Election results announced November 8 reported that Socialist Workers candidate James Harris received 10,477 votes in the state of Florida, one of 13 states and the District of Columbia where the ticket of Harris and running mate Margaret Trowe were on the ballot. Several hours later the reported vote total had dropped to 589. According to press accounts, Harris had been credited with 9,888 votes in Volusia County, but county election officials later told media sources the initial report was in error.

"Our campaign has asked Florida officials for an explanation of these events," Harris said. "The initial large vote total from Volusia County, if press accounts are correct, was clearly not credible.

"Vote fraud is not an unusual occurrence in capitalist politics in the United States and elsewhere," he noted.

"From the standpoint of working people, however, the real fraud, the real scandal, lies elsewhere. Tens of millions of workers and farmers are politically disenfranchised because they do not have the opportunity to hear about the working-class alternative to the Democrats and Republicans and the capitalist two-party system as a whole. And many of them agree with much the socialist candidates stand for and would be attracted to our campaign if they knew about it.

"Undemocratic laws keep workers parties from gaining ballot access in most states," Harris said. "Presidential 'debates' bar any party that represents working people. There has been a virtual media blackout of the Socialist Workers campaign, our championing of the struggles by workers and farmers resisting the attacks of the employers and their government, and why a revolutionary movement needs to be built to fight for a government of workers and farmers."

Harris pointed out that when Farrell Dobbs ran for president on the Socialist Workers Party ticket in 1948, his speech accepting the party's nomination was broadcast nationwide over radio by the Mutual Broadcasting System, ABC, and other networks. "But today any semblance of what used to be called 'equal time' or coverage under the 'fairness doctrine' has been taken back by the courts, legislatures, and so-called regulatory agencies, with broad bipartisan backing," Harris said.

Harris, a garment worker and union member from Atlanta, said, "Margaret Trowe and I have received a tremendous response and serious interest across the country on strike picket lines, at actions against police brutality and in defense of immigrant rights, and at protests by farmers defending their land and right to their livelihood. We have discussed with thousands of working people the need to oppose the U.S. economic war against Cuba and why the Cuban socialist revolution stands in the interests of workers and farmers around the world. We have joined protests with others in recent weeks to demand that Israel withdraw from the Arab territories it occupied in 1967 and to advance the fight for a democratic, secular Palestine. Many working people and youth have wanted to continue discussions about why we should extend a hand of solidarity to workers and farmers worldwide and oppose Washington's military interventions from Yugoslavia to Iraq, from Korea to Colombia.

Workers and farmers in this country, the socialist candidate pointed out, have had to battle disenfranchisement for more than two centuries--from the fight against property qualifications and chattel slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries, to the movement for women's suffrage, to the mass struggle against "poll taxes" and "literacy tests" throughout the Jim Crow South, to manipulation of voter rolls today. In Florida, 31 percent of all Black men could not cast a ballot in this election--or in any election for the rest of their lives--due to laws that bar voting by anyone convicted of a felony. The total number of people affected by similar laws nationwide is 4.2 million.

"The tiny handful of propertied families who rule this country know the potential power and capacities of working people. They hope to keep the political arena restricted to parties that defend capitalism and within a 'lesser evil' framework. That is why they refuse to cover our campaign," Harris said.

"Against these odds we have sought to set an example for thousands across this country of a fighting, working-class, and revolutionary alternative. No matter who is declared winner in the elections, workers and farmers--both here at home and abroad--will need to deepen our resistance, the fight for independent working-class organization, and our mutual solidarity in face of a continued bipartisan offensive against our rights, social gains, standard of living, and conditions on the job and off.

"That is the struggle the Socialist Workers Party commits itself to in the weeks and months ahead."  
 
 
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