NEW YORK – Greg Palast wins the December Sidney Award for “Jim Crow Returns,” and “Challenging Crosscheck,” a two-part Aljazeera America exposé that shows how millions of innocent people were flagged as suspected vote fraudsters just because they have the same first and last name as someone in another state. On the eve of the 2014 elections, officials had begun to purge voters based upon Interstate Crosscheck, voter fraud prevention software. More than 40,000 voters were dropped from the rolls in Virginia alone. “It was absolute murder trying to get the Crosscheck lists out of the hands of these highly political agencies,” Palast said. “They knew damn well the lists were phonies—just common ethnic names, an excuse to knock off Democrats—and dynamite if exposed.” In the states Palast studied, anyone with a common name is at risk, but the system disproportionately flags voters of color: If you’re white, you have a 1 in 11 chance of being flagged. If you’re Asian or Hispanic, your odds are 1 in 8. If you’re black, the odds are 1 in 7 that someone in another Crosscheck state shares your first and last name. “Greg Palast has uncovered a major threat to voting rights,” said Sidney judge Lindsay Beyerstein. “Crosscheck is casting unwarranted suspicion on innocent people and endangering their right to vote.” Read more here: gregpalast/palast-wins-sidney-prize-for-exposing-new-threat-to-voters-of-color/ *** A note from Greg.... I am truly honored to receive this prestigious award. But that don’t pay the bills. It took six months of a team of six of us to lift the Crosscheck purge lists from the locked file cabinets of Secretaries of State who’d make Katherine Harris look like Thomas Jefferson. We have ambitious plans for 2015, with investigations insanely difficult (and none too cheap) to execute. Please support the continuation of this crucial work with tax-deductible donation to the Palast Investigative Fund: palastinvestigativefund.org/?id=69 You can also browse our signed gifts for the holidays: palastinvestigativefund.org/ And we need 12 Donors who can give $1,000 or more. You will get a Producer credit in the new film. palastinvestigativefund.org/?producer2 #BlackLivesMatter #ICantBreathe
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 17:52:32 +0000
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