LAT: Partisan Suspicions Run High in Swing States (read this opener)

[DeepModem Mom]

THE RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE
Partisan Suspicions Run High in Swing States
Democrats say the GOP aims to disenfranchise the poor and minorities. Republicans counter with claims of voter registration fraud.

By Peter Wallsten, Ken Silverstein and Elizabeth Shogren, Times Staff Writers


MILWAUKEE — The vast open rotunda soared above them as they waited by the hundreds to register and cast absentee ballots inside City Hall, the 19th century landmark modeled after a long-forgotten Dutch guildhall. It was a predominantly African American crowd, and people sang "We Shall Overcome."

But Yuri Nielsen was unmoved. Sitting on a hard chair near the front of the line, legal pad on his knee, the 26-year-old Republican Party worker cared about just one thing: Catching the notorious "Cigarette Lady," who four years ago trolled the city's homeless shelters trading smokes and beer for votes for Democrats.

Now, Nielsen said, he was "looking for any group that comes in with one person telling them what to do." That, he said, would be "a definite red light for 'smokes for votes.' "

Martha Love, head of the Milwaukee Democratic Party, was indignant. "It's plantation style," she said. "He's just sitting there, watching. It's an owner mentality."

If Nielsen's fears seem a bit dramatic, or if Love's comparison of a poll watcher with a slave owner seems exaggerated, they nonetheless reflect the extraordinarily rancorous and mistrustful atmosphere that pervades battleground states in the final days of the presidential campaign. In Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Oregon and other key states, Democrats and Republicans seem convinced their opponents are bent on stealing the election....


http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-suspicion26oct26,1,4640680.story?coll=la-home-politics

[ret5hd]

1. give 'im a sasparilla, a cigar, a rockin' chair...

and a whip. make it obvious what he is.

[SquireJons]

4. Hey, sarsaparilla's good stuff...

Don't lump a good drink in with bigots or I'll get self conscious the next time I grab one!

[Bandit]

2. Texans for Truth have an E-Mail about this very thing

Dear Texans for TruthMember,
CAST A SPOTLIGHT ON VOTER INTIMIDATION
No right is more central to a functioning democracy than the right to vote. Yet in this critical election newspapers are reporting daily on anti-democratic efforts to suppress the vote. This must be stopped.
Working together we can do it. We are issuing a nation-wide call for volunteer poll watchers armed with video cameras to document voter intimidation efforts at polling places.
To support our efforts please contribute here: http://texansfortruth.org/contribute.html
Texans for Truth is setting up a web site, http://www.VideoVoteVigil.org, where citizens can post digital copies of their videos. We've prepared ahead of time to provide sufficient bandwidth and server space to make it easy for volunteers to post their digitized videos. This site will be completed in the next few days.
This year, when thugs raise their fists and phony felons lists to frighten voters from the polls, they will be caught on camera and frozen in their tracks.
We're looking for volunteers to film voter intimidation efforts wherever they take place: highway road blocks, polling places, work sites, or neighborhoods.
Attempted voter suppression will be exposed IMMEDIATELY – before they can steal votes from our democracy. Working together, we can let would-be intimidators know they cannot hide from the eyes of the world. We must succeed in diminishing these voter intimidation efforts and providing critical support to Americans trying to cast ballots in the 2004 election.
This year's effort has been well-documented by bloggers and the mainstream press. Just Saturday, October 23, the New York Times described planned efforts in Ohio to hire thugs to intimidate voters.
Daily Kos has a clearinghouse of information on voter intimidation and TalkingPointsMemo has reported extensively on abuses here and here as have many others.
Throughout the nation, in election after election, Republicans rely upon voter intimidation and suppression strategies. As GOPer Webster Todd once said after helping elect his sister, Christine Todd Whitman, as governor of New Jersey, "That's where a lot of our effort went and a lot of our planning, getting out the vote on one side and voter sup--and keeping the vote light in other areas." Todd caught himself before finishing the word "suppression."
In my 2004 book, The Politics of Deceit: Saving Freedom and Democracy from Extinction, I make the case that the voter suppression effort is the most under-reported political scandal of our time. Now, because of your support, we are able to do something about it.
Bullies like to work in the dark. They like to hide. But with the help of tens of thousands of volunteers, we can shine a light on these thugs. Join us in this historic effort.
The thugs cannot escape a million righteous eyes.
thank you,
Glenn Smith
Texans for Truth

[snippy]

3. If these people were not so dangerous, they would be hillarious. n/t

[Zayin]

5. This is going to be the wildest election day in our lifetime