What a Surprise- more Rethug sponsored Voter Fraud in Penn and Oregon

[No Mandate Here.]

Students have parties switched by bogus petitions
Registration changed to Republican without consent

<http://www.postgazette.com/pg/04296/399788.stm>

Friday, October 22, 2004
By Dennis B. Roddy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Scores of college students in Pennsylvania and Oregon have had their voting registrations switched by teams of canvassers circulating bogus petitions and, in some cases, partially concealed voter registration forms students were requested to sign.

The canvassers have visited campuses asking students to sign petitions advocating lower auto insurance rates, medical marijuana or stricter rape laws, according to elections officials.

After signing their names, the students were pressured into registering with the Republican Party by being told that their signatures otherwise would be invalid, or they were asked to fill out the signature and address portions of blank voter registration forms as proof of citizenship. In multiple instances, students already registered to vote have had their registrations changed without their consent, elections officials said yesterday.

Petition canvassers in Pennsylvania apparently did not identify themselves, although one told a University of Pittsburgh student that he was being paid by the Republican Party.

In another instance, the head of the Oregon Students Association said a canvasser at Portland State University told him he was with Project America Votes, a Republican-backed registration effort.

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[teryang]

1. Baseless allegations?

They don't sound baseless to me. Someone should go to jail.

[DebJ]

2. it doesn't matter if they are registered Repub...still can vote Kerry

someone changing MY registration, for example, is not going to effect for whom I vote...

I don't get it.

[SheilaT]

3. I have noticed

people out there thinking they can only vote for the party they're registered with. That only matters in a primary, and not even all states have closed primaries.

[PA Democrat]

4. In western PA, Republicans have to PAY people to do many

activities that our party does with an all-volunteer effort.

Here in Westmoreland County, we do "visibility" events daily in front of the courthouse during high traffic time periods. Our people are out there on the street cheering with banners and signs on a strictly VOLUNTEER basis. Just last week, 2 or 3 people straggled out of the Bush Cheney headquarters to do their own "visibility" effort on the opposite street corner.

The Republicans bragged to our volunteers that they were getting PAID for their efforts. Doesn't say much about their candidate or the MEpublicans that they have to pay people to show "support".

[Onlooker]

5. What would be the motivation?

Are voter lists segregated by party? Or was this done a number of months ago as a tactic in the primaries? Or was the Repug party paying people to get more Republicans, and this is the way some of them went about it? Hmmmm.