The Democratic Party has announced they are preparing to dispatch thousands of lawyers on election day to monitor polling places in Florida so as to ensure proper procedures are being followed and that the so-called "disenfranchisement" of minority voters, experienced during the 2000 election, is not repeated.
(Incidentally, the preceeding sentence is a rare double play from the pages of the New York Times Stylebook; namely the dismissive bludgeoning of the subject with the use of "so-called" with the simultaneous disparagement of the "scare quotes." Maureen Dowd would be proud. Which, come to think of it, should be the chant that goes up whenever one of these Democrat lawyers publically flogs some poor 75-year-old election judge in Boca Raton for not bowing obsequiously enough when confronted with a non-registered, illegal alien, convicted felon, who thinks he might live in that precinct).
Needless to say, there is no substantive evidence of any disenfranchisement in 2000. It simply didn't happen. Yet the strategy the Democrats are adopting is that of a policeman (with an ax to grind) who chooses to follow closely behind behind a motorist until the poor sap, now under durress, happens to violate any one of hundreds of statutes and laws that have been enacted to regulate driving. And then the sirens go on and the hammer drops.
As I've previously stated in this forum, the typical poll worker is nothing more than a common citizen who has a heighted interest in public service. Usually these individuals are under-trained (at least by professional, lawerly standards) and subject to very trying working conditions. Proper implementation of election procedures relies on the poll worker's innate intelligence, quick-thinking ability, and an unstated social contract between the voter and poll worker that they're both going to act in good faith and they're going to do their best to move things along efficiently. As with driving, at times technical violations are made, yet the primary goal of the excercise is usually achieved, and it's all well within the spirit of the law and meeting the intent of all interested parties (in this case, the electorate and the candidates). Injecting hyper-interested vultures with goals other than the administration of elections into this process will only erode the de facto and necessary framework that has evolved around the act of voting. And I wouldn't be surprised that if these Democratic operatives chose to interefere (which they'll do only if they're losing), the very inefficiencies and "disenfranchisement" they claim to be fighting will ultimately be increased.
It also seems disingenous for the Democratic party to be enlisting thousands of lawyer-observers during the election, in the name of ensuring proper procedures are followed, when at the same time most counties are in desperate need for more (and more competent) election judges and poll workers. (In fact, the Miami Herald reports that South Florida still needs thousands of volunteers). These Democratic lawyers would be welcomed whole-heartedly if they volunteered to serve as poll workers. And given their professional credentials and presumed competence, they would naturally be assigned to the very precincts that were in dispute. If the Democratic Party truly had the proper implementation of election laws as their goal, they would simply have to encourage their educated elite to get involved with the mechanics of running elections and then they themselves would be personally and legally responsible for oversight. Yet, instead, they'd rather direct their resources toward the establishment of a class of professional finger pointers, second guessers, and hectorers. Rather than ensuring that voting rights are safeguared, it appears as if their real goal is to simply delegitimize any election result they don't like.
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