Look out Ohio....new VOTER SUPRESSION STRATEGY

[RedEarth]

This is from the NewDonkey site....

The Rove M.O.

The latest political news from Ohio is important and instructive. A federal judge in Columbus blocked Republican efforts to force county election boards to review tens of thousands of new voter registrations. Before the ink was dry on the judge's order, the Ohio GOP's top lawyer said the action meant the GOP would challenge such voters at the polls on November 2. "We wanted to have all these questions resolved this week," said attorney Mark Weaver. "Now they won't be resolved until Tuesday, when all of these people are trying to vote. It can't help but create chaos, longer lines and frustration."

In other words, the GOP is using the demise of one prong of its voter supression strategy to pre-justify the other. And I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly the way they planned it. Now they can can get their "volunteers" out to "create chaos, longer lines and frustration" in minority polling places and sadly say that an "activist judge" who didn't care about voter fraud left them no choice. It's going to get worse, too: mark my words, when Democrats, civil rights attorneys, and voters themselves get visibly angry about this gambit, the GOPers will start whining about "potential violence" at the polls, and even pretend their goons are being intimidated and harassed. If nothing else, it will give them an excuse to go to court to contest Ohio's outcome if the state goes for Kerry.

Now I have no direct evidence that Karl Rove has planned and is executing this voter suppression strategy, though it's interesting that every Republican hack and pundit in the universe started singing like a cicada about "voter fraud" about a week before the Ohio story got into the national news. But it sure as hell fits Rove's M.O. like a glove.

The Florida debacle of 2000 illustrated two Rove tactics that are devilishly effective:

1) Getting in front of media interpretation of a controversy in a way that reshapes public perceptions of the actual event, and sticking with the spin come hell or high water. In retrospect, the war for Florida was half-won the day after the election, when the Bush campaign (knowing Katherine Harris would give the spin official sanction as soon as she could) announced it had won the state, and then began a relentless and ultimately successful campaign to depict efforts to get a full and accurate count as an attempt to reverse the outcome.

more at the NewDonkey...

http://www.newdonkey.com/2004/10/rove-mo.html

[cubsfan forever]

1. Ohio is too far in Kerry's column for it to work,

but yes, they will be their nasty, dirty, fascist selves all the same. GOTV

Professor 2

[RedEarth]

9. Hopefully you're right...

it sure sounds like Rove is planning on pulling out all the stops in Ohio....and, I would also imagine in the rest of the battleground states.

[aquart]

2. They think they're in front?

Come out with a voter warning. Do it on TV. Buy the airtime.

<tt>WE have the votes. THEY have to keep us from voting. That's their entire strategy. The lines will be long. The challenges rude and insulting. But nothing is more important than our vote.

If they keep us from voting, they win. That's the only way they CAN win.</tt>

Identify their strategy up front for what it is.

When they frame an argument, CAGE them in it.

[sandnsea]

3. Mosh

And that's all I've got to say.

[shraby]

4. If they challenge too many voters, the poll workers

can make them stop for disrupting the voting.

[spotbird]

5. This is an untested strategy, they hope they can cause chaos

but since there really isn't massive fraud they won't have much success.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. kick

[bush equals idiot]

7. There are going to be

a thousand or more independent monitors. They will be looking for hotspots just like that. They will be all over it with their people.

[George_S]

8. RICO ACT

Today, RICO is almost never applied to the Mafia. Instead, it is applied to individuals, businesses, political protest groups, and terrorist organizations. In short, a RICO claim can arise in almost any context.

The purpose of this website is to simplify this very complicated area of the law and to articulate and make more predictable the legal standards that govern such claims.

http://www.ricoact.com/

Since they are the "law and order" party, why not?