Civil rights groups have filed a lawsuit against Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, accusing her office of illegally purging voter registration rolls based on false challenges to the citizenship status of some residents.
The suit is the latest example in a recent string of allegations concerning voter fraud, voter intimidation and the effectiveness of electronic voting machines. It seems a contentious election is becoming all the more so as we count down the days to Nov. 4.
It is a fear that pokes its ugly but warranted head every election cycle, and calls for reform dissipate in intermittent years. Democrats accuse Republicans of voter intimidation, and Republicans accuse Democrats of stuffing the ballot. Perhaps both are right, to a point, but this does nothing to alleviate that great scandal of democracy: voter fraud.
Several stories hitting the news wires today have refocused attention on this glaring problem. (more…)
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has pulled the plug on television advertising here in Georgia. The Obama campaign has spent more than $2 million dollars on ads since January, hoping his message of “change” would resonate with voters. But with the addition of Christian conservative Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to the Republican ticket, and a double-digit lead in Georgia according to most polls, it seems unlikely that the state will flip blue for the first time since 1992. (more…)
September’s Point-Counterpoint welcomes James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, and Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, to a debate regarding the effectiveness of abstinence-only sex education in our nation’s public schools. The controversial program is part of the standard curriculum here in Georgia, where teen birth rates have declined since 1994. But is abstinence-only education responsible for this reduction, or are there other circumstances at work? (more…)
In this month’s print edition of Atlanta Life, Jonathan Hassid, a Fulbright scholar conducting research on political aspects of the Chinese news media, and Dr. Baogang Guo, the President-elect of the Association of Chinese Political Studies, debate the human rights issues confronting China and how these issues will be handled by the press and citizenry during the Olympics (Point-Counterpoint, pgs. 10-13).
The Chinese government had promised the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that it would open its doors to the world, allow foreign media complete freedom to report, and allow protests in designated areas during the games. While human rights organizations and the international community had hoped the Olympics would serve as a catalyst for democratic change in China, that desire has not come into fruition. In the weeks leading up to the opening ceremonies on August 8, several crackdowns were made on journalists and dissidents inside the country. Amnesty International (AI) issued a report detailing China’s failure to keep its promises of reform, and, in a twist of fate underscoring this point, the Chinese government blocked foreign journalists from accessing the AI report online. (more…)
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