# Lose your house, lose your vote: Pubs using foreclosure list to block voters **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 12, 2008, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-your-house-lose-your-vote-pubs-using-foreclosure-list-to-block-voters/463296 "2008-09-12T16:24:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-your-house-lose-your-vote-pubs-using-foreclosure-list-to-block-voters/463296/81 "2008-09-24T18:44:18Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > You need to get tested for rabies ASAP. Doesn’t mean you’re any less of a xenophobic asslicker. I gotta go to work now. See I live in Michigan and may be denied the vote by Republicans, after they trashed the economy and drove unemployment percentages to near double digits. When the seasonal job ends I don’t know what I’ll do for money. There’s millions in Michigan like me. So fuck you if don’t understand why I’m upset. I want real change. I want a real vote for every American. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-your-house-lose-your-vote-pubs-using-foreclosure-list-to-block-voters/463296/82 "2008-09-28T22:08:29Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [In Michigan.](http://www.michiganmessenger.com/4076/lose-your-house-lose-your-vote) > > :mad::mad::mad: This is a new low, and that’s quite an achievement at this point. After all that happened in 2004, haven’t they learned any shame **yet?!** You can bet the Dems have those lists as well. Not sure if Michigan works the same way, but in Texas, if you are registered to vote and you move before the election, you can vote in your new polling place by showing your old registration and signing an affadavit. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-your-house-lose-your-vote-pubs-using-foreclosure-list-to-block-voters/463296/83 "2008-09-28T23:26:18Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > If you’re going to slam the Pubs for using shameless tactics to get and keep political power, then the Dems are fair game for the same treatment. Certainly, if you can name any tactics the Dems are using to keep likely Pub voters from being admitted or counted. But nothing the Dems are doing WRT immigration can be characterized as “shameless tactics to get and keep political power.” Still don’t know what you’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-your-house-lose-your-vote-pubs-using-foreclosure-list-to-block-voters/463296/84 "2008-09-28T23:29:27Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > You can bet the Dems have those lists as well. Eh? Why would they? Voter intimidation, voter suppression, keeping caging lists of any kind to challenge voters at the polls, are things the Democrats have never since the 1960s been caught doing or even been accused of. The Dems know perfectly well that the highest possible level of voter turnout and votes counted is usually better for them. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-your-house-lose-your-vote-pubs-using-foreclosure-list-to-block-voters/463296/85 "2008-09-28T23:55:52Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Eh? Why would they? Voter intimidation, voter suppression, keeping caging lists of any kind to challenge voters at the polls, are things the Democrats have **never** since the 1960s been caught doing or even been accused of. The Dems know perfectly well that the highest possible level of voter turnout and votes counted is usually better for them. (emphasis added) Bullshit. Or does the effort directed by persons from the national party to suppress military absentee ballots from 2000 not count for some convoluted reason? I agree that right now, for the most part, higher turn out favors the Dems, and for that reason it’s not sensible for them to try to use the tactic wholesale. But they’d be just as willing to use the tactics to suppress if it were to their benefit. And did so when it seemed like it would be. Voter suppression is bad. The Republicans are vile for doing this. And so were the Democrats. A pox on both your houses. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-your-house-lose-your-vote-pubs-using-foreclosure-list-to-block-voters/463296/86 "2008-09-29T03:32:36Z")
> [@Mishell](#): > > That’s how it is in California too. I help with running voter registration booths, and when I attended a training session to learn all about registering people to vote, this was addressed. If someone wishing to register is homeless, they have to give a description of where they usually hang out, for instance, “under the I-5 underpass on First Street.” We’re supposed to try and get a mailing address too, a relative’s house or something, in case an issue with their registration comes up and they need to be contacted. I guess, if they can’t provide a mailing address and a problem comes up with their registration, somebody would have to hike down to the overpass and find them. Or so I was told. In Canada, homeless people can be registered to vote in the electoral district of a homeless shelter or similar facility they regularly use. Shelters are given “attestation of residence” forms that they can give out to their users. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-your-house-lose-your-vote-pubs-using-foreclosure-list-to-block-voters/463296/87 "2008-09-29T06:25:06Z")
> [@OtakuLoki](#): > > …Or does the effort directed by persons from the national party to suppress military absentee ballots from 2000 not count for some convoluted reason?.. Presumably you mean the minor kerfluffle attending the Florida Debacle of 2000? Not quite. There were legitimate technical grounds for contesting the absentee ballots, by a strict interpretation of the law, they were not acceptable. Republicans assisting absentee military voters had stretched a couple of points in the dating. Dems suspected, reasonably enough, that since military votes were reliably more Pubbie than Dem, there were electoral motives afoot. The Pubbies nearly shattered their spines in patriotic conniption fits, blubbering the tears crocodilian over our brave troops, denied thier most precious rights by the perfidious, America hating… Oh, OK, already! the Dems said. Take 'em, _mazel tov_, much good may it do you! No actual voting rights were injured in the production of this farce. And since no good deed goes unpunished, God instructed 10,000 Jews in Palm Beach county to vote for Buchanan. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2008, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-your-house-lose-your-vote-pubs-using-foreclosure-list-to-block-voters/463296/88 "2008-10-14T19:13:22Z")
Update: [A federal judge rules Michigan cannot cancel voter registrations for bad addresses.](http://www.syracuse.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/politics-1/1223928254149090.xml&storylist=topstories) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lose-your-house-lose-your-vote-pubs-using-foreclosure-list-to-block-voters/463296.md?page=4)