Sunday, October 19, 2008

Top Ten Republican Voter Suppression Scams

Now that the polls show they are on a track to lose, Republicans are turning to that old playbook: voter suppression and vote stealing. It's their last hope.

Here's a guide to the top ten scams the Republicans have in the works. These are coordinated efforts to steal the vote. Keep an eye out for them!

10. ACORN. Many have pointed out that the phony registrations submitted to ACORN could easily have been submitted by Republican operatives to discredit the agency. But even if they were submitted by Marvin the Martian, ACORN still has to report them, and Republicans are using this to create a fake "voter fraud" issue. Why? So that they can launch legal challenges to tie up the election and disenfranchise voters, and to create an air of distrust for their other scams.

9. Adding fake votes. This is happening on those electronic voting machines, and all over the country.

8. Diebald machines losing votes. Yes, there are STILL problems with Republican-leaning Diebald voting.

7. Misstating ID Rules. Officials in some states are sending out mistaken ID rules to confuse and discourage voters.

6. Lying and threatening voters with retribution for voting. In Virginia, officials are threatening students with losing their scholarships for voting.

5. Purging voters from the rolls. Despite showing that they are citizens in courts, minority voters in Georgia are still being stripped of their right to vote. And people who lose their homes in Michigan are also being illegally purged. UPDATE: looks like the law is catching up to the Republicans: they've been forced to admit that their voter-purge scheme in Michigan was illegal.

4. Disenfranchising new voters in Ohio. Ohio is one of the key battleground states, currently giving Obama a very narrow lead. Republicans are hoping to scuttle that by challenging the 600,000 newly registered voters. The Republican lawsuit twists the purpose of the 2002 Voter Registration Act, which allows registrants to use their social security information as a voting shortcut, into a voter challenge by requiring an exact match. Most voters names don't precisely match their social security and other government database records due to typing and clerical errors. Republicans are using this to create a legal challenge against all 600,000 of the newly registered voters. Research has shown that as many as half of these voters will have some small spelling and/or name mismatch. The challenge would prevent these voters from casting real ballots and has the potential to seriously change the election outcome.

3. No-match challenges in Florida. The same suppression technique used in Ohio is being used on voters who registered after September 8th in Florida.

2. Five more states with improper social security checks. Five other states are attempting this scam.

1. Electronic voter machines switching votes. The machines are easy to hack and already early voters have reported seeing the machines switch their vote from the Democratic column to Republican.

1 comment:

MsMike said...

If you are a registered voter, don't let anyone or anything stop you from voting! Call the hotline # 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683) for advice before you go to vote or for help if you are turned away at your election location. When you go to vote, take good ID, your cell phone, note paper & pencil. And carry the hotline # with you. For more information on protecting your vote, check out this story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/myra-armstrong/easy-steps-to-ensure-your_b_136904.html