system. Now, there is a movement in Massachusetts to move from that to a single-payer or ‘Medicare for all’ program. In 2008, ten local non-binding ballot measures calling for a single-payer system passed around the state. There are 14 on the ballot today.” See: “Question 4: Non-binding ballot measure pushes ‘Medicare For All’”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

WENDY WEISER
LEE ROWLAND, VISHAL AGRAHARKAR, via Jeanine Plant-Chirlin
Weiser is director of the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights and Elections Project. Rowland is counsel, Agraharkar is pro bono counsel and Plant-Chirlin is acting communications director for the Center.

Weiser said today: “The biggest challenges to the vote this year are continued problems with the voter registration system, voting machine glitches and confrontational poll monitoring or voter challenge programs. Hopefully, the majority of Americans will face none of these challenges. For those who do, the non-partisan Election Protection hotline can provide assistance. Call 866-OUR-VOTE.”

Weiser and Agraharkar recently wrote the piece “Ballot Security and Voter Suppression,” which states: “‘Ballot security’ is an umbrella term for a variety of practices that are carried out by political operatives and private groups with the stated goal of preventing voter fraud. Far too often, however, ballot security initiatives have the effect of suppressing eligible votes, either inadvertently or through outright interference with voting rights.”

For more background information, see the Brennan Center’s “Voting Rights and Elections” resource page.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

CHRIS KROMM
Executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies, Kromm said today: “Outlandish claims of ‘voter fraud’ — while backed up by little evidence — are reaching a fever pitch. In the 2010 election season, Tea Party groups like True the Vote in Texas are calling for ‘millions’ of volunteer poll-watchers to challenge and harass ‘suspect’ voters, usually African-Americans and Latinos. Most disturbing, these activists are being backed by wealthy Republican benefactors and aligning with extremist anti-immigrant groups to carry out their project. In the South, this is one of the biggest threats to voting rights since the 1960s.”

Kromm just wrote a piece titled “Art Pope bankrolls dubious ‘voter fraud’ crusade.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167