The stealth return of Jim Crow: Millions threatened by poll purges

[Stellar]

Source: Aljazeera

Election officials in 27 states, most of them Republicans, have launched a program that threatens a massive purge of voters from the rolls. Millions, especially black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters, are at risk. Already, tens of thousands have been removed in at least one battleground state, and the numbers are expected to climb, according to a six-month-long, nationwide investigation by Al Jazeera America.

At the heart of this voter-roll scrub is the Interstate Crosscheck program, which has generated a master list of nearly 7 million names. Officials say that these names represent legions of fraudsters who are not only registered but have actually voted in two or more states in the same election — a felony punishable by 2 to 10 years in prison.

Until now, state elections officials have refused to turn over their Crosscheck lists, some on grounds that these voters are subject to criminal investigation. Now, for the first time, three states — Georgia, Virginia and Washington — have released their lists to Al Jazeera America, providing a total of just over 2 million names.

The Crosscheck list of suspected double voters has been compiled by matching names from roughly 110 million voter records from participating states. Interstate Crosscheck is the pet project of Kansas’ controversial Republican secretary of state, Kris Kobach, known for his crusade against voter fraud.

***Snip***

Read more: http://projects.aljazeera.com/2014/double-voters/index.html

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more info at the link.

[Gothmog]

1. The GOP can only win by suppressing the vote

Cheating is the only way that the GOP can win

[Skittles]

24. only stupid people vote for their shitty ideas

[SomeGuyInEagan]

2. Stealthy?! Not in the least.

Heavily-covered national story for what happened in Florida in 2000 and been in the news (even the corporate-owned mainstream media) ever since.

Stealthy, perhaps to the Dem national party leaders who have not come up with a strategy to combat it, focusing instead on electing R-lite candidates.

[Jack Rabbit]

3. GOP Election Fraud needs more attention than it's getting

Why is anybody talking about a Republican takeover of the Senate without mentioning voter suppression in the same sentence?

If the Republicans take over the Senate, it will not be a true reflection of the American people. America will be dead, spinning into the black hole of right wing tyranny under an illegitimate Congress.

[Fred Sanders]

4. The freaking corporate media will filter out all mention of the criminal acts of the GOP.

Soldiers die for the right to vote in other countries, the right being suppressed in the homeland, and few seem to give a fuck, I said "seem" because that is the way the fucking media present it.

[Stellar]

11. I'm really P/O about this myself!

[Dont call me Shirley]

27. Homeland is a term created by Rudolph Hess.

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/26395-time-for-the-us-to-dump-the-word-homeland

[merrily]

28. And now used by Democratic and Republican politicians whenever they want to raise the specter

of terra.

[Dont call me Shirley]

30. Giving into public demand The Democrats would change the name. The gops would dig in the heels

of their jackboots.

[merrily]

31. I don't understand your first sentence, but nothing requires Democrats to announce

"a threat to the homeland." That is the kind of thing I am talking about.
"

[Dont call me Shirley]

32. If Democrats were put under pressure to stop using the term homeland, change the name of

homeland security or any other such use of the term, they would stop using the term. The name homeland is directly associated with Hitler and Nazis, which would make it a name abounding in bigotry.

Just as a current example: Many Democrats have been calling for the discontinuation of the Washington DC football team name. They have been put under public pressure to oppose the use of the name, as it is racist.

Gops would not change the name under any circumstances, just as Dan Snyder, owner of the DC NFL team is refusing to change his team's name.

[merrily]

33. Why should it even require pressure? Also, I disagree that pressure = results from politicians.

A lot of my experience shows they do what they want, no matter what. And not only the GOP.

[Dont call me Shirley]

34. The Democrats still bow to public pressure, although less than they used to.

We MUST keep trying. We MUST work to get progressives and liberal elected. We MUST follow FDRs words and "make them do it".

[merrily]

35. I don't agree that Democrats still bow to pressure.

We MUST keep trying. We MUST work to get progressives and liberal elected. We MUST follow FDRs words and "make them do it".

What does that have to do with politicians using the term "Homeland?" That is what we were discussing.

As far as getting liberals elected, if I knew how to do that, I would.

As far as FDR's words, he didn't mean them. He was going to do whatever he had to do to stop the country from going down the tubes--and he did. He did a huge amount in the first 100 days. That was him, not him waiting for the public to make him do it.

Obama didn't mean them when he used them either, but that was a whole other scenario.

[Dont call me Shirley]

37. It has everything to do with politicians using the term homeland.

Homeland is a highly negatively charged word/term. We must put public pressure on politicians to stop using the psychologically abusive term, just like we have put pressure on them to stop using the n word, the r word and now the other r word.

[bigdarryl]

5. So they want us to believe that only minority voters cheat in elections by voting twice

It's nothing but blatant Jim Crow

[Stellar]

9. Here's the thing....

If you have a common last name ie....Williams, Rodriguez, Gonzalez, Moore...
just type your last name in and if it matches they will purge it from the role of people in Georgia or Virginia, etc. Try typing your name in it.

http://projects.aljazeera.com/2014/double-voters/interactive.html?searchName=Rodriguez&searchFirst=&searchGeorgia=on&searchVirginia=on&searchSubmit=#

[csziggy]

29. Interesting - I go three pairs of "matches"

For my name - one pair had the same spelling of the first name and the same middle name. NONE of those six listings were me!

I put in my husband's name - since his last is different, I knew the results would be completely different. Only one pair match came up for his name. Neither were him. Plus, there is another person with his first & last names that he grew up with - that guy didn't come up; we've met another man with the same first and last living in this town and he didn't come up either.

It's interesting that known matches didn't come up!

[Stellar]

36. My husband and father-in-law have the same name....

as does my son. The only thing is that their middle initials are different...but those Republic0ns don't give a damn. They will purge the name anyway.

[OKNancy]

6. I got 434 matches in the search for my husband's name

It's a very common name. The matches were just for two states.

[Scuba]

7. When you can't win on policy, cheat.

[seveneyes]

8. Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera America (AJAM) is an American basic cable and satellite news television channel that is owned by the Qatar-royal family's Al Jazeera Media Network. The channel, which was launched on August 20, 2013, directly competes with CNN, HLN, MSNBC, Fox News Channel, and in certain markets, RT America.

[Stellar]

10. I like Al Jazeera.

[Dawson Leery]

12. Al Jazeera has stories you would never find

in American corporate media (especially FOX/CNN).

[99th_Monkey]

14. Yes. Stories rather like the one cited in this OP

This is the very first mention of this massive voter purge. Certainly
am not seeing it on CNN, or even MSNBC.

No wonder ReThugs think they'll win the Senate.

[rhett o rick]

20. I also appreciate Al Jazeera. nm

[nashville_brook]

13. k and r

[RussBLib]

15. keep an eye on GregPalast.com

What the GOP is doing should be criminal. They know they can't win fairly so they pull shit like this.

[Skidmore]

23. You could fight this all the way to SCOTUS

and the Roberts court of activist judges would not lift a finger to protect voting rights.

[sammy750]

16. Voters wake up and vote smart or you will lose your voting rights.

The GOP mission is to steal the 2016 elections. Once they get complete control. The people of the states and nation will lose all rights. The GOP is ready and waiting to take over the nation. This is worst then ISIS. Vote smart and defeat the Republicans and Tea Party. They LIE and are winning by huge donations by the Koch brothers, who want complete control of the states and nation.

[OldRedneck]

17. I'm more than a little skeptical

I'm one of a three-member county electoral board in a rural Virginia county. We went through this bullshit last year. Here's what happens.

1. Some number of states -- I think it's 27 -- subscribe to this service.

2. Annually, these states send their voter registration database to a company in Arkansas. That company runs the databases through an application that puts them all into the same format then forwards the databases to a company in Kansas.

3. The Kansas company then looks for "matches" -- that is, people who are registered to vote in two states. I do not know what constitutes a "match" -- is it name, date of birth, last four of social, what??

4. Then -- each state is sent a list of people who are (may be) registered to vote in another state.

By the time this filtered down to my county, we had (as I recall) 107 people who were dual-registered. We contacted each one -- not one was dual registered. The problem mainly was old information -- for example, one of my neighbors was on the list -- he had moved from NC to VA in 2010, had notified NC of his move, but he was never taken off the NC voter database (or, the "matching" company was using an old database). Regardless, we didn't find a single person who was voting in two states.

[Gman]

18. I will bet there's a lot more republicans in that list then Democrat

They will find a lot of retired and active military voting where they live now and voting back in their home state also where they probably own property. Democrats found this to be the case and Del Rio Texas in the 90s. A lawsuit was filed. Sen. Phil Graham jumped up and down screaming that Democrats were trying to deny the military the right to vote. The case was thrown out by a Republican federal judge.

[DallasNE]

19. This Should Be Very Unnecessary

Prior to most general elections the election commissioner sends out a polling information card with instructions to the post office to not forward and instead return the mailing if the person listed no longer lives at that address. The election commissioner will then flag that voter as challenged on the voter roll. If that person moves to another State and re-registers there it makes no sense to purge the new registration as it is not fraud. Procedurally they could inquire at registration time whether that person is registered in another State and notify that State to purge the now obsolete entry. My guess is that the error rate for the current purge will be above 90%. In the case of an exact match only the oldest registration should be considered for a purge. Even then the voter should be notified and given several days to come in and declare which State is current and which should be purged. This is not rocket science. What they are doing is just plain stupid.

[AverageJoe90]

21. Boy, they are just *going* at it, aren't they? n/t

[GeorgeGist]

22. John Roberts Jr.

[blkmusclmachine]

25. Republicans CANNOT win elections on the merits of their arguments. Therefore, they cheat.

[merrily]

26. Stealth? I thought Jim Crow's jackboots were quite loud.

What can we do? Protests when the newly elected are sworn in? Show up at the polls (those of us who can) with tape over our mouths, to symbolize those whose vote was silenced?