Evidence of Voter Restriction

[DroppinScience]

I've been finding a few headlines about efforts to inhibit people from voting (or voting where they're perfectly eligible to vote). Figured it would be a good idea to compile this list so people can be aware of it.

Here's one for college students in Colorado (hint: you're actually allowed to vote in the state you're studying in, as opposed to your original home state):

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/09/25-2

Voter purging programs in Michigan:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/09/19-3

Those who lost their homes in the mortgage crisis:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/09/17-7

If you find any more, post them here.

[Bob]

i don't think states attempting to stop college students from voting in that state is an uncommon occurrence, a county in virginia (http://www.orovillemr.com/opinion/ci_10562420) is trying to do it too.

In one Virginia county, a registrar issued a press release telling students that if they register to vote at their college address, their parents will no longer be able to declare them as dependents on income-tax filings, that the students could lose their scholarships and they could lose health, auto and other insurance coverage. None of this is true.

The U.S. tax code allows dependents to live away from home while attending school. Students covered on their parents' health insurance plans are not affected if they register to vote in another county or state and financial aid has nothing to do with where a student votes. The Bee article points out that Virginia isn't the only place this is happening. Other states and local communities make it difficult for students to vote.

i remember something about trying to stop us college students from voting in the local elections while i was at UConn, too; UConn is located in Storrs, which is a great big farm town, the population of the college is larger (i think) than the town, and localities don't like rambunctious kids who are only there for 4 years dictating their local politics.

if there weren't an electoral college system, i probably wouldn't have too much of a problem with that train of thought

[DroppinScience]

if there weren't an electoral college system, i probably wouldn't have too much of a problem with that train of thought

Local elections might be tricky business if the students don't intend to stay there long-term (i.e. after graduation), but then again, how can you prove one way or the other that they won't to stay and set up shop there? I don't how individual counties/cities/states play it (do rules vary?), but in order to be an eligible voter anywhere for any election at any level, don't you only need to reside in that place for 1 year (or maybe even less than that?). If you fulfill that benchmark, why should you stopped from voting in that place? It's your business to live where you're going to live AFTER that, but up until that time, you're using the services, the roads, etc. of the town you reside in at that time, so shouldn't you be allowed to have some say?

[AceFace]

i don't think states attempting to stop college students from voting in that state is an uncommon occurrence, a county in virginia (http://www.orovillemr.com/opinion/ci_10562420) is trying to do it too.



i remember something about trying to stop us college students from voting in the local elections while i was at UConn, too; UConn is located in Storrs, which is a great big farm town, the population of the college is larger (i think) than the town, and localities don't like rambunctious kids who are only there for 4 years dictating their local politics.

if there weren't an electoral college system, i probably wouldn't have too much of a problem with that train of thought
yeah. that's happening right up the road from me in Montgomery County at VA Tech.

i posted about that awhile ago but no one seemed to care. it's irritating and completely inappropriate what they attempted up there and it didn't work. the students saw right through it from what i read.

[kaiser soze]

GOP sends out absentee ballots that do not have information asking for driver licence and birth dates

IN MICHIGAN!!!

How convenient..........for the GOP, cannot be purged without that information now can ya?

http://www.minotdailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/519459.html?nav=5010

filthy is as filthy does

[QueenAdrock]

yeah. that's happening right up the road from me in Montgomery County at VA Tech.

i posted about that awhile ago but no one seemed to care. it's irritating and completely inappropriate what they attempted up there and it didn't work. the students saw right through it from what i read.

I saw that. Interesting, because Liberty University (founded by Jerry Falwell himself) is offering extra credit in some cases to students who register in Virginia. They want them to vote there. Not liberal Virginia Tech, mind you. Just crazy conservative Liberty. :rolleyes:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/30/conservative.liberty.university/index.html

[Bob]

like i'm saying, if we didn't have the electoral college, i doubt this would be as big of a deal. i can understand the frustration of the locals, having your long term politics be selected by people who won't stick around to feel their effects, but it also must be frustrating to be a liberal college student from massachusetts or a conservative student from alabama going to virginia, and to know that if you register in virginia your vote will be more important than if you send in an absentee ballot back home. it's the same vote from the same person, but because you mailed an absentee ballot instead of pulling a lever, it doesn't count? that's annoying.

[DroppinScience]

like i'm saying, if we didn't have the electoral college, i doubt this would be as big of a deal. i can understand the frustration of the locals, having your long term politics be selected by people who won't stick around to feel their effects, but it also must be frustrating to be a liberal college student from massachusetts or a conservative student from alabama going to virginia, and to know that if you register in virginia your vote will be more important than if you send in an absentee ballot back home. it's the same vote from the same person, but because you mailed an absentee ballot instead of pulling a lever, it doesn't count? that's annoying.

But I think what it ultimately boils down to is this:

do you meet the qualifications to vote in an election (i.e. U.S. citizen, 18 yrs of age or older, living in present location for x amount of months)? If you do, then there is no reason to suppress the vote, whether you're a college student or otherwise. I see no justification for it if you're operating well within the law.

[Bob]

But I think what it ultimately boils down to is this:

do you meet the qualifications to vote in an election (i.e. U.S. citizen, 18 yrs of age or older, living in present location for x amount of months)? If you do, then there is no reason to suppress the vote, whether you're a college student or otherwise. I see no justification for it if you're operating well within the law.

well yeah, legally, sure, localities don't and probably shouldn't have any legal grounds for excluding students from voting there. i'm not saying that. i'm just saying from a practical perspective, i can understand why local residents try to do this, and i feel like if it weren't for the electoral college, students really wouldn't care so much about it.

edit: i could be wrong though. maybe students really do care about the composition of the board of selectmen of their college towns. i didn't, but then i drank a lot

[kaiser soze]

voter purge moving along as planned....while everyone's eyes are on the bail out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMN_2Fc3Tfo&eurl=http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x203113

[QueenAdrock]

edit: i could be wrong though. maybe students really do care about the composition of the board of selectmen of their college towns. i didn't, but then i drank a lot

Funny enough, I did quite a bit of research on the circuit court judges and everyone else that's representing my area in NC. When I was doing it, I couldn't help but think "Damn, this doesn't affect me while I'm abroad, why do I care?" I figured at least having an informed vote is better than just putting down whoever's name I like better, though. So while Doodle von Taintstain would normally win, I just couldn't do it this time around.

[DroppinScience]

Efforts made by voting rights groups to ensure that registered voters' ballots ARE cast.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/30-3

Fed up with waiting for officials or Parties to do the work, this year, as never before, citizens' groups, and voting rights organizations are taking early action to protect the vote. A few months back, national voting rights groups charged officials in Kansas, Michigan and Louisiana of illegally purging voter lists. Voters whose homes are in foreclosure are also concerned that their status might be used at the precinct to challenge their right to vote. The states with the highest foreclosure rates, Ohio, Michigan, Florida and Colorado, are also swing states where the election could hinge on tiny margins. Meanwhile, in Michigan, the ACLU has just filed a federal lawsuit against state electoral officials over statewide voter purge programs they claim would "disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Michigan voters" -- many of them college students. Thanks to independent reporting and activist organizing, the Department of Veterans Affairs was recently forced to reverse its policy that would have stopped voter registration drives at hundreds of VA hospitals serving injured and homeless vets.

[kaiser soze]

Does the U.N. need to step in and monitor our elections?

Jesus sometimes I feel like we're in a civil war torn country teetering on the edge of democracy or chaos in Africa

If the U.S. can't get it right....who can?

[kaiser soze]

Homer votes for Obama...uh wait a minute

mccain !?!?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aBaX9GPSaQ&eurl

[DroppinScience]

Since there's discussion of voter fraud, it's time to renew discussion of voter purging. A much bigger problem, I'd wager.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/10/09-5

Published on Thursday, October 9, 2008 by Miller-McCune
The Dirty Details of Voter Purges
Secretive, error-riddled methods for cleaning up the voter rolls and how the Help America Vote Act isn't helping.

by David Rosenfeld

Thousands of Americans will likely show up to the polls on Nov. 4 to find they are no longer registered to vote. That's an estimate base on past elections and the findings of two leading research groups that found state-sanctioned voter purges are widely inaccurate.

Both the Brennan Center for Justice and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group have independently called into question the methods states use to clean up their voter rolls and the integrity of the information those purges are based on. Roughly 13 million names were purged from the rolls in 2005 and 2006, and while most of the removals were legitimate, that still leaves thousands likely disenfranchised, they say.

Washington state, which canceled the second-highest percentage of voters, beefed up its voter-roll-cleanup efforts after a 2004 governor's race that determined 1,800 votes were cast by felons or on behalf of deceased people, said Washington Secretary of State spokesman David Ammons.

"It really radica lized us for cleaning up the rolls," Ammons said.

Sometimes, though, the purges get too radical. The Brennan Center report, "Voter Purges," shows that flawed purge lists threaten election integrity some eight years after the infamous felon purge lists used by Florida in 2000 wrongfully dropped at least 12,000 voters from the rolls.

The lists used to delete voters are "riddled with inaccuracies," according to the report. The bottom line, writes Myrna Perez, the report's author: "States maintain voter rolls in an inconsistent and unaccountable manner. Officials strike voters from the rolls through a process that is shrouded in secrecy, prone to error, and vulnerable to manipulation."

In Mississippi before the March 2008 primary, a county election official - from her home computer - secretly deleted 10,000 voters from the rolls.

During the 2008 New Mexico caucuses, thousands of registered Democrats found themselves improperly knocked off the rolls.

Ohio election integrity advocates point to massive voter purges before the 2004 election that totaled more than 300,000 voters.

In Michigan, the America Civil Liberties Union and the Advancement Project filed an injunction Sept. 17 to reinstate more than 200,000 voters purged over the past year.

The Michigan lawsuit in U.S. District Court would retroactively restore the voting rights before Election Day of an estimated 180,000 voters purged annually through the state's sharing of Department of Motor Vehicle records with nearby states. Other states have agreements to share driver's license records, but Michigan was singled out because it relies strictly on the DMV match to purge voters. A hearing was held for preliminary injunction on Oct. 1.

"They don't know that the person, merely by getting a driver's license, is registered to vote in that state," said Brad Heard, Advancement Project attorney. "If you're a student who wants to retain Michigan residency, since he's in Illinois, he might get a driver's license and still intend to vote in Michigan."

Kelly Chesney, spokeswoman for the Michigan Secretary of State, did not respond to a request for comment. The state has argued in court filings that the numbers of affected voters are inflated.

The suit would also block Michigan's practice of purging new registrations based on voter ID cards sent to voters that are returned as undeliverable, even those sent out within 90-days of an election. The state refused to process an estimated 30,000 registrations per year for this reason, the American Civil Liberties Union claims in its lawsuit. Similar efforts to verify new registrations through so-called "no-match" provisions are being disputed in Florida and Wisconsin.

Two months ago, the Advancement Project and the Fair Election Legal Defense Network accused Louisiana and Kansas, too, of illegally purging voters based solely on driver's license records.

In Louisiana, 21,000 voters were taken off the rolls when they picked up driver's licenses in nearby states after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

States Misunderstand Federal Law

The groundwork for today's voter purges stem from the federal Help America Vote Act, passed in 2002, which handed out $4 billion to states for voter-roll maintenance and overall election system upgrades. Much of that money went to software vendors to design the data management systems to maintain state databases. A handful of these vendors dominate the voting system industry, and their electronic voting machines and optical scanners often have a track record of faulty, insecure performance.

In 2006, Washington used $6 million in federal funds to create a centralized statewide database. In Colorado, a statewide database went live in April. From January of this year to the end of July, Colorado changed or canceled 45,658 voter registration records, spokesman Rich Coolidge said.

One of the biggest problems in managing voter registration rolls, says Gary Kalman of the Public Interest Research Group, is the inconsistency from state to state, and county to county, in enforcing federal law.

Kalman's study, "Vanishing Votes," found 19 states had not outlawed purging within 90 days of the vote - a prohibition found in the National Voter Registration Act. Four states - Colorado, Ohio, Rhode Island and Connecticut - have laws with purging deadlines explicitly within the 90-day period.

"If somebody dies within 90 days, becomes incarcerated or convicted of a felony, those voters may be purged before the election," said Coolidge, adding that no such statewide purge was planned though counties may take them up individually.

"There is widespread unawareness of the law," Kalman said. "So many states were saying they left it up to counties. Because you have rules being interpreted and enforced differently by counties, literally within one state, there is a difference in how they convey rules to voters. It's a decentralized system that can actually impact how votes are counted."

The Brennan Center also found vast inconsistencies with the way states and counties interpret certain provisions of the National Voter Registration Act.

States purge voters for several legitimate reasons looking for such things as a voter's death, duplicate registrations, change of address or felony convictions - which individual states treat differently. Social security numbers and driver's license records may also be used.

The Brennan Center report noted that consistent inaccuracies can be found in the data used to compile lists. For instance, according to the report, "some states purge their voter list based on the Social Security Administration's Death Master File, a database that even the Social Security Administration admits includes people who are still alive."

In most cases when voters are removed from lists, with the exception for the reason of an address change, election officials don't attempt to notify the voter, Perez wrote. Those who find themselves removed from the list may cast a provisional ballot while their voting status is reviewed.

Aside from common typos and other clerical errors, voter roll matching sometimes fails to account for the presence or lack of middle initials or non-standard surnames. This was largely the problem behind purge lists in Florida in 2000 and a pending purge in 2004 of 48,000 names that disproportionately affected African Americans that advocates identified and blocked.

"Far too often what appears to be a 'match' will actually be the records of two distinct registrants with similar identifying information," according to the Brennan Center report. "States have failed to implement protections to ensure that eligible voters are not erroneously purged."

13 Million Purged in 39 States

Voter purges in the years following the 2004 election were strongly encouraged by the Justice Department, citing voter fraud. The DOJ had the backing of provisions in HAVA as well the NVRA that required states to vigilantly keep its voter rolls spotless.

In 2005 and 2006, 39 states and the District of Columbia cancelled roughly 13 million voters from the rolls, according to a report to Congress by the Election Assistance Commission released last year.

Topping the list of states taking names off their registered-voter rolls in 2005 and 2006 were Colorado, with 16.9 percent of the roll removed; Washington, 15.4 percent; New York, 14.1 percent; Nevada, 13.2 percent; and Missouri, 10.4 percent.

Spokesmen for Secretary of State offices in Colorado and Washington - states with the two highest purge rates - said the overall number of cancellations included those who may have cancelled and then re-registered.

Estimates of how many people moved out of each state, based on U.S. Census Data in 1995 and 2000, roughly match the number of voter purges in each state, suggesting that a large portion of the cancellations may be justified. While Florida purged close to 1 million voters in 2005 and 2006, an estimated 1.3 million moved out of the state over a five-year period between 1995 and 2000, according to the U.S. Census.

Regardless of how many people should be appropriately removed from voter rolls, states still must follow the federal law meant to protect voting rights, said Heard, Advancement Project attorney.

"Certainly we're not advocating that people should be registered in multiple places," Heard said, but in some cases voters' rights are not being protected.

[DroppinScience]

More on the Michigan voter purging for those with foreclosed homes.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/10/14-5

Published on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 by Inter Press Service
Foreclosure Victims May Lose Votes as Well

by Bankole Thompson

DETROIT, Michigan - An alleged purge of registered voters, many of whom lost their homes to bank foreclosure, in the state of Michigan has prompted a lawsuit and calls in Congress for a Justice Department investigation.

At the centre of this possible election debacle in Michigan, where Democrat Sen. Barack Obama is leading his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, is Republican Secretary of State Terry Lynn Land, who has been criticised in the past by a federal judge for restricting access to 'provisional ballots' by voters uncertain about their voting precincts.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Advancement Project filed a suit in U.S. District Court in Detroit last month against Land, her director of elections Christopher Thomas, and Ypsilanti City Clerk Frances McMullen for using two programmes to remove voters from the rolls without proper federal procedure.

The first programme used by the state, according to the lawsuit, is the immediate cancellation of the drivers' licenses of Michiganders who have obtained licenses in other states without the appropriate confirmation of registration notices.

Under the second removal programme, election clerks automatically eliminate names of voters from the files who may have moved from their registered addresses, instead of sending them a warning notice by forwarded mail.

'The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 states that, if a registrar receives information suggesting a voter has moved from their registration address, they should send them a confirmation of registration notice by forwarded mail, including a postage-prepaid return card, and ask them to confirm the address,' said Bradley Heard, the Advancement Project's lead attorney, in the lawsuit.

'The registrar also can flag the voter's record for confirmation if the voter appears to vote. If the voter does not either respond to that notice or appear to vote within two federal general elections from the date of the notice [the ones that occur in November of even-numbered years], the voter can be removed from the rolls.'

These removal programmes could have a devastating impact in minority and low-income areas hardest hit by the mortgage crisis like Wayne County, home to large African American and Hispanic communities -- key voting blocs for Democrats.

The federal lawsuit is before Judge Stephen Murphy, the immediate past U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. Murphy said he will review arguments from both sides before ruling whether to stop the two programmes.

IPS found that from January to September of this year, 17,691 homes have been foreclosed in Wayne County, the state's largest county which led the nation in 2007 in foreclosures for large metropolitan areas.

Recently, Macomb County, a swing county home to many conservative-leaning so-called Reagan Democrats, was in the news for the reported statements of its Republican Party chairman James Carabelli that the party is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to prevent people from voting in the November presidential election.

'We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren't voting from those addresses,' Carabelli reportedly told the Michigan Messenger in a phone interview. He would later deny the comments.

In 2004, John Pappageorge, a Republican state senator from Oakland County, a Republican stronghold -- where polls now show Obama beating McCain among independents (48 percent to 25 percent) and women (55 percent to 37percent) -- called for suppression of the Detroit vote to win the election.

'We are deeply troubled by recent media reports that the chairman of the Michigan Republican Party in Macomb County is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes as a basis to challenge voters and block them from participating in the election,' House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers wrote to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

'We are writing to request that the Department of Justice launch a full scale investigation into the matter. Given the number of voting rights complaints filed after the 2004 election it is critical that the Department take proactive steps now to prevent voting rights violations in November,' Conyers wrote.

The letter added, 'The plan should be investigated as a possible violation of the Voting Rights Act.'

The Justice Department will meet with Conyers this week to address concerns about voters being challenged on their foreclosure status.

The Centre for Responsible Lending said Michigan, California, Washington D.C., New Jersey, and Nevada have high mortgage defaults. The report estimated that 10 percent of African American borrowers and 8 percent of Hispanic borrowers will be affected by foreclosures compared to 4 percent of white borrowers.

It is not clear how many voters have been purged.

But Thomas, the state election director, said about 70,000 people are removed on an annual basis because of the change in their driver's license, and that about 1,400 people have been removed since the start of this year because of their returned ID card. 'We think the actual numbers will be higher, but that will be the subject of the discovery in the case,' Heard said.

The New York Times reported that based on its own findings Michigan removed 33,000 people from the voter roll.

Thomas denied the report and said overall only 11,000 were removed because of death or authorised change notifications.

The Times ranked Michigan among five other swing states -- Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Nevada and North Carolina -- that unintentionally purged voters.

Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey, who has registered 28,000 new voters, told IPS that 1,567 records have been purged from the Detroit voter file because they are considered 'inactive', meaning the person is deceased or notified election officials they've moved out of state.

To date, Winfrey said Detroit has 634,444 registered voters for Nov. 4. and only 90,000 of that figure voted in the primary election.

'We need to make sure every vote counts and that people are registered to vote,' said Mildred Madison of the League of Women Voters in Detroit.

[DroppinScience]

Bill Moyers interviewed Mark Crispin Miller regarding voter fraud, voter suppression, etc.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10172008/watch3.html

Included are discussions of ACORN, unreliable voter machines, voter suppression, and ways you can protect your vote (there's an initiative called "Video Your Vote" where you are to document any problems voting if they do come up).

[RobMoney$]

For all the campus fuckfaces, let's put this in a format you'll be able to understand:


Voter Fraud Primer 101:

Republican Strategy

Keep any and all minorites from voting. Supply far too little ballot boxes in urban areas, so that minorities are forced to wait in long lines. (Meanwhile, load up the ballot boxes in white suburbs, so that it's easy to get in and out.) Challenge all Blacks, make it difficult, annoy them, insult them, anything so that they won't vote. Design voting machines (most of which are owned by corporate firms which support Republican interests, like Diebold) so that many ballots are thrown out, principally in urban areas. Try to depress turnout as much as possible.

Democrat Strategy

Get as many people to vote as possible. Get them to vote as many times as possible. Register illegals, dead people, children, fictional characters. Give people cash to vote. Let felons out of prison to vote. Establish drive-by voting. Voting by phone or internet in the future. If they can't read, tell them to look for the "O".

Strategy shared by both parties

Accuse the other side of cheating. Send out your people to yell and scream how crooked the other party is. Hire 1,000 attorneys and threaten to sue in every swing state, citing the Constitution. If all else fails and you lose, write books about how the election was stolen in a conspiracy. Go on your favorite partisan talk show and moan about the future of the country with the dishonest party in power.

[kaiser soze]

thank you mr. obvious!!!

here's a puffy sticker

[RobMoney$]

You say it's obvious, some act like they've just discovered the lost ark of the covenant when they post these stories of Voter suppression/Ballot stuffing.

[QueenAdrock]

I dunno, Rob, who do you mean by "some"? I haven't seen anyone say "OMG! Look at this! Wow!" I've just seen it posted up and commented on. Voter restriction happens every election, I don't know anyone who would be surprised by it now.

[D_Raay]

For all the campus fuckfaces, let's put this in a format you'll be able to understand:


Voter Fraud Primer 101:

Republican Strategy

Keep any and all minorites from voting. Supply far too little ballot boxes in urban areas, so that minorities are forced to wait in long lines. (Meanwhile, load up the ballot boxes in white suburbs, so that it's easy to get in and out.) Challenge all Blacks, make it difficult, annoy them, insult them, anything so that they won't vote. Design voting machines (most of which are owned by corporate firms which support Republican interests, like Diebold) so that many ballots are thrown out, principally in urban areas. Try to depress turnout as much as possible.

Democrat Strategy

Get as many people to vote as possible. Get them to vote as many times as possible. Register illegals, dead people, children, fictional characters. Give people cash to vote. Let felons out of prison to vote. Establish drive-by voting. Voting by phone or internet in the future. If they can't read, tell them to look for the "O".

Strategy shared by both parties

Accuse the other side of cheating. Send out your people to yell and scream how crooked the other party is. Hire 1,000 attorneys and threaten to sue in every swing state, citing the Constitution. If all else fails and you lose, write books about how the election was stolen in a conspiracy. Go on your favorite partisan talk show and moan about the future of the country with the dishonest party in power.

Here's who you are aligning yourself with...

“Hi, I was just calling to let you all know that Barack Obama needs to get hung. He's a fu*&ing ni**er, and he's a piece of shit. You guys are fraudulent, and you need to go to hell. All the ni*&ers on oak trees. They're gonna get all hung honeys, they're gonna get assassinated, they're gonna get killed.”

"You liberal idiots. Dumb shits. Welfare bums. You guys just f&*king come to our country, consume every natural resource there is, and make a lot of babies. That's all you guys do. And then suck up the welfare and expect everyone else to pay for your hospital bills for your kids. I just say let your kids die. That's the best move. Just let your children die. Forget about paying for hospital bills for them. I'm not gonna do it. You guys are lowlifes. And I hope you all die."

And for nearly two weeks, ACORN offices across the nation have been subjected to an onslaught of racist and threatening voicemails and emails. We have secured copies of some of the most disturbing and offensive messages and have reproduced them below in order to show the very real consequences of the Right Wing’s overheated and misplaced “voter fraud” rhetoric.
http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/more-hate-voicemails-and-emails-directe

Follow the link if you want to hear the calls for yourself.

[DroppinScience]

You say it's obvious, some act like they've just discovered the lost ark of the covenant when they post these stories of Voter suppression/Ballot stuffing.

It's not out of "surprise." It's out of outrage that it happens. I don't know about you, but I take democracy very seriously. This is not a moment to shrug and go: "It happens."

[RobMoney$]

D_raay

To say I'm alaigning myself with idiots like that just because I support McCain is like saying alaigning yourself with Obama is alaigning yourself with the racist views held by Jeremiah Wright.

It's a stretch, and quite frankly I'm offended.

[funk63]

For all the campus fuckfaces, let's put this in a format you'll be able to understand:


Voter Fraud Primer 101:

Republican Strategy

Keep any and all minorites from voting. Supply far too little ballot boxes in urban areas, so that minorities are forced to wait in long lines. (Meanwhile, load up the ballot boxes in white suburbs, so that it's easy to get in and out.) Challenge all Blacks, make it difficult, annoy them, insult them, anything so that they won't vote. Design voting machines (most of which are owned by corporate firms which support Republican interests, like Diebold) so that many ballots are thrown out, principally in urban areas. Try to depress turnout as much as possible.

Democrat Strategy

Get as many people to vote as possible. Get them to vote as many times as possible. Register illegals, dead people, children, fictional characters. Give people cash to vote. Let felons out of prison to vote. Establish drive-by voting. Voting by phone or internet in the future. If they can't read, tell them to look for the "O".

Strategy shared by both parties

Accuse the other side of cheating. Send out your people to yell and scream how crooked the other party is. Hire 1,000 attorneys and threaten to sue in every swing state, citing the Constitution. If all else fails and you lose, write books about how the election was stolen in a conspiracy. Go on your favorite partisan talk show and moan about the future of the country with the dishonest party in power.


lol, fictional characters.

[D_Raay]

D_raay

To say I'm alaigning myself with idiots like that just because I support McCain is like saying alaigning yourself with Obama is alaigning yourself with the racist views held by Jeremiah Wright.

It's a stretch, and quite frankly I'm offended.

Well be offended then because that's exactly where you are putting yourself. An objective McCain supporter would be condemning the tactics of his campaign also. If you would take an objective view of what the McCain campaign is charging you would see this.Why do you think he is losing support among alot of key conservatives? Spurious claims of voter fraud and terrorist ties lather up the lunies and increase the chances of violence.

[kaiser soze]

mccain funded voter fraud

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4992730.ece

ohn McCain paid $175,000 of campaign money to a Republican operative accused of massive voter registration fraud in several states, it has emerged.

As the McCain camp attempts to tie Barack Obama to claims of registration irregularities by the activist group ACORN, campaign finance records detailing the payment to the firm of Nathan Sproul, investigated several times for fraud, threatens to derail that argument.