Vote, because you CAN!

A dirty fight is about the only hope the Republicans have left to win the November 4th election. And so the dirt is coming from every corner.

The last few days and weeks the GOP has stepped up its strategy to win, no matter what. The lies are spreading quickly, hitting the newsstands first. Almost daily there’s a story about the Muslim Barack, the evil socialism that he’s trying to spread, and how terrible life would be if the wealth was shared a little more, making it easier for the lazy, no-good, poor Americans to pay the rent and pay for their children’s tuition. 

As if attack ads weren’t enough, the votes of many legitimate US citizens may be thrown out yet again. Why? Because of their race, party preference, class, failure to provide state issued IDs, or simply, just because. The GOP is cut-throat when it comes to the election. I doubt they will play nice this time around.

Read all about the Republican strategy to “block the vote” below. And on November 4th, please, go out and vote, because it matters!

Here are only 6 ways votes are discarded or “lost”:

1. “Obstructing Voter-Registration Drives”:

“Among the worst offenders is Florida, where the Republican-dominated legislature created hefty fines — up to $5,000 per violation — for groups that fail to meet deadlines for turning in voter-application forms.”

“The state has also failed to uphold a federal law requiring that low-income voters be offered an opportunity to register when they apply for food stamps or other public assistance. As a result, the annual number of such registrations has plummeted from more than 120,000 in the Clinton years to barely 10,000 today.”

2. “Demanding ‘Perfect Matches”:

“Under the Help America Vote Act, some states now reject first-time registrants whose data does not correspond to information in other government databases. Spurred by HAVA, almost every state must now attempt to make some kind of match — and four states, including the swing states of Iowa and Florida, require what is known as a ‘perfect match.’ Under this rigid framework, new registrants can lose the right to vote if the information on their voter-registration forms — Social Security number, street address and precisely spelled name, right down to a hyphen — fails to exactly match data listed in other government records.”

The government and its employees are perfect and never make mistakes when entering your personal information into their database so if you’ve recently moved, got married, or became a citizen, and your information doesn’t match the government’s database, you’re f*cked.

After 8 years of dealing with USCIS employees (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services), I know exactly what it’s like when an application ”gets lost,” or when an immigration agent gives you the wrong form to fill out, or when they misspell your eleven digit middle name.

It’s ridiculous to expect that absolutely every state database be updated and be 100% correct. This simply isn’t possible when the government is dealing with millions of people acquiring citizenships, changing their addresses, getting married, living life.

3. “Purging Legitimate Voters from the Rolls”:

“The Help America Vote Act doesn’t just disenfranchise new registrants; it also targets veteran voters. In the past, bipartisan county election boards maintained voter records. But HAVA requires that records be centralized, computerized and maintained by secretaries of state — partisan officials — who are empowered to purge the rolls of any voter they deem ineligible.”

“Prior to the 2000 election, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris and her predecessor, both Republicans, tried to purge 57,000 voters, most of them African-Americans, because their names resembled those of persons convicted of a crime. The state eventually acknowledged that the purges were improper — two years after the election.”

4. “Requiring Unnecessary Voter ID’s”:

“Even if voters run the gauntlet of the new registration laws, they can still be blocked at the polling station. In an incident last May, an election official in Indiana denied ballots to 10 nuns seeking to vote in the Democratic primary because their driver’s licenses or passports had expired. Even though Indiana has never recorded a single case of voter-ID fraud, it is one of two dozen states that have enacted stringent new voter-ID statutes.”

Everyone knows or has heard horror stories from the DMV. It’s a huge inconvenience and a pain to apply for or renew a driver’s license. First, there’s the matter of business hours. Working adults find it difficult to take time off work to go to the DMV. Second, teens and young adults may need a ride from mom to apply for a driver’s license, and god knows when mom will find time to do that! Third, many people don’t have a foreign passport because they’ve never been outside of the US. I’m sure Mrs. Palin would relate, she only got her passport last year!

Of course, the ID requirement to vote makes sense.

“But many Americans lack easy access to official identification. According to a recent study for the Election Law Journal, young people, senior citizens and minorities — groups that traditionally vote Democratic — often have no driver’s licenses or state ID cards. According to the study, one in 10 likely white voters do not possess the necessary identification. For African-Americans, the number lacking such ID is twice as high.”

5. “Rejecting ‘Spoiled’ Ballots”:

“In 2004, election officials discarded at least 1 million votes nationwide after classifying them as ‘spoiled’ because blank spaces, stray marks or tears made them indecipherable to voting machines. The losses hit hardest among minorities in low-income precincts, who are often forced to vote on antiquated machines.”

6. “Challenging ‘Provisional’ Ballots”:

“Many voters are given provisional ballots under an insidious tactic known as “vote caging,” which uses targeted mailings to disenfranchise black voters whose addresses have changed. In 2004, despite a federal consent order forbidding Republicans from engaging in the practice, the GOP sent out tens of thousands of letters to “confirm” the addresses of voters in minority precincts. If a letter was returned for any reason — because the voter was away at school or serving in the military — the GOP challenged the voter for giving a false address.

“One caging operation was exposed when an RNC official mistakenly sent the list to a parody site called GeorgeWBush.org — instead of to the official campaign site GeorgeWBush.com.”

 

Bit-o-history:

“On Super Tuesday, one in nine Democrats who tried to cast ballots in New Mexico found their names missing from the registration lists…With their status in limbo, the voters were forced to cast ‘provisional’ ballots, which can be reviewed and discarded by election officials without explanation. On Super Tuesday, more than half of all provisional ballots cast were thrown out statewide.”

“If this year’s race is as close as the past two elections, the GOP’s nationwide campaign could be large enough to determine the presidency in November. ‘I don’t think the Democrats get it,’ says John Boyd, a voting-rights attorney in Albuquerque who has taken on the Republican Party for impeding access to the ballot. ‘All these new rules and games are turning voting into an obstacle course that could flip the vote to the GOP in half a dozen states.’”

“Suppressing the vote has long been a cornerstone of the GOP’s electoral strategy…’Many of our Christians have what I call the ‘goo goo’ syndrome — good government,’ said [Paul] Weyrich, who co-founded Moral Majority with Jerry Falwell. ‘They want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote. . . . As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.’“

“Since 2003, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, at least 2.7 million new voters have had their applications to register rejected…To purge registration rolls and discard ballots, partisan election officials used a wide range of pretexts, from “unreadability” to changes in a voter’s signature.“

I’ll be 23 soon, and I think I finally know what my signature is going to look like. Until now, it’s been changing year to year.

“‘The Republicans have a long history of erecting barriers to discourage Americans from voting,’ says Donna Brazile, chair of the Voting Rights Institute for the Democratic National Committee. ‘Now they’re trying to spook Americans with the ghost of voter fraud. It’s very effective — but it’s ironic that the only way they maintain power is by using fear to deprive Americans of their constitutional right to vote.’”

“In fact, studies have repeatedly shown that voter fraud is extremely rare. According to a recent analysis by Lorraine Minnite, an expert on voting crime at Barnard College, federal courts found only 24 voters guilty of fraud from 2002 to 2005, out of hundreds of millions of votes cast. ‘The claim of widespread voter fraud,’ Minnite says, ‘is itself a fraud.’”

Did I already tell you to go vote? As much as I think living in Canada may be interesting, I would hate to see McCain and Palin in the White House! Don’t let the last 8 years repeat!

VOTE!!!

Source: “Block the Vote” by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast of The Rolling Stone

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