Muslims Seek Bloc Vote in US Election
Agence France Presse reports on efforts by Muslim groups to engineer a bloc vote in the US election, if they can elicit “iron-clad promises”on certain issues: Muslims seek bloc vote for US election. (Anyone think Israel might be one of those issues?)
Notice where the report is filed from (and notice that AFP reports an “estimated six million Muslims” in the US, the usual highly inflated number):
BRIDGEVIEW, United States (AFP) - US Muslims have embarked on a vast drive get the community registered to vote in the presidential election to build what could be a potentially powerful voice in deciding the winner.
The war on terror launched by President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks has antagonized huge numbers of the estimated six million Muslim Americans.
Concerns about US foreign policy in the Middle East have been replaced with concerns about their own civil rights among Muslim leaders who are now seeking to get as many people registered as possible.
“I got another one,” crowed Anam El-Jabali, waving her clipboard in victory as she emerged from a mosque here to compare notes with two other volunteers.
“He’s Palestinian. He’s lived here for 40 years, and he’s never voted, but he’ll vote on November 2.”
It was quite an accomplishment, noted the Palestinian-American mother of five.
“The old men are the hardest,” to sign up, she explained. “They’ve lived here forever, but they feel hopeless. They just want to keep a low profile, and keep out of trouble.”
Voter registration drives, like this one at the Bridgeview Mosque Foundation in suburban Chicago, have been the order of the day at mosques and Islamic centers across the nation in the past couple of months.
Muslim groups say the outreach effort has been unprecedented in size and scope, although they are still waiting on hard figures that would show exactly how successful they have been.
The likely beneficiary will be Democratic challenger, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, although The American Muslim Task Force on Elections, an umbrella group bringing together nine US Muslim groups, has held off endorsing any one candidate.
The panel is seeking iron-clad promises on political appointes among other things before it delivers what it expects will be a Muslim bloc vote.
Here is a list of previous LGF entries related to Bridgeview, which is the home of SoundVision.
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