Obama won't back Michigan-Election Reform-Fraud & Related News-Wed 3/19/08

[kpete]

Election Reform-Fraud & Related News-Wed 3/19/08




March 19, 2008

Obama won't back Michigan

In a memo, Obama's lawyer, Bob Bauer, reiterates a series of technical, procedural concerns about the Michigan primary.

Whether the state can achieve its goals here depends on the nature and seriousness of the legal and administrative questions presented by this initiative—questions that, raised after the election, could put at risk the running of the election, undermine acceptance of the results if the election is held, and in both cases effectively deny Michigan voters, a second consecutive time, meaningful participation in the nominating process.

For the reasons discussed briefly below, there are such questions and they are serious both in nature and in their potential, if not likely, impact on the June election proposal.

It's a move short of flat opposition, but it's likely to have the same effect: Michigan legislators -- facing pressure from some Democratic leaders to approve a new vote, and facing a Hillary Clinton roadshow this morning -- have said they want the support of both candidates.

They don't have it.

If there's small consolation for Clinton here, it's that Obama can be blamed for scuttling the revote. But that's pretty small consolation.

Memo at:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0308/Obama_wont_back_Michigan.html


All members welcome and encouraged to participate.

Please post Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this thread. If you can:

1. Post stories and announcements you find on the web. Here's the link to the News Directory:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...

2. Re-post stories and announcements you find on DU, providing a link to the original thread with thanks to the Original Poster, too.

3. Start a discussion thread by re-posting a story you see on this thread.

Recommendations are much appreciated.

[Oreo]

1. I think you should add the following...

as it's the keystone of the reason Obama's campaign is against their proposal.

The burden on voters here is one of complete disqualification—they cannot participate in the Democratic primary in June if they voted in the January Republican primary. Their claim of a violation of their rights would rest on the fact that that the state "changed the rules in the middle of the game." These voters' choice was entirely reasonable in the circumstances: there was no valid Democratic primary available to them at the time, and they could not know that, when their choice was made, that they were disqualifying themselves from participating in a re-run Democratic primary this year that they could know would be held.

Also... from a study on a possible revote

Among the proposed alternatives for seating the delegates from Florida and Michigan is to use the results of the primaries that already happened, based on the argument that doing so would avoid disenfranchising the 1.7 million Floridians and 600,000 Michiganders who already voted. However, doing so would disenfranchise many people from FL and MI who did not vote in the earlier primaries because they did not expect their delegates would be seated at the convention. Based on a statistical comparison with turnout in other states' primaries, it appears that roughly two million more people would have voted in FL and MI had they expected their delegates would be seated.