Hope in Supreme Court Ruling

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 stated that it was now illegal to discriminate in employment decisions based on gender or race. The 14th Amendment took care of this issue legally, but our country required the passing of the Civil Rights Act to put the 14th Amendment into practice. The Civil Rights Act focused on preventing race from being used to hire, fire, or promote. The issue of sex was added at the last minute. The main focus was a racial one. Thus, we have the Equal Opportunity Clause you will find on every employment application and in every human resource handbook.
Pretty simple, right? Race cannot, legally, be used as a basis for any hiring, firing or promoting of a person.
But, then, we have Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action, or “positive action”, are policies that are designed to give opportunities to minorities.
In affirmative action policies, race and gender are taken into account, and companies are encouraged to hire and promote racial minorities and women in order to create a more diverse working environment, and according to NOW, to overcome past discrimination. That’s a whole other issue that I will hopefully deal with later.
Right now, though, the question is why does the 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 say one thing, but Affirmative Action says something contradictory, and we uphold the affirmative action policies over the Civil Rights Act?
If race shouldn’t be considered, then it SHOULDN’T be considered, at all.
Obama’s election to the highest elected office in this country proves that even if Affirmative Action policies were once necessary, they certainly are not any longer.
The Ricci case (Connecticut Firefighters) also shows that using race rather than merit is RACIST and illegal, and unconstitutional.
So, if the goal is be treated fairly under the law, to not be discriminated against in hiring, firing, or promoting, then race cannot be a factor any longer.
The playing field is level.
The decisions on whether or not to hire someone, fire them, or promote them should be merit based only.

Election Judge – what goes on in the trenches

What I learned in my first experiences at working the polls:   No one showed up, besides me, until 6:45 am.  We were instructed by the Secretary of State’s Office to be there by 6:15 am. Before the doors were unlocked, there were two cars waiting for the polls to open.  The signs were not posted.  The voting machines were not on, and the distance markers outside were not posted. 

  No one had any information for me.  I later found out that no one could LOCATE any information for me.  It was there, but because we were polling at the same location, the people running the polls for the democrat primaries received my information as well.  They misplaced my information, until the end of the day after the polls closed.  

I brought my own pens, thankfully, because none were provided for me.  The only information I received on time was the voter list, a stamp that read “republican” and a stamp pad.   The person who was supposed to come help me had her sister-in-law come up there to tell me she was sick and would not make it.  I worked the polls alone.

  The people working the polls for the democrat primaries campaigned and spoke out about how bad of a president Bush has been; in fact, one judge said that “Bush will go down as the worst president in the history of the United States ”.  He discussed how it was time for a change, and at the end of the polls, when people were supposed to be outside waiting for the people to finish voting and then re-enter for the caucus/convention, one of the election judges for the democrats told a racial joke against white people to a group of 10 or so black people. 

  I was told throughout the day that no one would show up to vote in the republican primary. This was said in front of 10 to 15 voters each time.  I was also told that I might not get paid because the republican party was too “damn” cheap and didn’t used to pay people anything to do it, and the democrats decided that they weren’t going to let the republicans “push anything else” onto them, and that’s why I was there.  Although, I volunteered my services, and when I agreed to do this, I did not know I would get paid anything.

  When people were in line to vote, the people running the polls for the democrats would say disparaging comments about the turnout for the republican primaries, such as “aren’t you lonely over there, by yourself?”, and “you’ve had fifty people show up; that’s more than we would have guessed.”

  While one of the judges continued to warn people against using cell phones in the building, he, himself, continued to talk on his phone to his family throughout the day. One of the judges continued to discuss how Obama was really bringing people out to the polls.

  While I worked the polls by myself, and there were not as many people show up to vote in the Republican Primary as the democrat one, I made sure that everything was done correctly (to the best of my knowledge) and efficiently.  It took four people to do this job for the democrat side, and one of the judges said that he has continuously asked to have more people allotted so that people don’t have to wait. 

  The reason people have to wait is because of how they do things.  They had someone who could not see without the use of a magnifying glass (this is NOT an exaggeration) writing the names on the voter list while another person read the ID number and name to her so that she could write it down.  Then, the person reading the information, out loud to everyone in the room, stamped the list (sometimes, more on this later), and then sent this person on to get the number to go to the electronic ballot.  The person running the electronic ballot only did that, nothing else.

  The other person, the second judge, was supposed to stamp the second book of voters, but instead, he was talking to the people standing in line and helping people use the electronic voting machines.  He was very patient with some people and thorough in his instructions.  With other people, he was short and would not provide additional help.  While he was talking to the people standing in the line, I was asked if I would help stamp the second list for them to help them stay caught up.  I did this for a while, since we were instructed by our County Clerk to make an effort to help each other and be polite.  After the third list of voters I stamped, for them, while they continued to be inefficient, I quit.

  Three more points, and then I am done: 1) People who said that they were committed to voting one way did not vote that way.

2) People were intimidated to come over to the republican table and identify themselves because of the number of people standing around waiting in the democrat line and how things were handled during these primaries.

3)      If you don’t think that people will try to prevent you from doing things correctly because they do them incorrectly and want to keep it that way, you are WRONG.

    Okay, one final thing, truly, then I really am finished. There was a woman (72) who passed out while standing at the electronic voting machine.  She fell backwards and hit her head on the table where I was sitting.  Guess who called 9-1-1 while everyone else stood around with their mouths open? 

  It certainly was an eye-opening experience.