Advisory: Secretary Perdue in Georgia for the Sunbelt Ag Expo TOMORROW
(Washington, D.C., October 15, 2018) – U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue will be in Moultrie, Georgia TOMORROW, October 16th, for the Sunbelt Ag Expo.
Secretary Perdue to attend the Sunbelt Ag Expo
WHAT: Secretary Perdue will speak at the Willie B. Withers Sunbelt Ag Expo luncheon. After the lunch, he will hold a media availability.
WHEN: TOMORROW, Tuesday, October 16th beginning at 12:00pm ET
WHERE: Sunbelt Ag Expo, 290-G Harper Boulevard, Moultrie, GA 31788
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Intentional or Incompetence—Voter Suppression Where We Live
by Wim Laven
904 words
On October 15th, 2018 early voting in Georgia started. I arrived at my polling place at 1:56 p.m. and completed voting at 4:19 p.m. It is reportedthat county officials were not prepared for the turnout. That’s what I observed and experienced. There were not enough barriers to queue the long line, we broiled and steamed in the humid outdoor heat while waiting, and there weren’t enough parking spots either. I counted more than a dozen cars parked illegally while looking for a spot before, I confess, I went to a nearby McDonalds.
I’m in pretty good health, but I left dehydrated. I watched two people treated for symptoms of heat exhaustion. The first older gentleman collapsed while standing up. He was scary pale, and rescue workers were called to assist him. I cheered for him when they let him into the building to vote, it took about 20 minutes of supervised recovery, and I was worried he’d need to be hospitalized.
First responders also assisted a woman suffering from the heat. Her blood pressure of 74/48 brought several of my line neighbors to tears. We talked about how crazy it was that only people over 75 were being let into the air conditioning early, that the conditions were just not suitable for so many different medical conditions. Umbrellas were brought out to protect people from the sun. There was no water available until another line neighbor retrieved a case of water bottles from her car. They were consumed in a matter of minutes, and I saw the look of disappointment on the faces of people who missed out.
I reflected on the reports of waiting 6-8 hours in Florida in 2000. We imagined taking turns to fetch food, I fantasized ordering pizza to a polling line. It was broadly understood that if all the people who’d wanted to vote for Al Gore had been able to vote for him, that he’d have won the election. Along with many other irregularities, this means George W. Bush won the office of the President because of voter suppression. Election thieves must feel emboldened.
Once we were finally inside we were reminded of Georgia voting laws prohibiting the use of cell phones. We also saw the law requiring that people over 75 or with disabilities be advanced ahead of the line. One of my neighbors who identified her disability to a polling staffer asked, “How come it says that people with disabilities shouldn’t have to wait in line, but I was told I had to wait in line?” The worker’s response was that the person who told her that probably hadn’t had the training. I personally observed at least three individuals identify that they had disabilities told they could only receive accommodation if they were over 75 years old.
You might stop at questioning the degree to which the right to vote is protected when you hear stories about long wait times and medical hardships incurred in exercising the right to vote. But in Georgia, in 2018, Brian Kemp is the Republican candidate for Governor, and he also has official oversight over Georgia’s elections in his role of Secretary of State. He did not acknowledge any conflict of interest, but I find it hard to see it as anything but corrupt opportunism. Cobb county, where we were, voted for Hillary Clinton.Any reduction in voter turnout at my polling place would be good for his chances. If it is intentional, then it is criminal, he is directly responsible for protecting equal voting access, and he hasn’t. If it is accidental, then is demonstrative proof of his rote incompetence.
In 2018 we see many clear efforts to suppress voting demographics. In North Dakota P.O. boxes do not work as addresses for the purposes of voting. This is an effort to hand a Senate seat to a Republican candidate, because the population whose votes will be taken away—Native Americans living on reservations—favors the Democrat candidate. In Georgia we’d already watched Brian Kemp freeze 53,000 vote registrations, which were predominantly African American voters—who favor the Democrat candidate, and his political machine tried to slash black voter participation in a rural countybut was foiled this summer. In Florida the website for online registrations was down (and not repaired) for the last two days of signing up. Online registration favors those who have poor mobility, like disabilities or those who don’t own cars, which end up being predominately Democrats. Black students in Texaswere cut out and eventually only some allowed to vote because their struggle became a national story.
These are numbers games, this is dirty business, and it is figuratively and literally heart attack serious. Votes are regularly being decided by small margins; small manipulations have huge consequences. The vote is the most sacred feature of a democracy, but more and more it seems that winning by any means is everything. People are standing in long lines to get their voices heard, and I watched the scene turn into a potential matter of life and death for the most vulnerable—democracy is not only for the most physically fit. We must hold those responsible for these maleficent tactics accountable, and it is all clearly intentional. I waited in line for two hours today, I waited because someone didn’t want it to be easy for me to vote, and I told them “No!”
Now it’s your turn.
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Wim Laven, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is an instructor of Political Science and International Relations at Kennesaw State University, and on the Governing Council of the International Peace Research Association
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Happy National Energy Awareness Month! With the U.S. Department of Energy estimating families could save up to 25% on utilities with energy efficient measures, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2018’s Most & Least Energy-Efficient States as well as accompanying videos.
To gauge the financial impact of doing more with less energy — the average American household spends at least $2,000 per year on utilities and another $1,968 on motor fuel and oil — WalletHub compared the auto- and home-energy efficiency in 48 U.S. states. Due to data limitations, Alaska and Hawaii were excluded from our analysis.
Energy Efficiency in Utah (1=Most Energy-Efficient; 24=Avg.)
For the full report, please visit:
https://wallethub.com/edu/most-and-least-energy-efficient-states/7354/
