Voter fraud and disenfranchisement
by kos
Sun Oct 31st, 2004 at 23:21:55 GMT
Here's a sampling of what we face nationwide.
In West Virginia -- it was bad enough the first time.
In a letter, Berkeley County clerk John Smalls cites calls from a cell phone were made to Eastern Panhandle democrats telling them that they were not registered to vote. The letter also said the calls informed democrats in some cases they wouldn`t be able to vote on Election Day [...]
It`s considered an improper act because when upset citizens called the voter registration office to make sure they were registered to vote, indeed they were. So, who made these misleading calls? The Berkeley County Clerk`s Office traced the number voters gave as the source back to the Eastern Panhandle Republican Headquarters.
Bad enough the first time, as I said. Problem is, despite their "slap on the wrist" (or because of it), local Republicans are still up to the same dirty tricks. From an email statement today:
Democratic leaders in one of the nation's most hotly-contested battleground states are receiving reports of voter suppression activities that can be traced back to the Republican Party. The suppression activities have continued despite warnings from officials in Berkeley and Jefferson Counties.
Hopefully these WV Republicans face the same fate as those in Ohio who tried to challenge 35,000 new voters for no reason other than disenfranchisement. After hundreds of hearings found
zero illegal registrations, the entire lot of challenges was
thrown out and the Republican masterminds now face criminal charges.
Speaking of Ohio, I got this from a Toledo volunteer:
I worked all day yesterday at the largest Toledo area Kerry GOTV phone bank at Gallon and Takacs law offices, 3516 Granite, Sylvania. Out of the 8 phone banks that we had here in the Toledo area yesterday, ours produced one third of all of the contacts made.
Both the local phone company and our phone systems provider have confirmed to us that phone relay point into the building was purposely severed. Many volunteers were rerouted to other locations and several also had to rely on cell phones when we found our lines down this morning. We thought it was a coincidence until the phone company verified to us that the lines were intentionally cut.
More Republican dirty tactics.
And more Ohio, check out this letter supposedly sent from the Lake County (Painesville) Board of Election to newly registered Democrats:
Of course, the letter is not from the Board of Election, and it's obviously all bullshit. (From Law Geek.)
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the GOP wants to take a page from the Ohio playbook.
Citing a new list of more than 37,000 questionable addresses, the state Republican Party demanded Saturday that Milwaukee city officials require identification from all of those voters Tuesday.
If the city doesn't, the party says it is prepared to have volunteers challenge each individual - including thousands who might be missing an apartment number on their registration - at the polls.
In Ohio, the "questionable addresses" were those were GOP-sent registered mail wasn't accepted. Wherever the WI GOP's list comes from, it's definitely not reality.
City Attorney Grant Langley labeled the GOP request "outrageous."
"We have already uncovered hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of addresses on their (original list) that do exist," said Langley, who holds a non-partisan office. "Why should I take their word for the fact this new list is good? I'm out of the politics on this, but this is purely political."
Still in Wisconsin, let's head to the ultra-liberal University of Wisconsin -- Madison, which should be a
huge source of Kerry votes on Tuesday.
UW-Madison students in six residence halls received misleading information this week about how to vote, triggering allegations of dirty tricks.
The Dave Magnum for Congress campaign and the College Republicans took responsibility and apologized for the mailing Friday evening, insisting it was an honest error.
But a progressive group called it a deliberate attempt to confuse student voters. And University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor John Wiley, saying he was concerned that students might not know where to vote, had e-mails sent to all students Friday afternoon containing correct information.
The Campus Republican flyer told students they could vote at the polling location of their choice. Obviously, voters must vote in their assigned polling location.
The College Republicans, of course, are mired in a scandal of their own -- bilking innocent seniors of more than $6 million.
The College Republican National Committee has raised $6.3 million this year through an aggressive and misleading fund-raising campaign that collected money from senior citizens who thought they were giving to the election efforts of President Bush and other top Republicans.
Many of the top donors were in their 80s and 90s. The donors wrote checks -- sometimes hundreds and, in at least one case, totaling more than $100,000 -- to groups with official sounding-names such as "Republican Headquarters 2004," "Republican Elections Committee" and the "National Republican Campaign Fund." [...]
Some of the elderly donors, meanwhile, wound up bouncing checks and emptying their bank accounts.
"I don't have any more money," said Cecilia Barbier, a 90-year-old retired church council worker in New York City. "I'm stopping giving to everybody. That was all my savings that they got."
Barbier said she "wised up." But not before she made more than 300 donations totaling nearly $100,000 this year, the group's fund-raising records show.
Makes you glad to be a Democrat, huh? We all knew College Republicans were slime. Now we have hard evidence. I hope to see some of those scum carted off to jail. But I digress, since cheating the elderly of their life savings isn't really voter fraud or supression.
Let's wrap up in Alabama, where Democratic areas have been infested with this flyer:
