erikred | Jail them all

According to the New York Times and other news groups, the GOP is engaged in out and out voter disenfranchisement. Their excuse seems to be that Democrats do it, too.

So let's set the record straight: Anyone, Dem, Repub, Green, Libertarian, Indie, ANYONE who mucks about with voter registrations or prevents anyone else from getting people to register to vote deserves to go to jail.

As much as I really don't want GWB to be President again, it's absolutely more important to me that every American eligible to vote gets the opportunity to vote. Yeah, I know we live in a Republic, but that Republic is based on certain Democratic principles; namely, one person, one vote. Anyone who sabotages that (by tearing up registration forms of people who register for the opposing party, or by calling registered voters and falsely telling them they're not eligible, or by putting up road blocks to make it hard to get to polling stations, or by standing around polling places asking for people's IDs, or any bloody thing else your sick and twisted minds come up with) should be put in jail cell to rot. This is treason of the basest sort!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A group called Project ACORN seems to be what the Repubs are pointing to. They paid people to register voters - the more registered, the more money they got. Unsurprisingly, some individuals registered many people many times for more money. Not so much voter fraud as it is money fraud, and an extra headache for the election committees to sort out. This group has ties to the AFL-CIO, according to their website. They do NOT have ties to the DNC.

The group that DOES have ties to an NC - the RNC - is Sproul and Associates, run by the former head of the Arizona GOP. They are "also known as" Project Voter Outreach for America (very close to a non-partisan/liberal organization, Voter Outreach for America, just coincidentally. They are funded directly by the RNC. They operate in many swing states. They register Democrat and Republican voters, and then tear up the Dem registrations.

Tell me which is worse..

They register Democrat and Republican voters, and then tear up the Dem registrations.

That's a major felony that has a big ol' federal prison sentence with it. Do you know what the status on this case is? The number of blogger sites and opinion pages is keeping news source sites from coming up in my Google search.

In actual fact, at least for the RNC/Sproul thing, the best resource is from a blogger site - the Voter Fraud Clearinghouse at dailykos.com . There's a lot of very motivated people doing the digging.. :-)

http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/Voter_Registration_Fraud_Clearinghouse

Also, the SFGate article from yesterday, if you want a straight media source:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/10/13/politics1629EDT0129.DTL

I'll keep looking for updates, but so far, it doesn't sound like there's much proof. The accuser has compelling motivation to sully the Sproul organization and cannot provide even the name of the person he is accusing of a federal pound 'em in the ass prison crime. Other witnesses also have problems; they state that they were told to destroy Democratic registrations, but also state that they did not witness it happening.

This bears a lot of watching, but it's tough to tease out what's really happening from the barage of assertions.

Try KLAS-TV. Eric Russell, the accuser in question, is supported by his girlfriend, who also says she witnessed the destruction of the registration forms. Their boss says Russell destroyed the forms himself. The girlfriend points out that all completed forms have to be signed for, and that if the boss checked out the log, she would see that Russell was not listed as signing them out.

You're right, it is tough to tease out what's really happening, but it strikes me that if there has been any destruction at all of completed and legitimate registration forms, voters should be allowed to confirm that they are in fact registered an be allowed to register if it turns out their registrations have been lost or trashed.

As always, it's very important that people know that they have the right to vote with a provisional ballot. That news has been getting out in Califonria better than it used to (thanks to tons of people needing provisional ballots because they tried to use the DMV motor-voter fiasco). I don't know how well that news gets around in other states. I also don't know if other states have provisions for provisional ballots.

Jail them all

Dem vs. Rep. "He did it first!" PISSES ME OFF..

Re: Dem vs. Rep. "He did it first!" PISSES ME OFF..

Re: Dem vs. Rep. "He did it first!" PISSES ME OFF..

Re: Dem vs. Rep. "He did it first!" PISSES ME OFF..

Re: Dem vs. Rep. "He did it first!" PISSES ME OFF..

Re: Dem vs. Rep. "He did it first!" PISSES ME OFF..