Equality Talk

Razor Thin Margin: The Oklahoma Secretary of State Attacks Poor, Homeless Petitioners and Signers

January 12th, 2008

In an irony trumping most ironies in the defense of the race preference industry, the Oklahoma Secretary of State and liberal critics of the Oklahoma Civil Rights Initiative (OkCRI) are attacking poor, homeless people in an effort to derail the petition drive. According to this AP article relayed by AOL, the OkCRI petitioners submitted a razor thin margin of roughly 2200 more signature than the necessary 138,970 signatures to qualify for the Oklahoma ballot.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Many names and addresses found on an initiative petition to ban government-sponsored race and gender preferences, or affirmative action, in Oklahoma were duplicated, Secretary of State Susan Savage said.

Her office tallied 141,184 signatures on the petition, which needs at least 138,970 valid signatures of registered voters to get on an election ballot if it also can survive any legal challenges.

“The petition signature pages are replete with duplicate signatures and duplicate addresses,” Savage wrote to the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

“Replete” and “many names”. Hmm. While that margin of 2200 is razor thin, let’s look at the numbers Savage thinks are “replete”:

The irregularities were reported to the attorney general to obtain guidance to ensure consistent compliance with the law during the count, she said.

The signature count resulted in an “unprecedented situation” where numerous duplications of names and addresses were discovered well into the signature counting process, Savage said.

The petition had 92 signatures that listed 415 Archer, 415 W. Archer, 415 E. Archer or 415 Ocher in Tulsa as an address, Savage told the court. The signatures were counted unless there was a signature found that didn’t comply with the law, she said.

Another 28 signatures listed 800 W. California, Oklahoma City, as an address, she said. Those signatures also were counted, she said.

Folks. That’s a 120. Less than 10% of the margin. And less than one-one-thousanth of the total number of signatures. Savage is right. OkCRI’s collection was unprecedented. Most petition drives in the past have had 10% or higher error rates. The best the SoS could do here is find only one-tenth of a percent. Anything short of perfection, and OkCRI is “replete” with fraud.

But let’s look at those 120 “duplicate addresses”. The Tulsa World relays the same AP story but has a comments section. Someone chimed in that one of those addresses was a homeless shelter. Well, it turns out both were (the Oklahoma City address is the City Rescue Mission, the Tulsa one a Day Center for Homeless) if you do a simple internet search.

That’s the rub - certainly the Oklahoma Secretary of State could or should be able to figure that out. And since most Democrats advocate for no identification voting access laws, primarily to allow the homeless and minorities easier access to vote; its easy to appreciate the irony and contradiction here. When its a drive run by “conservatives” or disliked by the liberal-establishment, and when they have control over the organs of governmental power and enforcement (the situation in Oklahoma is that the Democratic Attorney General and appointed Supreme Court “referee” control the process - with the AG actually prosecuting petitioners from a 2005-2006 anti-tax petition drive for “fraud” based on allegations circulators were “out-of-state” non-residents), the rights of homeless voters to sign or circulate petitions don’t matter. So here, you have a situation where the Democrats are simply abandoning their defense of open and unsecure voting in favor of the highest security. Hypocrisy doesn’t come better than that.

But OkCRI’s 2200 signature margin is light, and I’ll make the editorial prediction that regardless of how good its verification system was (which appears to have been as tight as you can get), politics means it won’t matter. The referee would reject it if one signature had a glitch. And while you might blame OkCRI for not submitting a mammoth cushion like MCRI did in 2005, keep in mind the environment. As noted above, the fascist Attorney General in Oklahoma - Drew Edmondson - based solely on the notion that they brought out-of-state petitioners into Oklahoma in 2006. In that chilling environment, its a miracle any signature was collected 2007.

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Connerly Donates to OBama

January 11th, 2008

You’ve gotta love Ward Connerly’s flair for the interesting. He’s donated $500 to Barack O’Bama, “in recognition” of O’Bama’s statement that he doesn’t want to be judged on skin color. From the Orange County Register (which appears to be citing an Arizona paper):

Connerly is best known as the former regent of the University of California system who led initiatives in California, Washington and Michigan to forbid any consideration of race in determining admission to public colleges and universities. He was in Phoenix Thursday to speak about a new initiative campaign this year to pass constitutional amendments in five states to end all affirmation action programs related to education, government employment and public contracts.

But Connerly was asked about the role of race in the presidential campaign, with Obama being touted as a black candidate with the best chance ever to win the White House.

Connerly said he almost certainly won’t vote for Obama, as they are polar opposites on most policy issues. But Connerly said he has donated $500 to Obama’s campaign in recognition that Obama doesn’t want his race to factor at all into voters’ decisions.

“I think that’s how most Americans feel,” Connerly said. “The people of New Hampshire. The people of Iowa. People want to get beyond it, especially those 18- to 30-year-olds who are part of this new dynamic, energetic Obamamania.