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Purging the Poor
In what may be a new low, earlier this week a Republican Party county chairman in Michigan told The Michigan Messenger, our sister site, that the party plans to use lists of foreclosed homes to challenge the ballots of people registered at those addresses who try to vote on Election Day. Though he’s since denied he said it, reporter Eartha Jane Melzer stands by her story.
GOP Loses Challenge to Early Ohio Voting
Ohio voters went to the polls yesterday for the first day of early voting, exercising a right in Ohio that the state’s Republicans had fought hard to defeat.
Because of an overlap between the beginning of absentee voting 35 days before Election Day, which started yesterday, and the Oct. 6 end of voter registration, Ohio allows one week of same-day voting and registration.
Republicans had fought hard against that rule, designed to make voting easier, by bringing several lawsuits, charging that early votes and same-day registration lend themselves to attempts at voter fraud. These are just some of several GOP lawsuits to end related attempts to challenge Democratic votes in key swing states.
In general, Republican lawsuits around the country have been urging states to restrict voting rights — claiming the threat of massive voter fraud.
Democrats respond that Republicans are just trying to prevent voting by the poor, young, elderly and minorities. All these demographics are more likely to vote Democrat, and are the target of major Democratic Party get-out-the-vote efforts.
Dem Registration Surges in Nevada
Democratic voter registration is surging across Nevada — including swing counties where Republicans once held an edge.
Since 2006, Democrats have beat Republicans in new registrants by about 13,000 Nevadans. That’s a big shift for a swing state typically decided by narrow margins — for example, Nevada re-elected Bush by a slim 21,000 votes.
New Wiki Counters GOP Voter Suppresion
Can Wikipedia help vanquish voter suppression in America?
That’s the model some activists are betting on.
Democrats have been moving swiftly to fight Republican voter suppression tactics in Michigan. Since first reported by our sister site, The Michigan Messenger, a GOP effort to suppress voters based on home foreclosures has drawn a
lawsuit from the Obama campaign; calls for a Justice Dept. investigation, from Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and demands from grass-roots activists that Sen. John McCain condemn these practices.
(So far, McCain’s “honest and open election committee” did not even make a pretense of returning calls about the issue.)
Now bloggers and techies are developing a dedicated Voter Suppression Wiki — a centralized, open source online portal — to help track, expose and prevent voter suppression this cycle.
The wiki tracks incidents of voter suppression, and enables citizens to upload alleged examples of suppression. An “action center” links visitors to a range of local and national programs working to combat suppression. Jon Pincus, a social networking activist whom I met while working against warrantless spying, argues that Web activism is helpful here because most suppression turns on information gaps.
ACORN Office in Vegas Raided in Voter-Fraud Probe
Nevada authorities seized records Tuesday from a group they accused of submitting fraudulent voter-registration forms — including for the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys.(ABC News Photo Illustration)"Tony Romo is not registered to vote in the state of Nevada, and anybody trying to pose as Terrell Owens won't be able to cast a ballot on Nov. 4," said Secretary of State Ross Miller, referring to star players on the pro football team.
State authorities raided the headquarters of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a group that works to register low-income people.
Miller said the raid was part of a monthslong investigation, and he contended the group had submitted registration forms that used false information or duplicated information on multiple forms. He did not estimate how many.
Bertha Lewis, interim chief organizer for ACORN, said the group has been working with election officials to weed out fraudulent forms from those submitted by the canvassers it hires.
"Today's raid by the secretary of state's office is a stunt that serves no useful purpose other than to discredit our work registering Nevadans," Lewis said.
"For the past 10 months, anytime ACORN has identified a potentially fraudulent application, we turn that application in to election officials separately and offer to provide election officials with the information they would need to pursue an investigation or prosecution of the individual," Lewis said.
She said ACORN had turned in 46 problem applications submitted by 33 former employees to election officials in the Las Vegas area, where it has registered 80,000 people.
According to its national Web site, the group has registered 1.3 million people nationwide for the Nov. 4 election. It has encountered complaints of fraud stemming from registration efforts in Wisconsin, North Carolina, New Mexico, Michigan, Ohio and Missouri.
Why the Debates Won't Matter (Hint: It's a Felony)
This election won't be won or lost at the debates. Nor will it be determined by the two campaigns' "ground games" -- their get-out-the-vote efforts. Nor, unfortunately, will its outcome even depend on how many Americans wake up on Election Day intending to vote for one candidate or the other.
Instead, my fear is that the Electoral College results will hang on the swing state voting systems' vulnerability to sabotage.
It's already happening.
In El Paso County, Colorado, the county clerk -- a delegate to the Republican National Convention -- told out-of-state undergraduates at Colorado College, falsely, that they couldn't vote in Colorado if their parents claim them as dependents on their taxes.
In Montgomery County, Virginia, the county registrar issued a press release warning out-of-state college students, falsely, that if they register to vote in Virginia, they won't be eligible for coverage under their parents' health and car insurance, and that "if you have a scholarship attached to your former residence, you could lose this funding."
In Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, Democratic voters received a mailing containing tear-out requests for absentee ballots addressed to the clerk in Caledonia -- the wrong location. In Middleton, Wisconsin, Democratic voters received absentee ballot requests addressed to the clerk in Madison -- the wrong address. Both mailers were sent by the McCain campaign.
Florida, Michigan and Ohio have some of the country's highest foreclosure rates. "Because many homeowners in foreclosure are black or poor," says the New York Times, "and are considered probable Democratic voters in many areas, the issue has begun to have political ramifications." If you're one of the million Americans who lost a home through foreclosure, and if you didn't file a change of address with your election board, you're a sitting duck for an Election Day challenge by a partisan poll watcher holding a public list of foreclosed homes. In states like New Mexico and Iowa, the number of foreclosures is greater than the number of votes by which George W. Bush carried the state in 2004.
Democrats cry foul over suspicious e-mail
An e-mail circulating throughout Texas and apparently targeting supporters of Democrat Barack Obama falsely warns voters that casting a straight-ticket Democratic ballot won't register a vote for Obama.
Democratic leaders are crying foul. First, it's not true, they say.
Second, they think it could cause people using the eSlate electronic voting machines to inadvertently cancel out their downballot straight-ticket voters, eliminating potentially millions of votes for Democratic candidates in state and county races.
"For those who normally vote 'Straight Democratic', please pay close attention!!!!!" states the e-mail, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.
"I was informed this weekend by a group of Obama volunteers that when voting for the presidential candidate this November, you have to make sure you punch Barack's name first, then proceed to punch 'Straight Democratic' or else the vote for the president won't count," the e-mail says.
Quite the opposite, says Texas Democratic Party spokesman Hector Nieto said.
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