Gwinnett Election Results

Activists call for end to fingerprint program that targets illegal immigrants

The demonstrators complained the “Secure Communities” program is tearing families apart and distracting local police from other crime-fighting priorities. They timed their demonstration to coincide with protests in Chicago and other cities across the nation.

Also Tuesday, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and other groups released a lengthy report condemning the program. Among other things, the report says Secure Communities makes immigrants fearful of reporting crimes to police and results in the deportations of many people who have committed no crimes other than being in the country illegally.

“If the president continues to alienate Latino voters, he will lose the election, plain and simple," Teodoro Maus, president of the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, said in a prepared statement issued before he and about a dozen others demonstrated in Atlanta. “He cannot expect Latino voters and an entire community to simply stand by and watch as he expands the extremely controversial [Secure Communities] program that tears families apart.”

During the protest, demonstrators handed a state Democratic Party official a petition they said was signed by 439 Georgians who want to see President Barack Obama end the program.

A spokeswoman for Obama's re-election campaign, said, "The president remains committed to fixing our broken immigration system."

Gabriela Domenzain, of Obama for America, said in an email that the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement "have worked with community stakeholders, law enforcement ... to make significant changes to the Secure Communities program, announced on June 17th, to protect civil rights, protect victims of domestic violence and other crimes, and to ensure the program is consistent with the top enforcement priorities."

Local jailers have praised the program, saying it prevents criminals from deceiving them with aliases. Forty-three of Georgia’s 159 counties participate in it now, including Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Forsyth, Fulton and Gwinnett counties. All Georgia counties are expected to participate by the end of September 2013.

2010 Census Results a Disaster for Obama Re-election

John McCain won 173 electoral votes in the 2008 presidential election, but needed 270 to win. However, based on the 2010 Census numbers released today, the states that McCain won have experienced a substantial net increase in population, while the states won by Obama experienced a net loss of population.

These population changes result in a net six (6) additional Electoral Votes in the "McCain states." In other words, states that went for McCain now hold 179 Electoral Votes: 270 votes are still required to win.

But much has changed in two years since Obama's election.

In elections prior to 2008, North Carolina, Indiana, Florida and Ohio were widely considered to be strong "Red States," dependably Republican states.

Obama won in states that now clearly and strongly oppose his re-election. On virtually the most popular day of Obama's life in November 2008, the President only won North Carolina (which has 15 Electoral Votes) by 1%. In Indiana, with 11 Electoral Votes, Obama just won by 1%. In Ohio, now with 18 Electoral Votes, Obama won by only 4%; and Obama won Florida's 29 EVs by just 3%.

Obama's numbers have collapsed in these four crucial Red States, with the GOP making huge gains in all of them in 2010. Polls say that McCain would clearly win these four states today.

In three of these states Republicans now hold total control: Ohio, Indiana and Florida. These three have Republican governors as well as majorities in both the House and Senate. In North Carolina, the GOP controls both the House and Senate, though the governor there is a Democrat (who was elected in 2008, before Obama's numbers collapsed).

What does this mean in terms of the Presidential Election?

The 2012 Republican nominee starts with a base of the 179 "McCain state" Electoral Votes (post-reapportionment), plus an almost certain additional 73 votes from North Carolina, Florida, Ohio and Indiana.

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