Prince George’s County Chairman Jack Johnson urged a U.S. Senate panel Thursday to outlaw deceptive campaign fliers like those distributed during the November 2006 election.
Johnson testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee with Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., a co-sponsor of a bill designed to prevent deceptive voting practices.
“Citizens must be informed,” Johnson said, “but they should not get false and deceptive information that serve to undermine the values that hold our republic together.”
The committee examined recent elections in which campaigns deliberately attempted to disenfranchise black and Hispanic voters by sending official-looking literature that gave the wrong date for the election or suggested the people could be arrested at the polls if they had unpaid parking tickets or overdue rent.
Johnson described a voters guide
that was distributed in Prince George’s County on Election Day suggesting that Johnson and two other Democratic Party leaders endorsed the Republican candidates for governor and senate.
Under their pictures was the statement: “These are OUR choices.”
The fliers were passed out at polling places by homeless men who were bused in from Pennsylvania to the black-majority Prince George’s County. The men were promised meals and $100.
Johnson called the tactic “offensive.”
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., testified that he asked the U.S. Department of Justice to look into the Prince George’s County matter, but was told that authorities had no legal basis to investigate.
Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said the pattern to try to dissuade voters from going to the polls was similar to the Jim Crow-era laws designed to make it nearly impossible for blacks to vote.
“This is the poll tax of our time,” he said.
The Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention bill bans the distribution of false and deceptive information intended to prevent a person from voting. Punishment would include jail time.
