Sharpton to Floridians: Don’t Let Them Steal Your Vote

Civil rights activist and founder of the National Action Network, Rev. Al Sharpton, kicked off his organization’s voter engagement tour in Eatonville Thursday, telling local leaders, activists and clergy that participation in and the outcome of the upcoming presidential election would determine the future of America for much of the remainder of this century. 

Sharpton, who announced earlier this week the NAN’s Ministers Initiative, is on a 30-state tour to educate and empower the electorate on how to combat the new and restrictive voter requirements that have been put in place by Republican-legislatures in key states across the country.

“Disenfranchising voters with these new ID laws is a new Jim Crow,” he said.  “It has a disproportionate impact on Black and Latino Voters and it’s set up, in our judgment, to try and tilt the congressional and presidential elections, and it undermines our voting rights.”

Sharpton noted too that it is significant NAN’s “Voter Engagement Tour” should begin on the very day the Republican Party had threatened to repeal the Affordable Care Act within hours of the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the law. Referencing also the House of Representatives’ vote to hold U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt, Sharpton said, it is for these reasons the protection of an individuals’ right to vote was paramount.

NAN’s Ministers Initiative is to ensure that every vote in every community across the nation is counted, Sharpton said. He rejected the claim that the new voter requirements have been put it place to prevent electoral fraud which amounted to about .0003 percent, and pointed out that about 5 million Americans could be disenfranchised in November, according to the Brennan Center for Justice in New York.

Efforts will be made to have the new voter laws rolled back, but Sharpton said, in case that doesn’t happen by November, voters should have the correct identification and other requirements in place in order to vote.

Reminding that many had lost their lives in the quest for having the right to vote, Sharpton said, it’s a small price to pay to protect that right.

“How do we answer our ancestors if we are an ID card away from preserving what they gave us?” he asked rhetorically. “We ought not to have anything if we are not willing to pay a small price to maintain it by those that paid such a high price.”

Noting that, Florida has been a testing ground in the past – getting away with hanging chads in 2000 and now trying with voter roll purges and new voter ID laws, Sharpton, speaking Biblically urged Floridians to remain vigilant.

“Florida, don’t let them steal your crown,” a fired-up Sharpton said.

Rev. Michael Waldron, jr. NAN´s National Director of the Ministry Division, summed up today’s events this way:

“This effort we are undertaking, and that the Ministry Division is spearheading in this voter engagement tour is to galvanize and organize a network of clergy and religious organizations around critical issues of social justice,” said Waldron.

“We are at a critical historical moment in our country. We are witnessing the attempted muzzling of voices that cry out for justice as well as unjust acts of voter suppression. This is a season in which we cannot sit idly by. Now is the time to act.”

Amen, Reverend, Amen.