Black Vote

Regarding Leonard Pitts' column about the impact of voter ID laws on African-Americans, it's time to squelch the outrage and be sensible ("With its voting rights threatened, black America is silent," July 15). Do we want to continue to proclaim our outrage and, as a result, let those votes be lost? These dastardly laws are in place and nothing can be done about them. So let's move on. Let's make sure that those now without valid photo IDs get them. These are mostly poor black people.

Regarding Leonard Pitts' column about the impact of voter ID laws on African-Americans, it's time to squelch the outrage and be sensible ("With its voting rights threatened, black America is silent," July 15). Do we want to continue to proclaim our outrage and, as a result, let those votes be lost? These dastardly laws are in place and nothing can be done about them. So let's move on. Let's make sure that those now without valid photo IDs get them. These are mostly poor black people.

The embattled former campaign manager for Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. took the witness stand in his own defense Friday, denying that he planned a last-minute Election Day effort last year to suppress the black vote in Baltimore and Prince George's County in a desperate push for Ehrlich to regain the governorship. Paul Schurick, 55, testified that Ehrlich needed more — not fewer — crossover African-American voters to boost his 2010 candidacy. He said that during a July meeting, he rejected political consultant Julius Henson's strategy — laid out in what Henson called the "Schurick Doctrine" — to keep those votes down.

An open letter to African America: In the late '90s, the Internet belched forth a rumor that the Voting Rights Act was soon to expire and that black folks would lose the vote as a result. Though stupid and untrue, the rumor spread like a dust cloud till it was inescapable. You couldn't get away from it in a confession booth. You couldn't get away from it in a phone booth. Everybody was up in arms. Flash forward to 2012. Now the threat is real. There is a sustained effort to suppress the black vote as we approach this pivotal election.

SENDING RUNNING mate Jack Kemp to campaign in South Central Los Angeles doesn't mean Bob Dole has abandoned the Republicans' vaunted Southern Strategy and is now counting on African-American votes to win him the presidency. Mr. Dole would love to increase the typically 10 percent of the black vote garnered by a Republican. But he knows the success of a GOP presidential candidate still hinges on his ability to bond with white, male conservatives.Mr. Kemp's mission is guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines.

ATLANTA -- Invoking the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his own Southern roots, Vice President Al Gore came to a historic black section of Atlanta yesterday to launch a national effort to encourage African-Americans to turn out for him at the polls, in the primaries and next November."

Black voters may have been a deciding factor in Democrat Ellen O. Moyer's victory over Republican Herbert H. McMillan on Tuesday in the Annapolis mayoral race. Moyer, according to the unofficial tally, won by about 700 votes, with large margins in Wards 3, 4 and 6. Those wards, which became the city's three primarily black wards after this summer's redistricting, all elected black council members, the largest minority contingent on the council at one time in a city that is nearly one-third black.

An open letter to African America: In the late '90s, the Internet belched forth a rumor that the Voting Rights Act was soon to expire and that black folks would lose the vote as a result. Though stupid and untrue, the rumor spread like a dust cloud till it was inescapable. You couldn't get away from it in a confession booth. You couldn't get away from it in a phone booth. Everybody was up in arms. Flash forward to 2012. Now the threat is real. There is a sustained effort to suppress the black vote as we approach this pivotal election.

WASHINGTON - Sometimes I receive letters or e-mails that begin something like this: "I can't understand why blacks - or African-Americans or whatever it is you want to call yourselves these days - stay so loyal to the Democratic Party. After all, President Bush appointed Colin Powell as his secretary of state and Condoleezza Rice as his foreign policy adviser." And he showed good taste by doing so, didn't he? However, as groundbreaking as their appointments were, most black people I know still are waiting for the Bush administration to create more jobs for blacks than just the two mentioned above.

Less than two weeks before the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, the campaign of former Congressman Kweisi Mfume has scored endorsements from Maryland's two black congressmen - nods that could help boost crucial turnout among African-American voters. But Mfume's chief rival for the nomination, U.S. Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin, is not ceding the black vote to the former NAACP president. U.S. HOUSE: Republican Rick Hoover is running in the 3rd District. pg 5B

Political consultant Julius Henson returned to the witness stand Monday and placed blame for a controversial Election Day 2010 robocall on a top campaign aide to former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. Henson told jurors in Baltimore Circuit Court that he was eating with his granddaughter at a Baltimore McDonald's at 4:42 p.m. Election Day when Ehrlich campaign manager Paul Schurick called him and authorized Henson to arrange the call — which prosecutors...

Political consultant Julius Henson took the witness stand Friday to defend himself against charges he tried to suppress the black vote on Election Day 2010, saying his job in former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s campaign was to encourage minorities to vote for the Republican. Henson said he had proposed working as a general consultant with a "bold" broad-based plan to help Ehrlich return to the governor's mansion. Instead, Henson said, his designated role was "outreach" to black communities.

One document proposed a deliberate plan to suppress black votes: "The first and most desired outcome is voter suppression. " Another depicted the campaign of former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. promising a bonus to consultant Julius Henson if he made "the city turnout stay low" on Election Day 2010.  A third document contained notes from a Henson employee that said: "Suppress turnout in black communities," next to the words: "Obama, O'Malley,...

A defense lawyer asked a Baltimore judge Monday to throw out election fraud charges against veteran political consultant Julius Henson, arguing that Henson was exercising his right to free speech when he composed a misleading Election Day robo-call. Defense lawyer Edward Smith Jr. told the court he did not dispute the facts in the prosecutors' case against his client. "Mr. Henson wrote the text of the call," he said. Smith argued, however, that Henson had a legal right to create the call - which prosecutors contend violated state law by using false information to try to supress the black vote.

So here's how it is: You have no driver's license because you have nothing to drive. You have no passport because you've never been out of the country. You have no other photo ID because you have no bank account. You work and get paid under the table, a wad of cash sliding from hand to hand. It is a life lived in the margins. And if South Carolina and a number of other GOP-controlled states have their way, it will be a life to which a significant new impediment will be added: You will not be able to vote.

As I follow your coverage of the Paul Schurick voter suppression trial ("No plan to suppress the black vote, Schurick says," Nov. 3), I find I'm more amazed at the number of public officials willing to vouch, under oath, for the character of a man who clearly tried to mislead voters on election day, in effect attempting to steal their votes. That it wouldn't have changed the outcome of the election is immaterial. The deviousness and dishonesty of the ploy should have sent former Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele, former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and the others running in the other direction when asked to testify on Mr. Schurick's behalf.

As I follow your coverage of the Paul Schurick voter suppression trial ("No plan to suppress the black vote, Schurick says," Nov. 3), I find I'm more amazed at the number of public officials willing to vouch, under oath, for the character of a man who clearly tried to mislead voters on election day, in effect attempting to steal their votes. That it wouldn't have changed the outcome of the election is immaterial. The deviousness and dishonesty of the ploy should have sent former Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele, former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and the others running in the other direction when asked to testify on Mr. Schurick's behalf.

TRENTON, N.J. -- Staking a position markedly different from that of some black ministers and civil rights leaders, the New Jersey Chapter of the NAACP urged Gov.-elect Christine Todd Whitman yesterday not to take office until investigations clear her of allegations that Republicans spent $500,000 to suppress the urban black vote."

The embattled former campaign manager for Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. took the witness stand in his own defense Friday, denying that he planned a last-minute Election Day effort last year to suppress the black vote in Baltimore and Prince George's County in a desperate push for Ehrlich to regain the governorship. Paul Schurick, 55, testified that Ehrlich needed more — not fewer — crossover African-American voters to boost his 2010 candidacy. He said that during a July meeting, he rejected political consultant Julius Henson's strategy — laid out in what Henson called the "Schurick Doctrine" — to keep those votes down.

State prosecutors rested their election fraud case Wednesday against a top aide to former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. after introducing matter-of-fact campaign documents addressing a plan to suppress African-American votes. The documents, seized by FBI agents through raids and subpoenas in their investigation of Ehrlich campaign manager Paul Schurick and political consultant Julius Henson, show the activities of Henson's company, Universal Elections Inc., in the buildup to the November 2010 gubernatorial election.