These are the words of an elderly black voter in Florida. According to NY Times columnist Frank Herbert, there's something rotten in the state of Florida, and it has nothing to do with the Hurricane Charley.

As part of an investigation into alleged voter fraud, armed and plainclothes police are going into absentee voter homes and interrogating them. The catch: they're mostly elderly black people. Just a coincidence, apparently. Since Dept. of Law Enforcement Spokesperson Geo Morales said: "That's just the people we selected out of a random sample to interview"

What can you do about it?

I'm not sure, but I'd start by writing or calling your representative and Congressperson. Get some pressure on these Florida yahoos, because last time they let this garbage slip, and we really can't have that again.

You can find an write your representative / Senator at Congress.org

Here's the letter I just sent to my rep. Literally took five minutes:

Dear Rep Capuano,

I'm a registered voter [personal ass-kissing part removed]...

I'm writing because I've just read a disturbing news article which
suggests that AGAIN, black voters in Florida are being subjected to
intimidation.

The Department of Law Enforcement there is investigating charges of voter
fraud in Orlando. While I'm against voter fraud, I'm also against the
apparent tactics employed.

Police, sometimes armed and in full uniform, are going door to door
interrogating absentee voters from the Orlando mayoral election.

The DLE spokesperson said it was "random" that these "interviews" were
conducted primarily in elderly black neighborhoods.

I find that hard to believe.

I hope your or someone on your staff will followup on these allegations of
intimidation.

Some relevant news articles are here:

http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3854651

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/16/opinion/16herbert.html

I hope that you can then put some pressure on your colleagues from Florida
to make sure we nip this in the bud. I was very disappointed in the
Congressional reaction to the shenanigans employed during the 2000
election.

Let's not have such a tragedy repeated.

Thank you

Sincerely,

Baratunde R Thurston