Democracy Now! ran three stories today relevant to voter suppression and vote-rigging. (Nothing about ACORN.)
No. As the results of such a poll wouldn’t mean much to me, nothing would really be settled so far as I’m concerned. In presenting Garlock’s column, I presented facts. In support of his case, Garlock listed a number of facts in his column, including a personal experience. You don’t get dismiss those facts merely because they came from the editorial page and not the front page, or because you disagree with the conclusion or inference he drew from them. Now, if I’d presented you with one of Ann Coulter’s howling screeds, or a book by Michael Moore, you’d probably be right to dismiss it out of hand. That, however, is not the case.
No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying it’s 0 fake votes, because there is no way in hell any of these fake registrations were ever going to turn into fake votes.
Why, Republicans don’t care about voter disenfranchisement or suppression, silly! They only care about a couple hundred fake names.
Honestly, even if there were a thousand of those names, and they were all Republicans, and they all managed to get fake IDs and addresses so that these nonexistent people could vote for McCain, I would still not give a rat’s ass about it. I care about several thousands of legit voters getting stricken from Colorado, Michigan, and any other state. Guess i"m in the “better a thousand guilty men go free than one innocent man imprisoned” camp.
This thread started out as Bricker bemoaning the silence of lefties regarding this penny ante ACORN crap, but is there any silence more deafening than the righties’ when it comes to legitimate voters potentially getting stricken from the rolls?
The ACORN scandal is smoke and mirrors by the Republicans who have nothing else to offer but trashy, hyped up non-issues – issues that no one with half a brain cares about. And the paranoid side of me can’t help but be concerned that this is all a big setup for some shenanigans to steal this election. At this point they have no other way to win.
Well, now, didn’t you say this?
Looks to me that you defend yourself by denying any such standards exist. I say they do, I offer you an opportunity to prove your point.
You bluff, I raise, you fold. Wise.
This is absolutely as it should be. Otherwise the orgs can take the registrations gathered in heavily Republican districts and say, “You know, these are supposed to be filled out in black ink, but that looks like a really really dark navy. Pitch 'em!”
A bit subtler than that, friend Choie. Forgive me if I’m presumptuous in telling you something you already know, but other folks might not…
Its not about “stealing” as such, the votes are real, the votes are counted.
But the Pubbies are seeking a rationale to have “poll watchers” deployed. In their fondest dreams, those poll watchers are self-selecting volunteers, empowered to challenge voter credentials, etc. Well, OK, but the voter can get a provisional ballot, things like that. Which is true, but the point is not to deny the voter his rights.
The point is to slow things down!
We already having a shameful inequity in voting. If you live and vote in a lower economic urban setting, you know what I mean. You especially know when you move to a different setting, and see how the other people vote. I moved from such to such, and was stunned when it only took me half an hour to vote.
Inner city polling places are notoriously overwhelmed and under-teched. (What was it in 2004, Ohio? Typically took a minority voter four hours to vote? Memory fails…) And in a crowded inner city neighborhood, word gets around fast. If it takes four hours to vote or more, some potential voters are going to be discouraged, or unable to commit such time. They won’t vote.
Thus, the Pubbies have an opportunity to lessen the numbers of unfavorable voters without actually breaking any laws, without stealing a thing, and draping thier cunning with the majesty of law. They are using laws intended to preserve the right to vote in order to undermine it. Political perversion.
All they want to do is slow it down enough to discourage some unknown number of Dem voters. Its cheap, its easy, its legal.
To support this strategy they are all over the place, pressing the dreadful threat of voter fraud , demanding the right to poll watchers to protect against the Dread Menace. And they got lawyers.
Second prong of this fuck is to legitimize some of the underpinning for the disgraceful sight of the Justice Department as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican National Committee. You will no doubt recall that at least one of the fired US attorneys was fired because he failed to act to legitimize this crap.
So they’re not up to anything so tawdry as ballot stuffing. They’re applying much more devious means to their ends.
Of course, this is only my opinion, and you’re free to be wrong.
Democratic lawyers’ organization solicits for poll watchers.
You aren’t so naive as to think this is behavior limited to one side only - or even that poll watchers can’t serve a legitimate purpose, right?
I’ve been to a training session for Dem poll watchers; in our case, our job is not to challenge potential voters but to defend them from the Pubs’ challenges. No equivalency here.
Thanks elucidator, I do indeed know of this tactic. It’s one of several that they employ.
Of course Obama is gathering/recruiting lawyers and law students for the Big Day. And thank God for that. His campaign’s incredible organization abilities are unparalleled, and it is precisely because of this that I actually hold out some hope for a fair election. I don’t think the thugs are gonna intimidate would-be voters in minority/poor areas quite as casually as they have in previous elections.
Our side will be there, and they will be watching.
Its all very well to be observers and advocates. Heaven knows they’ll be busy. But if the Forces of Darkness succeed at their purpose and slow down the proceedings, the damage is done, whether they lose or not in some courtly proceeding, they shoot, they score.
Total amount of vote fraud=zero. Out of thousands of registrations potential registrations errors 135, 85 duplicates. How could the registrars know if they had registered before somewhere else. Wow, they were discovered. That would mean they are not going to fraudulently vote at all. The system works.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6488 Heres a Brad blog article. It is just another repub witch hunt to justify making voting difficult for the poor and minorities.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Tens_of_thousands_illegally_blocked_from_1009.html
Then there is the real horror of purging genuine names from the voter rolls. Coincidentally it is in the battleground states. Oddly. it favors the repubs. Strange how that happens.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Acorn originally paid by the name, but changed to paying by the hour to discourage the kind of misuse of names described in the OP. They currently pay $8 an hour. They have signed up 1.3 million voters.
The Wall Street Journal (warning: pdf file)
I share your reaction. I want a true and honest vote. And I will vote for Obama even though I am fairly certain that the electoral vote in Tennessee will once again go to the Republican.
Every vote counts matters. I hope it bothers you as much as it does me when tidbits of facts are strung together for the purpose of manipulating misconceptions in the minds of even a few voters. And in that McCain’s team has sunk beneath contempt by playing on fears of Muslims.
What’s this about lefty social justice? That’s redundant.
This thread is another Bricker concoction to justify his Bush and McCain backing. He tries over and over to find justification, but the mental gyrations are not very becoming. His dance is getting old and tired. His thresh hold of proof gets weaker and weaker.
My dictionary (Webster’s new world, fourth edition) has 3 definitions of suppress
1 to put down by force, quell
2 to keep from being known, published
3 to keep back, restrain
None of these definitions reference legality in any way. So I challenge your assertion(premise, position, help me out here law talkin dude) that if it’s legal it’s not supression. If we are keeping people from voting through force of law, it’s still force, no?
Well, I didn’t want to hurt their feelings…
Voter suppression has to do with *intent *rather than legalities IMHO. If the intent is to keep a certain group from voting because of their political leanings then it’s suppression legal or not. Intent can be a hard thing to judge but sometimes it’s pretty clear.
And an attempt to link it too Obama. He’s really not one of us because he’s trying to corrupt our shiny clean democratic system. Clearly the GOP would never try anything like that. Oh wait!
I know people have mentioned that ACORN was suspected in previous elections of various forms of voter registration fraud but this is looking a little extreme. At least 9 states are investigating ACORN. Almost half of the processed forms in Lake County, Indiana appear to be bogus.
In the CNN story is the passage:
Is there a comparable organization to ACORN receiving Republican money and canvassing the low income areas that ACORN does?