09.27.08
Anatomy of Voter Caging — 2008 McCain Style
Because the Republican party has a long inglorious history of voter suppression (the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Rehnquist got his start politically as a GOP operative working to keep Democrats from voting in Arizona!) it should come as no surprise that they have gotten ever more sophisticated at it. Admittedly their attempts in 2000 and 2004 were effective to some extent but very transparent. Now they pretend to help you vote while ensuring that your vote will be thrown away.
Here’s how it works, step by step. And if you should happen to be the recipient of one of these McCain mailings, call your local elections office ASAP and verify that you are still registered to vote — and if tell the local officials about the mailing — you will be ensuring that your voter registration is current and performing a public service by letting the elections officials know what is going on. Read the rest of this entry »
09.14.08
Massive voter caging by McCain campaign?
From state after state come reports of massive mailings by the McCain campaign of absentee ballot requests that contain confusing, misleading or simply wrong information. Is the McCain campaign merely incompetent? Or is it engaged in a massive effort to create a database of voters to challenge at the polls? Is the McCain campaign orchestrating a voter caging campaign on a grand scale?
Given the track record of the GOP in Florida in 2000 there is no reason to give McCain and the Republicans the benefit of the doubt this time around. Greg Palast has provided extensive documentation of their success in denying the right to vote to thousands of legitimate voters. Go to www.gregpalast.com and read all about it if you have any doubts. So let’s assume that the mailings of absentee ballot requests to voters in swing states who did not request them is simply a new weapon in the Republican voter suppression arsenal.
How widespread is this? So far reports have come in from VA, OH, CO, NC, PA, FL, NM, WI, OR, CA and MN. Here’s a sampling of the info available so far. Read the rest of this entry »
Jim Crow rises from the grave as ‘Jim Crawford’
We all thought/hoped that Jim Crow was buried once and for all with the passage of the 1965 Voting RIghts Act and subsequent court decisions affirming the right to vote without undue burdens being placed on voter. But it looks like there is a new incarnation of the Southern voter suppression known as Jim Crow. This time around it is being tagged ‘Jim Crawford’ after a notorious U.S. Supreme Court decision in Crawford v. Marion County (Indiana) Election Board.
In a recent Newsweek article Jonathan Alter describes the persistent effort by Republicans to keep blocs of likely Democratic voters from casting a ballot. http://www.newsweek.com/id/158392
…white Republicans in some areas will keep eligible blacks from voting by requiring driver’s licenses. Not only is this new-fangled discrimination constitutional, it’s spreading.
GOP proponents of the move say they are merely trying to reduce voter fraud. But while occasional efforts to stuff ballot boxes through phony absentee voting still surface, the incidence of individual vote fraud—voting when you aren’t eligible—is virtually non-existent, as “The Truth About Vote Fraud,” a study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, clearly shows. In other words, the problem Republicans claim they want to combat with increased ID requirements doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, those ID hurdles facing individuals do nothing to stop the organized insiders who still try to game the system.
The motive here is political, not racial. Republicans aren’t bigots like the Jim Crow segregationists. But they know that increased turnout in poor, black neighborhoods is good for Democrats. In that sense, the effort to suppress voting still amounts to the practical equivalent of racism. Read the rest of this entry »
09.01.08
Operation chaos for voters — registration drive runs amok in 23 states
Courtesy of my colleague and friend in North Carolina, Joyce McCloy, comes this dire warning about a voter registration drive by a group called Women’s Voices Women’s Vote (WVWV) that is wreaking havoc in every state that they are targeting. So far 23 states have borne the brunt of WVWV’s efforts. One state election calls their mailings “purposefully deceptive” and vows to pursue legal means to stop them in that state.
Where does WVWV get their mailing list that they send registration forms to people who have been dead for over 4 years, or to elementary school age children, or to EAC Chair Rosemary Rodriguez? Will WVWV make robo calls again in KY, NC and other states?
There’s no word yet on the NC Atty Gen’s investigation into the April robo calls in NC. Will WVWV confuse voters during North Carolina’s early voting/same day registration period?
They’re back -Women’s Voices Women Vote registration drive sows confusion
The DC non profit “Women’s Voices Women Vote” is at it again confusing voters & burying election officials in unneccesary paperwork. WVWV has even mailed voter registration forms to 6 & 14 yr olds, dead persons, registered voters, even the Chairman of the EAC – the federal agency that overseas elections. One way to disenfranchise voters is to “gum up” the system that enfranchises them. Read the rest of this entry »
