GottaVote.Org: The 15th Amendment Held Hostage: Day 18 (It's Over!)

    Well, I just adopted GottaVote.org's misinformation as my blog's cause célèbre three days ago and now the crisis is resolved.  For those of you who have not keep abreast of events, when the Obama campaign debuted their new GottaVote.org website a little over two weeks ago, it included this on both the English and Spanish language versions of the site:

Dorothy Cooper was born in 1915, before women or African Americans could exercise the right to vote in the United States.

While women were not granted the right to vote until 1920 when the 19th Amendment was ratified, the 15th Amendment extended the right to vote to all races in 1870 following the Civil War (although many states found ways to prevent blacks from exercising that right freely well into the 20th century.)  Within 24 hours, the GottaVote.org site had revised the English version, but the Spanish language version remained uncorrected for over two weeks.  I attempted to contact the Obama campaign about the error, but to no avail.  Until now.  While I did not hear back from anyone, the Spanish language site is revised as of this morning.
    While this is good news for the truth, it leaves me fresh out of cause célèbres.  It was nice while it lasted.  I'll put away my yellow ribbon until the next assault on the Constitution by the Obama administration.  If the past is any guide, it shouldn't be too long.

GottaVote.Org: The 15th Amendment Held Hostage: Day 15

Click to order ribbon!*

    Every blog needs a good cause célèbre, so I've decided mine will be the Obama campaign's GottaVote.org and the misinformation on the Spanish language version of their website.  As I originally wrote about on May 18th, the GottaVote.org website originally included the misinformation on both the English and Spanish versions of the site:

Dorothy Cooper was born in 1915, before women or African Americans could exercise the right to vote in the United States.

    The ratification of the 15th Amendment extended the right to vote to all races in 1870 following the Civil War.  Within 24 hours, the phrase "or African Americans" was removed from the English language website, but two weeks later, the Spanish language version is unchanged.  This is a screenshot from today, and I have highlighted the incorrect portion of the text:

    I have contacted the Obama campaign to alert them of the error, but to no avail - I have received no response.  I will continue to try to raise awareness, as they say, of this issue and if the Obama campaign responds or corrects the error, you'll hear about it here first!  Until then, tie a yellow ribbon around your copy of the Constitution to show your support.

See UPDATE.

*Fine print:  I do not receive any remuneration for the advertisement or sale of any ribbons.  It just seemed tacky to use their image without providing a link to their site. 

Still Don't Know Much About History - In Spanish

    Last Friday, May 18, the Obama 2012 campaign launched a new website, GottaVote.org.  As I noted at the time, the website told the story of Dorothy Cooper, a 96 year-old African American woman, and the article began as follows:

Dorothy Cooper was born in 1915, before women or African Americans could exercise the right to vote in the United States.

Of course, while women of any race could not vote until 1920 when the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, African American men were granted the right to vote in 1870 with the ratification of the 15th Amendment.  As I noted, practically speaking, states often found ways to prevent blacks from voting well into the 1960s when Voting Rights legislation was passed.  However, even though the Obama campaign used the ambiguous phrase "could exercise the right" which might have justified the claim, within 24 hours "or African Americans" was removed and the sentence now reads:

Dorothy Cooper was born in 1915, before women could exercise the right to vote in the United States.

Or, to be more accurate, the phrase was removed on the English version of the website.  Here's a screenshot from today from the Spanish Language version of GottaVote.org:

I have only a couple of years of high school Spanish under my belt, but I believe I'm not going out on a limb to interpret "afro-americanos" as African Americans.  So the Obama campaign was fairly quick to correct the English version (whether in reaction to either my blog post or the tweet I sent them, I do not know - I received no response.)  However, a week later, Spanish speaking visitors to the site are continuing to get the wrong story.  And although Google Translate is certainly not the definitive source, the phrase "tuvieran el derecho de votar" comes back as "have the right to vote," a much less ambiguous wording than "could exercise the right" to vote.  If anyone can provide a more accurate translation, I will update what I have written.
    So the question remains: Is this simply a mistake, or a deliberate attempt to mislead?  I lean towards the former, but now that we are a week out from the website's launch, it's almost inconceivable to me that a statement that flatly ignores the 15th Amendment to the Constitution remains unchanged.  That this statement is being made on a website run by the campaign of the sitting President of the United States is inexcusable.

Don't Know Much About History [Updated]

Update: Although I received no direct response from the Obama campaign yesterday after I contacted them about the error, as of Saturday morning, the GottaVote.org website below has removed "or African Americans" from the sentences I highlighted in the original posting below.  The pages have simply been revised with no reference to the original erroneous statement, although the Google cache of the site contains the original.  I will try not to be hurt that the Obama campaign has not sent a note of thanks.  I am just that magnanimous.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    Friday morning, the Obama 2012 campaign began promoting a new website, GottaVote.org.  One section of the website contains stories about how voting rights and regulations affect individuals.  One of the stories concerns Dorothy Cooper, a 96 year-old African American woman, and the article begins as follows:

Dorothy Cooper was born in 1915, before women or African Americans could exercise the right to vote in the United States.

Here's a screenshot of that part of the page:

While it was not until 1920 that the 19th Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing women the right to vote was ratified, the 15th Amendment prohibiting the denial of voting rights based on color or race was ratified in 1870 following the Civil War.  So while it is true that no women, African American or otherwise, could vote in 1915, and it is also true that states often found ways to discriminate against blacks  well into the 20th century before civil right legislation was passed in the 1960s, the Obama campaign is at least 45 years behind the times in its assertion that African Americans could not vote in 1915.

Update:  This is also the first item highlighted on the blog at the new site (screenshot below.)

Update: I just noticed a third place the incorrect claim appears (at least part of it,) on the home page of the site as a preview to their news/blog page:

Since their site says "Voting is easy when you have the facts...," let's hope the rest of their facts were better researched than this one.