Republicans Running Scared | Ctr. for American Progress

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Republicans Running Scared
As the election gets closer, the Republican Party has turned to voter suppression efforts to try to sway the election, by keeping voters "off of the rolls and away from the polls." (Paul Krugman has the latest rundown on Republican efforts to block the vote.) The Center for American Progress joined 23 concerned parties in a joint statement on how to protect the vote and uphold democracy in the upcoming election. Voters should not be intimidated by fears of a stolen election. If voters don't get out and vote, the election will not be stolen but given away. Instead, everyone should get out and vote, vote early, and – to be safe – bring an I.D. Also, any voter experiencing problems on Election Day should call the Election Protection hotline, at (866) OUR-VOTE.

SPROUL'S REGISTRATION MALFEASANCE: This week, explosive new evidence emerged of direct ties between the RNC and a Republican consulting firm being investigated by Oregon and Nevada for perpetrating widespread voter fraud. Sproul & Associates, paid $500,000 by the Republican National Committee, created a voter registration front group in several states. Some of the canvassers the company hired say they were told they wouldn't be paid for registering Democrats. Employees in the two western states have accused the firm of destroying, dumping or shredding the forms of Democrats who thought they were registered to vote. Also, an employee in West Virginia quit after she was told to only register individuals who would confirm they were planning to vote for President Bush. The head of Sproul & Associates, Nathan Sproul, has long ties to the GOP: he was the former executive director of the Arizona Republican Committee. Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA) have asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to launch an immediate investigation on the federal level. (The New Yorker provides a look at how Ashcroft's Justice Department itself has politicized the voting process.)

OHIO'S VICTORY: U.S. District Judge James Carr ruled yesterday against Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell's efforts to stop voters who show up at the wrong polling place from casting a provisional ballot, even if they are voting in the county in which they are registered. (A provisional ballot allows properly registered voters who don't show up on the registration rolls to still vote.) Carr ruled that voters in Ohio who show up at the wrong polling place on Election Day could still vote as long as they were voting in the county in which they were registered. According to Carr, "Lessened participation at the polls diminishes the vitality of our democracy."

CHECK THIS BOX IF YOU DON'T WANT YOUR RIGHTS SUPPRESSED: Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood – appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush in 2003 – recommended trashing any registration forms on which voters did not check a box at the top to indicate they were U.S. citizens, even though they had already signed an oath at the bottom of the form swearing that they were. Even after the problem was realized, election officials did not process some of the fixed forms in time. Other registrants weren't even told their forms were flawed. The San Francisco Chronicle reports, "labor unions and voting-rights groups sued to stop the disqualification of more than 10,000 incomplete registration forms in Florida, accusing the state of overly restrictive rules that disproportionately hurt minority voters." And according to a suit filed by People for the American Way, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and the AFL-CIO, "more than a third of the incomplete forms in Broward and Miami-Dade counties came from African American registrants, even though African Americans make up only 17 percent of the electorate in Broward and 20 percent in Miami-Dade."

MISTAKES IN MILWAUKEE: Mayor Tom Barrett asked Milwaukee County to print 938,000 ballots to accommodate a possible flood of new voters in his city. (Wisconsin has same-day registration, so turnout is often unpredictable.) County Executive Scott Walker – a Republican – refused, telling the Associated Press that having extra ballots could cause "chaos" at understaffed polling places. He's only allowing the city about 10,000 more ballots than were printed for the last presidential election. People For The American Way has a petition you can sign to help get Milwaukee enough ballots.

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[Raster]

1. The 'pukes know they can't win a fair, vote-of-the-people election,

so they turn to a host of illegal election shenanigans. I've said this at least a hundred times on this board and I will say it yet again: Willfully and consciously seeking to disenfranchise legal voters in a democracy is tantamount to treason, and should be punished as such.

Of the people, for the people, by the people. Accept no substitutes.

[Zuni]

2. This is TREASON

It is called suppressing democracy because the GOP knows it cannot win an election unless the populace is misinformed or surpressed

[pacalo]

4. And because they got away with it in 2000, it's becoming more

widespread in this election. How can this illegal activity be corrected & eliminated, is the question.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

3. It was their only chance in 2000

it is their only chance in 2004.