NAACP Mounts Nationwide Voter Protection Effort The Selma Initiative
Hotline and lawyers deployed to protect voters on Election Day adds to the organization’s robust ongoing mobilization work
On March 21, 1965, thousands of nonviolent protesters marched out of Selma, Alabama alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. Five days later, they arrived in Montgomery and gathered on the steps of the Capitol, demanding equal and full rights of citizenship. Five months later, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.
Today, November 3, 2016, we stand five days away from the first presidential election in more than fifty years in which the Justice Department will operate without the full support of the Voting Rights Act. People of color, seniors, young people and immigrants are uniquely vulnerable this year, with months of warnings of voter fraud and a "rigged" election on the campaign trail.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has launched a nationwide voter protection initiative to safeguard Americans exercising their constitutional rights in this election. We have mobilized our two million digital activists, nearly half million card-carrying members, and 2,200 local units to join our effort. In these five final, critical days before the election - our own Selma to Montgomery sprint - we are working around the clock to protect all citizens from voter suppression.
The NAACP national mobilization campaign targets 17 critically vulnerable states and supports all 50. Through door-to-door canvassing, more than 40 in-person phone banks and countless more automated voter outreach drives, we have reached more than 6,022 African American precincts (those with an African American population at least 65%).
"In every presidential election since 1965, we have battled to increase the turnout of black voters, and once again we are doing everything in our power to encourage black voters to get to the polls in record numbers," said NAACP President and CEO Cornell W. Brooks. "The kinds of threats we have heard in recent months--ID checks, voter intimidation, misinformation campaigns--harken back to the first half of the 20th century. And although the current iteration of the Voting Rights Act is not nearly as powerful as it was, make no mistake: these practices are illegal, and they are wrong."
The NAACP mobilized staff and operationalized national resources to fight voter suppression:
* We joined with the National Election Protection Coalition to make sure every American can exercise their constitutional right this November.
* In voter suppression states like Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Texas, state conferences sent letters to their election officials informing them of voting machine malfunctions which keep voters from electing their candidates of choice, and to provide the required notice for Election Day vote monitoring.
* The Texas NAACP, as a plaintiff in the Veasey v. Perry case, worked to ensure the Secretary of State's office properly informed voters of their right to cast a regular ballot with alternative identification, if they do not have voter identification, as outlined in the SB14 law.
* We collaborated with BET, the Sheryl Underwood Radio Network and Bishop T.D. Jakes of the Potter's House in Dallas for a series of national public service announcements and voter education.
* We partnered with other organizations with national networks, from the AME Church to the Divine 9 to the Masons, Shriners and The Links, to get out the vote and raise awareness about voter suppression.
* This week the NAACP sued North Carolina due to discriminatory practices in voter purging.
In these final days before the election, the NAACP's national campaign - our Selma Initiative - is providing crucial voter information and serving as a resource for reporting voter obstruction:
* Members of the NAACP legal team have crossed the country, training organizers on the ground, sharing resources available from the national office and holding webinars with all NAACP regions on how to respond to potential voter misinformation and intimidation tactics.
* As part of its work with the National Election Protection Coalition, organizers have recruited and trained lawyers, law students and other legal professionals to work in call centers on Election Day.
* At the Election Day Command Center at the NAACP's National Headquarters, volunteers will staff 10 election protection stations and more than 20 phone banks throughout polling hours.
* NAACP experts have set up the Vote Monitor Hotline so voters can directly report efforts to prevent voters from casting their ballots.
If you experience or witness voter obstruction on or before Election Day, email votemonitor@naacpnet.org or call 1-866-OUR-VOTE to report the incident or ask for help.
Founded Feb. 12. 1909, the NAACP is the nation's oldest, largest and most widely recognized grassroots-based civil rights organization. Its more than half-million members and supporters throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.
'Incredible': Leftists Poised to Win Most Seats in France as Voters Reject Fascists
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the leftist La France Insoumise party, called the election results an "immense relief for a majority of people in our country."
This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates...
Preliminary results from France's parliamentary election on Sunday show that strategic collaboration between the left and allies of President Emmanuel Macron has succeeded in preventing Marine Le Pen's fascist National Rally from winning an absolute majority.
According to projections released shortly after polls closed, Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP)—a coalition of left-of-center parties formed ahead of the snap elections to counter the far-right—is on track to secure the largest number of seats in parliament. The Financial Timesreported that NFP is expected to win "anywhere from 170 to 215 seats," while Macron's centrist alliance was "running close behind, with pollsters predicting ranges of 140 to 180 seats, a big drop from the roughly 250 they held in the outgoing National Assembly."
Le Pen's Rassemblement National (RN) is expected to finish third with between 120 and 150 seats.
Following the first round of voting last weekend, hundreds of candidates from Macron's alliance and parties within the NFP dropped out of three-way runoff races in a strategic bid to defeat RN candidates—an effort that appears to have paid off in a major way.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the leftist La France Insoumise party, called the early election results an "immense relief for a majority of people in our country" and urged Macron to resign and allow the left to govern.
"The united left saved the republic," said Mélenchon. "It can begin the ecological and social work that our people, our time, our world, [and] our Europe so badly need."
The Associated Pressnoted that the leftist leader's speech "is an indication of what's ahead" as coalitions prepare to jockey over who will lead the government.
"He says he will not negotiate with Macron, and Macron has refused to negotiate with him," AP added.
Israeli Newspaper Confirms IDF Employed 'Hannibal Directive' on October 7
IDF soldiers were reportedly ordered to "turn the area around the border fence into a killing zone."
The Israeli newspaper Haaretzreported Sunday that Israel's military repeatedly employed a protocol known as the "Hannibal Directive" during the October 7 Hamas-led attack in an attempt to prevent the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers—even if it meant putting the lives of army captives and civilians at risk.
Haaretz found based on documents and interviews with soldiers and senior Israeli officers that Hannibal—an operational order developed in 1986 that "directs the use of force to prevent soldiers being taken into captivity" by enemy militants—was used "at three army facilities infiltrated by Hamas, potentially endangering civilians as well."
During the first hours of the Hamas-led attack, according to Haaretz, Israeli soldiers were given an order: "Not a single vehicle can return to Gaza."
"At this point, the IDF was not aware of the extent of kidnapping along the Gaza border, but it did know that many people were involved," the newspaper continued. "Thus, it was entirely clear what that message meant, and what the fate of some of the kidnapped people would be."
The full text of the Hannibal Directive has never been published. But according to a Haaretz story about the directive from more than two decades ago, part of it states that "during an abduction, the major mission is to rescue our soldiers from the abductors even at the price of harming or wounding our soldiers."
"Light-arms fire is to be used in order to bring the abductors to the ground or to stop them," it adds. "If the vehicle or the abductors do not stop, single-shot (sniper) fire should be aimed at them, deliberately, in order to hit the abductors, even if this means hitting our soldiers. In any event, everything will be done to stop the vehicle and not allow it to escape."
Israeli authorities have acknowledged "multiple incidents of our forces firing on our forces" on October 7. In April, Israel's military said that one of the hostages taken by Hamas militants during the October attack was likely killed by Israeli helicopter fire.
But the IDF, which has killed more than 38,000 people in Gaza since October 7, has declined to say whether Hannibal was used during the Hamas-led attack.
Haaretz stressed Sunday that it "does not know whether or how many civilians and soldiers were hit due to these procedures, but the cumulative data indicates that many of the kidnapped people were at risk, exposed to Israeli gunfire, even if they were not the target."
The first of the known uses of the Hannibal Directive on October 7 came "when an observation post at the Yiftah outpost reported that someone had been kidnapped at the Erez border crossing, adjacent to the IDF's liaison office," Haaretz reported.
"'Hannibal at Erez' came the command from divisional headquarters, 'dispatch a Zik.' The Zik is an unmanned assault drone, and the meaning of this command was clear," the newspaper found.
The directive was employed at least two additional times during the attack, according to Haaretz, which cited one unnamed source in Israel's Southern Command as saying that the country's forces were instructed to "turn the area around the border fence into a killing zone, closing it off toward the west."
The newspaper continued:
One case in which it is known that civilians were hit, a case that received wide coverage, took place in the house of Pessi Cohen at Kibbutz Be'eri. Fourteen hostages were held in the house as the IDF attacked it, with 13 of them killed. In the coming weeks, the IDF is expected to publish the results of its investigation of the incident, which will answer the question of whether Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram, the commander of Division 99 who was in charge of operations in Be'eri on October 7, was employing the Hannibal procedure. Did he order the tank to move ahead even at the cost of civilian casualties, as he stated in an interview he gave later to The New York Times?
Haaretz's reporting comes weeks after a United Nations investigation concluded that the IDF "had likely applied the Hannibal Directive" on October 7, killing more than a dozen Israeli civilians.
Sanders on Biden: 'He's Gotta Do Better'
"The American people want an agenda for the next four years that speaks to the needs of the working class of this country," said Sen. Bernie Sanders. "And frankly, I don't think the president has brought that agenda forward."
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday that President Joe Biden must do a better job articulating a positive agenda to the American public as he faces mounting calls to step aside following his disastrous debate performance against presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.
Sanders (I-Vt.) has thus far declined to join the growing chorus demanding that Biden drop his reelection bid, but the senator acknowledged in an appearance on CBS News' "Face the Nation" that the president had a "terrible" debate and that concerns about his performance are "legitimate."
"I think he's done better since, and I think he's gotta do better again," said Sanders, who competed against Biden in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. "But I think most importantly now, this is not a beauty contest, it's not a Grammy award contest. It is a contest of who stands with the vast majority of the people of this country—the elderly, the children, the working class, the poor. And that candidate is obviously Joe Biden."
.@SenSanders says he will not participate in a conversation organized by a fellow Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, to discuss the future of the party’s presidential ticket: "No, I have not been invited. No, I will not attend." He describes Warner as "one of the more… pic.twitter.com/us4WCp2UkE
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) July 7, 2024
Sanders said he would not take part in a conversation organized by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who is reportedly trying to bring together a group of senators to urge Biden to drop out of the 2024 race and clear the way for an alternative candidate to take on Trump in November as the president faces a revolt from donors and Democratic lawmakers.
"Mark is a friend of mine. I like Mark," the Vermont senator said when asked about the effort. "He's one of the more conservative members of the Democratic caucus. No, I have not been invited. No, I will not attend."
Sanders implored Biden, who has insisted he intends to stay in the race, to recognize that touting his first-term achievements will not be enough to defeat Trump, whom the senator described as "the most dangerous president in the history of this country."
"The American people are hurting," said Sanders. "Sixty percent of our people are living paycheck to paycheck, 25% of elderly people are trying to get by on $15,000 a year or less. The American people want an agenda for the next four years that speaks to the needs of the working class of this country. And frankly, I don't think the president has brought that agenda forward."
"He has gotta say, 'I am prepared to take on corporate greed, massive income and wealth inequality, and stand with the working class of this country,'" Sanders continued. "He does that, he's gonna win and win big."
"President Biden can clearly defeat Donald Trump, the most dangerous president in the history of this country," @SenSanders says, but he says Biden's campaign needs to address how "the American people are hurting" economically.
"The American people want an agenda for the next… pic.twitter.com/tyilv7OPTn
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) July 7, 2024
Sanders' "Face the Nation" appearance came less than 48 hours after Biden's televised and closely watched ABC Newsinterview, which did little to assuage the concerns of those calling on the president to step aside.
The New York Timesreported based on recent interviews with more than 50 Democrats that "growing swaths" of the party now believe "that by remaining on the ticket, the president is jeopardizing their ability to maintain the White House and threatening other candidates up and down the ballot."
"Certainly, many leading Democrats have publicly expressed support for the president, or remained quiet about any misgivings," the Times noted Sunday. "One senior White House official, however, who has worked with Mr. Biden during his presidency, vice presidency, and 2020 campaign, said in an interview on Saturday morning that Mr. Biden should not seek reelection."