DOJ Probes TX Voter Intimidation Complaints During Tea Party Anti-Voter Fraud Drive

[HipChick]

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/10/the_texas_democratic_party_expanded.php

Chad Dunn, a lawyer who is representing the Texas Democratic Party, told TPMMuckraker a number of witnesses have been interviewed by Civil Rights Division lawyers already. "We've gotten a number of reports -- quite a few out of the Houston area -- that poll watchers, King Street Patriot training poll watchers, are following a voter after they've checked them out and stand right behind them," Dunn said. There's at least a dozen reports that they could confirm with witnesses, he said. "Interestingly, it's all in the polling places in Hispanic and African-American areas," he added.

Terry O'Rourke, the first assistant in the Harris County Attorney's office, told TPMMuckraker that there have been allegations of poll watchers talking to voters, which they are not allowed to do, as well as hovering over voters as they are waiting to vote. He said the complaints came from Kashmere Gardens, Moody Park, Sunnyside and other predominantly minority neighborhoods of the county.

"There are far more poll watchers in this election than we've ever had before. The Republican Party has 300 poll watchers on their ready list," O'Rourke said. He can't say for certain that they are connected to the Tea Party. "None of the people who walk in the door have Tea Party buttons on," he said.

[MagickMuffin]

1. Poll Watchers are REQUIRED by LAW to have certificates issued to them

They should be asked to show their Poll Watchers certificates, if they don't have them they should be asked to leave, but not before getting their name and who sent them.


:kick: & RRRRRRR

[MagickMuffin]

2. I'm surprised this didn't get ANY traction

So, here's a kickypoo!

[blondeatlast]

3. There's been harrassment in the past at minority neighborhoods in Arizona as well.

In one instance in 2004, the police had to be called--insiders say it was staged in order to create even longer lines at an already overwhelmed polling location.

[EFerrari]

4. Kick

[bleever]

5. Rehnquist rides again.

When partisan hirelings show up at polling places next week to challenge the registrations of minority voters, they will be reenacting scenes from Phoenix in the early '60s, where Rehnquist and other supporters of Goldwater sought to block voting by dark-skinned people suspected of being Democrats. The name of the game -- "ballot security" -- was the same then as now, as was the pretense of seeking to prevent "vote fraud."

http://dir.salon.com/story/opinion/conason/2004/10/29/injustice/index.html