Get in your car or walk to your polling place and vote! Do it! Do it!
GOP’s vote fraud scam gets juicer
Yesterday were two big developments in the Republican attempts to suppress the 2008 vote. A federal court ordered the Ohio Secretary of State to turn over potentially bad registrations to the county boards of election and a Republican think tank is suing ACORN for racketeering.
A federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered Ohio’s top elections official to set up a system by Friday to verify the eligibility of new voters and make the information available to the state’s 88 county election boards.
Last week, a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit had sided with Brunner, but after hearing an appeal the full panel sided with the GOP and U.S. District Judge George C. Smith in Columbus. Smith had ordered Brunner to develop a way to verify voter registration information and make it available to local election boards.
Brunner argued that it would take two to three days to create the necessary computer programs, and said nothing in the federal Help America Vote Act required her to do what the district court ordered.
Tuesday’s order directs Brunner to verify new registrations by comparing that information with data from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles or the Social Security Administration.
Ohio Republican Chairman Bob Bennett accused Brunner of pursuing a partisan agenda and said “her delay in providing this matching system leaves little time for election officials to act on questionable registrations.”
The key here is the Ohio GOP talking about “questionable” registrations.
You can see their plan of attack coming a mile away. They get hold of the list of questionable registrations and challenge each one. It doesn’t matter how many are actually messed up since they are just doing a mass dump and seeing what comes up. The challenged voter then has to appear in person for a hearing and prove their info on the form is correct. If they can’t or don’t show up then they can’t vote.
The suspect voter can also be forced to cast a “Provisional ballot” which is then counted or not depending if the voter’s eligibility is confirmed. That is done in the same way as a challenge before the election. The person in question would have to show at a hearing in person or the vote isn’t counted. If it is even counted.
In 2004, provisional ballots were used to prevent hundred of thousands of votes from counting.
Unlike the real thing, these ballots are counted only by the whimsy and rules of a state’s top elections official; and in Ohio, that gives a virtually ballot veto to Bush-Cheney campaign co-chair, Blackwell.
Mr. Blackwell has a few rules to make sure a large proportion of provisional ballots won’t be counted. For the first time in memory, the Secretary of State has banned counting ballots cast in the “wrong” precinct, though all neighborhoods share the same President.
Over 155,000 Ohio voters were shunted to these second-class ballots. The election-shifting bulge in provisional ballots (more than 3% of the electorate) was the direct result of the national Republican strategy that targeted African-American precincts for mass challenges on election day.
Kerry Won Ohio: Just Count The Ballots at The Back of The Bus
The only good news on this part is since the SOS is a Democrat, provisional ballots are more likely to be counted. Still it is a legally easy and cheap way to cage voters.
The other “news” concerned a Republican think tank suing ACORN as if it were an organized crime group:
COLUMBUS — A conservative think tank in Columbus has sued the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, over voter registration.
The Buckeye Institute alleges that ACORN engages in a pattern of corrupt activity that amounts to organized crime.
The lawsuit filed today in Warren County Common Pleas Court uses a civil provision in the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as RICO.
The suit seeks the dissolution of ACORN, which has been accused of registering potential voters multiple times in Ohio and other states.
A message seeking comment from a spokesman for ACORN was not immediately returned.
The RICO statute most commonly is used to prosecute alleged members of organized crime.
The Buckeye Institute includes the former Secretary of State Ken Blackwell – ironic isn’t it. The suit is another attempt to call into question “false” voter registrations, The GOP falsely equates false registrations with illegal voting. The suit also ignores the fact that ACORN is required to turn in all forms it receives even ones they know are false.
I don’t know too many crime groups who would knowingly incriminate itself by following the law. I mean if they are in fact trying to “deprive voters of the right to participate in an honest and effective elections process….. fraudulent voter registrations submitted by ACORN dilute the votes of legally registered voters” why would they provide the evidence of their “crime” to authorities.
It seems to me that federal law is forcing ACORN to commit the “crime” that the Buckeye Institute is accusing them of doing.
How is ACORN responsible for that?
Again false voter registrations don’t equal illegal votes and except in isolated cases, no illegal votes have occurred from a false registration.
I Voted Today
I mailed in my absentee ballot today. I made the following choices…….
As my mom use to say when I would ask her who she voted for – “None of your damn business….”
Let’s just say if the person had an “R” party id they didn’t make my list. Of course there was some local races where the “R” person had no challengers but for the most part I picked the “D” when I could.
I like voting absentee. I would get to a court race or issue and not have a clue, so I would use the Internet and look the person up or read more details about the issue to make my choice.
This election the ballot was 3 pages long.
For more info visit your county board of election website.
Craig Ferguson’s Voting Rant
Craig Ferguson is host of the Late Late Show on CBS. On Wednesday night, 9/10, his monologue consisted of a serious and funny rant about the election season. It came after the ridiculous fake GOP outrage about a comment Senator Obama made about putting lipstick on a pig.
Ferguson, a native of Scotland, became a US citizen earlier this year.
Here is a video clip of what became a two part rant. The 2nd part was given during his desk chat before the first guest.
Here is a short paraphrasing of the best bits from the rant:
Why is McCain having his VP up there running for president – (as an old man) there you go isn’t she pretty? Spoiler alert – (shakes his no) – you’re not.
People want to see real solutions to real problems.
Only one poll that matters and that is November the 4th.
If your families are off limits then why are they on stage with you and they have a damn profile in People magazine! You damn manipulative hypocrites!
On the Today Show this morning they asked which candidate would you rather have dinner with? Here’s your answer – I don’t care – none of them. I want to know what do you plan to do for this country!
Let the Daily Show do what they do and the regular media needs to take this thing seriously.
If you don’t vote you’re a moron!
We have 2 patriotic candidates who love their country and they have different ideas on how to help this country – learn about them, read about them, question them, listen to them and on election day exercise your sacred right as an American and listen to yourself.
It seems it takes an outsider to remind us of what is important.
2008 Election Burn Out Not My Fault
A friend of mine, on an e-mail list in which I participate, asked us what we thought of the recent GOP presidential candidate debates. I made a snide comment: “There was a debate last night?”
She said that one of those men could be the next the President so I should care.
I don’t and here’s why:
I am not a member of any party so anything having to do with choosing any party ticket is not relevant to me.
My concern is from Labor Day weekend 2008 to November 2008 when the two people we are forced to choose from will be on my ballot and their final messages will be out.
I’m guessing that Hillary and Rudy will be the two evils I will have to choose from when I really want to vote for Obama since I can’t vote for Pete Stark since he is not running.
But, Doug, how do you know it is going to be Senator Clinton and Rudy Giuliani in 2008?
I’ve seen it before. The Democrats seem to let conservative “hit” men and their media lackeys pick their candidate. Back in the 2004 elections, the populist candidate was Howard Dean. He had the buzz and the money. The GOP was scared so they and their media flunkies destroyed him. They got the candidate they wanted in John Kerry.
Basically they want someone to run against who they can smear effectively. They had pretty much nothing on Dean but tons on Kerry.
In recent weeks there have been 3 or 4 books released by conservatives about Senator Clinton. All of them rehash falsehoods from the time her husband was President. The GOP HATE Senator Clinton and they know if she is the Dem nominee they can solidify their base like they did against Kerry in 2004.
Take a look at this article:
Wash. Post review misrepresents, conflates allegations in Clinton books
Until 2008 I really don’t care as it is out of my hands – right now it is all about filling time on the 24 hour news channels, in between stories about missing white women and out of control young Hollywood starlets. It seems they can’t deal with real issues that are happening in the world today that effect real people.
Like the Democrats caving to a President with an approval rating of 28% on the issue of a timetable to withdraw from Iraq.
or this one: