Media Vote Suppression Tactics
Election Day Has Finally Arrived!
Today is Tuesday, November 4.
Not only is this Election Day, but Laura Bush is also celebrating her birthday today. As the current First Lady celebrates her 62nd birthday, she’s also thinking about packing up for her move out of the White House. Who will move in next? We won’t truly know that until later tonight. Of course if you’ve been listening to a lot of the talking head news casters and other political pundits, some might believe the election is already over and a winner declared.
Don’t Believe The Talking Heads! The Media Is Trying To Suppress The Vote!
Has The Media Not Learned Anything?
During the past few weeks a lot of talk has centered around media bias when it comes to pushing one candidate over another. Last Friday I was a guest on Gary Baumgarten’s News Talk Online show on PalTalk. Gary invited myself, along with Mary Walter from Fox News Talk, to discuss the Skewed Election Coverage. It was a fascinating discussion and we covered a lot of ground. You can read about the show, and listen to the show on Gary’s blog, The Gary Baumgarten Report. During the course of the show we also discussed a report on the Project for Excellence in Journalism site entitled The Color of News. The report is interesting as it discusses how the media, especially news media outlets, have covered the current presidential election cycle we find ourselves in.
Now, as we find ourselves on election day, there appears to be yet another tactic at the forefront of some media outlets mind. The new agenda appears to be a voter suppression tactic. How are they doing this? By declaring the polls to be correct and in turn declaring a winner.
CNN Radio Political Analyst Declares A Winner At 4am!
When it comes to the blatant bias of the news media, I have been rather vocal concerning my disgust for the situation. However, through it all, I’ve also publicly said…
“While it’s obvious CNN TV has a left bias, for the most part, CNN Radio does a good job at remaining balanced.”
That may have gone out the window this morning at 4am. I was amazed, surprised, and disgusted by the fact that CNN keeps airing a report from a CNN Political Analyst who is already declaring Senator Obama as the winner. The so-called analyst says the polling, (take note this is NOT the vote), shows Obama with more electoral votes. Therefore, the CNN analyst goes on to say, that means Senator Obama will win the Presidential election. Not only should CNN Radio be ashamed of such a comment, but they need to yank that story from the news run right now.
Polls Do Not Determine Election Winners — Voters Do!
In the end, such tactics, along with similar tactics by other news media outlets, amount to nothing more than voter suppression. I’ve found the various voter suppression tactics amazing. Running up to the actual election day, many suppression tactics have gone forward.
- Vote early! In other words, certain candidates, and news outlets, wanted you to vote early, before you could change your mind by the time the actual voting day arrived.
- Use an Absentee Ballot. Did you know the Absentee ballots are NOT counted unless the election is too close to call? In other words, if you use an absentee ballot, your vote may not even be counted!
- Beware of long lines! A couple weeks ago stories started coming out saying this election day would see a record turnout at the polls. As a result, because of long lines, you could have a long wait. In other words, don’t waste your time going to the polls because you will have a long wait.
- Now, the pundits and pollsters are declaring a winner, even before most polls even opened! In other words, it’s a done deal. Your vote won’t count because the polls have already said who’s going to win.
Don’t believe any of these tactics…Every Vote Counts!
Will the vote suppression tactics work? That’s hard to say. Maybe the pollsters should do a poll when this is all said and done asking the simple question – Did media reports keep you away from the polls? In the midst of the voter suppression tactics here’s another good point to keep in mind…
In past years when media and news outlets have declared a winner…
they’ve been wrong!
Whatever the case may be, this is election day. It’s an important day to get out and vote, and remember, every vote does indeed count.
Just my two cents,
Dr. Rus
