Democrats moving from republican states?

[wonky]

If anyone would like to move to Ohio and help vote against Blackwell, that’d be swell.

Corruption, corn, and cows, the three Ohio crops you can see from every highway.

[Evil_Captor]

@Balthisar

Lovely: election fraud. :rolleyes:

No fraud. People can move where they like. As long as they meet the residency requirement, it’s not fraud. That’s more of a Republican tactic.

[AskNott]

@Balthisar

…That’s the potentially fraudulent part. You state without having any intention to stay that you intend to stay just to vote. You know, “Wink-wink, nudge-nudge. Of course I intend to stay.”
That’s probably not what you meant, but when you mention Al Franken, Air America Radio, and “only need to claim” all in the same paragraph, it’s not so terribly difficult to read between the lines.

Please let me fill in some of the details. The rules say you have to state an intention to stay in Ohio; anyone who does that, and registers to vote at least 30 days before the election, is eligible.

Franken called his project Bleeding Ohio in reference to an anti-slavery drive long ago called Bleeding Kansas. There was a vote coming up to decide whether Kansas would be a slave state. A lot of abolitionists moved there to tip the balance. In 2004, polls showed that Ohio might go either way, so Franken asked his listeners who lived in firmly Democratic or Republican states to move to Ohio and vote there. As it turned out, Bleeding Ohio was not enough to turn the tide in Ohio’s election.

In the aftermath, there were plenty of accusations of election fraud in Ohio, but none of them were tossed at the Bleeders.

[Chronos]

For instance, in a state with closed primaries a Democrat could re-register as a Republican to vote for whom he thinks is the weakest Republican candidate.

Alternately, a Democrat might think that both Democratic candidates in a primary were equally acceptable, but might see a significant difference between the Republican candidates, and so switch registrations for the primary to vote for the Republican who he honestly considered better (who might even be the one with the best chance of winning the general election, if he’s palatable to Democrats in general).

[Johanna]

@Otto

Yes, and having a West Virginia is working out just swimmingly for the queers, isn’t it.

Well, at least they have no slaves, which was the issue concerning the birth of West Virginia. However, if there is an increase in the display of Confederate flags in West Virginia, the good Mountain Staters need to stand up and say-- We kicked the Rebs out of this state once before, and we’ll do it again if necessary.

Now, if Northern Virginia secedes from Richmond over homophobia–reinforced by some strong local feelings about revenue and spending, because in America the pocketbook and the potholes rule politics–that would be cool.

[Walloon]

@AskNott

Previous to the 2004 election, Al Franken and some other folks on Air America Radio were encouraging people to move to Ohio. There’s a short residency requirement there, and to register, you only need to claim you intend to stay.

The Ohio voter registration form (PDF file) has no requirement that the registrant intends to stay in Ohio:

You are qualified to register to vote in Ohio if you meet all the following requirements:

1. You are a citizen of the United States.
2. You will be at least 18 years old on or before the day of the general election.
3. You will be a resident of Ohio for at least 30 days immediately before the election in which you want to vote.
4. You are not incarcerated (in prison) for a felony conviction.
5. You have not been declared incompetent for voting purposes by a probate court.
6. You have not been permanently disfranchised for violations of the election laws.