I don’t this claim is in evidence. There were several questions about this particular point earlier. No has produced anything showing that to be the case. The article linked stated they were “planning to use a list of foreclosed homes . . .” Past tense, meaning the foreclosure process is complete.
No doubt, but its use as a quasi-official, nationally coordinated tactic of the Republican Party is strictly post-Nixon.
The legal foreclosure process. Doesn’t mean the sheriff has yet come by to put them out; and until they do get put out or leave, that house remains the residents’ legal residence.
Right, and if we’re just talking about foreclosed homes, then there’s no story. The legal challenge to this plan makes it sound as though we’re not, though.
It remains the resident’s residence. It doesn’t remain their legal residence just because the lienholder hasn’t presented a writ of possession to the sheriff yet.
There will be, I’m sure. Problem is, in many cases their only right will be to demand a provisional ballot, regarding which, see post #13.
The only source for this is the Michigan Messenger, and the head of the Republican Party in Macomb County denies he said it or plans to do it:
I don’t know who’s telling the truth, obviously, but I think if he did say it and now denies it, they’re not planning to do it anymore.
Besides, Macomb County actually went for Bush in 2004, so it might not have been great strategy. Although I guess people in foreclosed homes probably tend to vote Democrat.
Frankly, I doubt that this manuever is really targeted at the recently homelessed. Its a ploy to gain some legal standing for tactics they would dearly love to implement, but have been stymied, for the most part.
Remember, a lot of the attorney firing fiasco was inspired by this “movement” (I mean “movement” in the rectal context…)
They are looking for a means to legitimize recruilting “poll watchers”. to give them some legal standng. Then they can perhaps legitimize other such shenanigans by referening the legality of this one.
Ayuh. See these threads about the Pubs’ flatly illegal (but not necessarily criminal, that’s a gray area) use of “caging lists” in the 2004 election, and U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin’s role in it.
Well, we won’t really know until e-day. They can get caught at it and called out on it and deny it and they can still do it and get away with it. That’s what they did in 2004 with the “caging lists”; see above post.
I have a PO Box as my address. At one point in the house I now live in, I paid no utilities. Does this mean I’m ineligible to vote?
Can we have Challengers that challenge the Challengers? If the Pubs have people going out and doing this, can we have Dems watching over the proceedings as well?
It’s scare tactics, plain and simple.
Why is it in other countries, such as South Africa, we demand that voters be allowed to vote without harassment, and sanction the use of UN observers. And yet here, we let this kind of stuff go through. Makes ya wonder.
Call somebody and check. But I wouldn’t sweat it much, this is, in my estimation, only another attempt to establish the “legitimacy” of “voter fraud” as a threat to the public order, one that needs to be firmly suppressed.
See, as hard as they’ve tried, they’ve yet to establish that voter fraud even exists in any meaningful way. And if they can’t show something is wrong, they don’t get any opportunity to “correct” it.
I suspect, but cannot prove, that the intent is not so much to stop certain voters directly, one on one, but to slow down the proceedings, make them too difficult and time consuming. Since polling opportunities, like schools, tend to rely on the local tax base, the polling in your poorer neighborhoods tends to be more tiresome, more time consuming, more inconvenient, and with less equipment.
So the object of the exercise is to discourage voters in a more or less general way in areas where the political leanings are likely to be predictably unfavorable.
Which, of course, stinks.
I haven’t seen much outrage about it, but the Attorney General of Wisconsin, J.B. Van Hollen, (coincidentally co-chair of McCain’s Wisconsin Campaign) Has filed a suit with Wisconsin’s Election board that could possibly cause 10s of thousands of people to have to re-register at the polls. It will most affect those more transient neighborhoods… Guess where those are. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h9pxGlK3YYte2ZHnD5o8YW2RvVRQD93534MO0
What stuff are we letting go through?
Sure. But what can the Dem challengers one-the-scene demand, but that a challenged voter be given a provisional ballot? Discussed above.
Sending letters to voters they think unlikely to respond that are likely Dem voters, is caging. The forclosures are a new opportunity. It was kids in college and soldiers abroad before. If they protest your vote ,you often get a provisional ballot ,which may or may not get counted. They sometimes disappear.
Update: The DNC and the Obama campaign have filed a federal lawsuit to block the use of foreclosure lists. However, problems remain:
Rep John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee just published a DKos blogto publicize a letter he’s sent to John McCain regarding the foreclosure lists:
Check out the comments–he stuck around to answer some questions regarding the contempt of Congress proceedings agains Rove, Miers and Bolton as well.
Now if he’d just have a press conference to draw some attention to this, my Friday would be perfect!
There is also the fact that by putting the word out that they will be challenging people’s right to cast a ballot, the local Republicans will scare off people who don’t want that hassle/embarrassment/scene when they arrive at the polling station. Suppressing voter turnout is even better than disallowing already cast votes for throwing an election in the “right” direction.
Perhaps they never intended to actually challenge based on foreclosure lists (knowing it was a legal and PR non-starter) but by getting the story out there and then retracting it, it put the idea in already insecure voters heads that it might just be better not to show up.
The First World version of having heavies with guns and clubs loitering near the polling station, as it were.
A gutsy move by Conyers. His next election, the Pubbies will scream themselves hoarse about his connection to radical America-hatin’ Daily Kos.
They’ll scream even louder as they twist in the wind, hanging each from his own special lamppost… 