Beyond Diebold: 10 Ways to Steal This Election
News: From caging to robo-calls, a MoJo field guide to vote-blocking tactics.
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Tactics to deny Americans the right to vote are as old as, well, the right to vote. Democrats have been at fault in the past—take the literacy tests Southern states used to deprive blacks of their suffrage from the Civil War up through 1965. Today's shenanigans—which still target minorities and vulnerable first-time voters—are more often designed to stifle Democratic turnout, perhaps never more than in 2008. "This is obviously an important election, and the turnout may break records," says Rice University sociologist Chandler Davidson, who has studied vote suppression, "so there is every reason to expect these tactics will be employed."
Card the Centenarian
Arizona's Proposition 200, passed in 2004, makes would-be voters prove their citizenship with a passport, birth certificate, or other federal ID, but poor and elderly citizens often lack such proof. One 97-year-old woman who cast her first vote for fdr in 1932 had to wage a nine-month campaign to regain her voting rights after relocating from Kentucky. Lawyer Linda Brown of the Arizona Advocacy Network, part of a coalition suing to disable Prop. 200, says activists are dubbing Arizona "the state of Darwinist democracy. If you've got the stamina and an insatiable desire, you just may be able to register and vote before you die."
Similar battles are playing out in Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Utah, and Indiana, which saw its ID law upheld by the US Supreme Court in April, despite evidence that up to 43,000 citizens lacked the necessary ID—including a dozen retired nuns turned away from the polls during primary season.
sleaze meter: 8 out of 10 Fighting fraud is just a pretext for "a purely partisan effort, " says Neil Bradley of the aclu's Voting Rights Project.
Leave a comment about voting conditions in Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, and Utah.
Playing With Matches
Four states—Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, and South Dakota—only let residents register if their Social Security or driver's license numbers can be matched with entries in a state database. If you register as "Bill" but the database says "William," or if a data-entry clerk sticks a typo in your name or birth date, tough luck.
sleaze meter: 3 Incompetence may be bipartisan, but critics argue that there will be more typos in the names of Hispanics, immigrants, and black women.
Leave a comment about voting conditions in Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, and South Dakota.
Prior Restraint
Felon disenfranchisement is the mother of all anti-suffrage tactics. When George W. Bush took Floridaby a few hundred votes in 2000, more than 600,000 state residents had been barred from voting because of prior offenses. Florida has since made it easier for some ex-felons to regain their rights, and several other states have tinkered with their laws. Even so, more than 5 million Americans will be unable to vote this fall because of felony records.
sleaze meter: 9 Because of disproportionate drug law enforcement, as many as 1 in 8 black men nationwide is excluded from the political process.
Leave a comment about voting conditions in Florida.
Papeles, Por Favor
Starting in 2004, Sheriff Terry Johnson of North Carolina's Alamance County used county election rolls to investigate the citizenship of 125 voters with Hispanic-sounding names.
sleaze meter: 9 Even the current Justice Department told him to back off.
Leave a comment about voting conditions in North Carolina.
Mom, I Wanna Come Home
In Statesboro, Georgia, citizens challenged the voting status of 900 Georgia Southern University students, claiming they weren't legal residents of the college town.
sleaze meter: 7 Using similar logic, local officials grilled 18 students from Elizabeth City State University, North Carolina, a historically black college, after they'd voted in a special election in the fall of 2007.
Leave a comment about voting conditions in Georgia and North Carolina.
Armed and Dangerous
Kentucky Republicans have been challenging the voting status of black residents in a variety of ways for decades. In 2004, following a contentious gubernatorial election, a voter-advocacy group reported that party members had "planned and organized what they hoped would be a well-publicized effort to place white Republicans primarily at black Democratic polling places, ostensibly to protect against vote fraud."
sleaze meter: 11 "The appearance of people ostentatiously videotaping voters in line, or wearing official-looking uniforms, sometimes including sidearms, is another widely used tactic," notes sociologist Chandler Davidson.
Leave a comment about voting conditions in Kentucky.
Counting Crows
In 2007, a group called the Citizens Equal Rights Alliance (cera) unsuccessfully sued the state of Montana, arguing that polling places should be removed from the Crow Indian Reservation to prevent fraud. Native Americans in other states have also reported intimidation; allegations include gop poll workers copying down license plate numbers and following voters home.
sleaze meter: 9 From a cera dispatch: "When a separate government controls one minority, and its individual minority (Native American) voters can be coerced into bloc voting, that minority becomes a renegade 'swing' vote."
Leave a comment about voting conditions in Montana.
When a Robo Calls
Malicious robo-calls during the 2006 congressional elections sent would-be voters to the wrong locations or harassed them at all hours. In California's 50th District, residents got late-night calls that seemed to be from Democrat Francine Busby; when people hung up, the computer redialed up to 14 times. (Busby lost.) Expect more of the same in November: "The price point has decreased so that anyone can set up these calls from their basement," says robo-call watchdog Shaun Dakin.
sleaze meter: 10 Does the expression "ratfucking" ring a bell?
Leave a comment about voting conditions in California.
Political Hacks
High-tech voting continues to wreak havoc across the country. Monitors expect huge lines this November in Ohio's poorer precincts, some of which have bounced from one flawed technology to another; voters in Cuyahoga County will be on their fourth system since 2004, notes Dan Tokaji, an associate law professor at the Ohio State University. In 2006, touch-screen machines in Sarasota, Florida, came up 18,000 votes short during a congressional race that was decided by fewer than 400 votes. In 2007, University of California researchers successfully hacked into three state-sanctioned e-voting systems, compelling election officials to abandon the pricey machines. And during this year's gop primary, e-voting machines failed in 80 percent of the precincts in South Carolina's Horry County.
sleaze meter: 4 Voting experts largely agree that poor neighborhoods fare worse in the face of such meltdowns.
Leave a comment about voting conditions in California, Florida, Ohio, and South Carolina.
Weapons of Mass Mailing
The Jim Crow-era trick known as "caging" has been revived by 21st-century gop operatives. Mass mailings go out to low-income areas, and if a letter is returned as undeliverable, the party uses it to challenge that voter's eligibility. Besides intimidating voters, the challenges create mayhem at polling stations. Caging has been reported in Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin, among others.
sleaze meter: 9 Measures to outlaw the practice have never made it out of committee in Congress.
Leave a comment about voting conditions in Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Sasha Abramsky is the author of a Ford Foundation report on the nation's voting infrastructure due out this month.
I thought when you commited a Felony, you gave up yoru rights to vote.? I knwo that a few states have different rules, but for the most part, if you commit the crime, you have to accept that you have NO part in picking the President..:-)
Bill
You should check out the brennan center for justice for more information - www.brennancenter.org
For the rest of you...the UN, PLEASE! As if they are so far above politics. Get real. All this whining and no mention of ACORN? Amazing!
Things are getting so bad for John McCain that today he AGREED with Murtha that W. Pennsylvania is full of Racist Rednecks. The video is hilarious:
http:/swingvoters.wordpress.com
Sybil
"Fighting fraud is just a pretext for 'a purely partisan effort,' says Neil Bradley of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project."
As a person of color, I can definitely relate.
readers can keep up to date on latest vote suppression here:
http://brennan.3cdn.net/a9dfd09c356bb55d6b_fnm6bnf57.pdf
Or go the Brennan Center's page:
http://www.brennancenter.org/conten t/resource/voter_suppression_incidents/
Other resources: http://www.bradblog.com
http://www.866ourvote.org/
http://www.projectvote.org
One needs to think about just "How much in tax dollars goes to each prisoner that has been jailed" for food, clothing and other essentials?
We need uniform national standards to reduce the potential for mischief-making which occurs when local office holders feel they are not accountable to anyone.
While I agree that our system is completely nonsensical and f*d up, I am recently resenting all of the foreign comment on internet sites that are full of condescension or pity for the state of this country. Did you create your country's voting system? Well, neither did I. We are entrenched - and while we can work to change it, I resent being identified with a system I don't believe in, and being pitied for it.
As for why registration isn't easier...beats me. In part it's the notion that each state should be able to set its own requirements and timetables for registration.
This war is really a continuation of the holy wars that began so many thousands of years ago. And unfortunately, it appears that religion has shown itself to be the biggest catalyst of hatred that the human race will ever see.
I invite you to my website: www.FreetheGods.com. There you will find a political discussion forum where political ranting is highly encouraged, especially opposing viewpoints!
When I go to the supermarket to spend $1.00,I get a printed receipt with the time,register number,the employee's name,the item's kind,the price,how did I pay for it,cash(in details) or credit(in detail)all this for one single $.
But after the 2000 election,we still don't have a voting machine with a paper trail to prove to me as a voter that my vote DID NOT go as intended !
The people alone can solve this problem by demanding a paper trail voting machine,otherwise,NO VOTING...PERIOD.
Stealing the election is McCain's only chance......the other chance is for Dick Cheney to resign for medical reason
and the president will replace him with
McCain based on the idea that the American people don't like to change horses during national or international critical crisis...Let's not forget,CARL ROVE is around with his dirty tricks.
Bush never actually won a presidential election: See--The US Commission on Civil Rights Report on the Irregularities of the 2000 Florida Presidential Election, and The Rolling Stone article: Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
McCainObamaCo = interested in fair elections? Not too likely--since these ol' boys be in charge now...
I think McCain is going to be wrongly elected and the Race Riots Will Begin...
Who knows...
That's like with the Protests Against The World Bank--didn't they succeed in one instance, this certain Summit Meeting was called-off...
...Such lets us see that for some certain reason the "Man" wants Joe and Jane Q. Public to be seeing riots.
It's certainly easy to speculate that this is merely the Man heavily into fear mongering...
It really does work too, doesn't it...
Consider how the Mother Jones article: The Truth About Drug Companies spells out how their profits are more than the rest of the entire Fortune Five Hundred combined--and how "every bag" of Crank is profited upon by the Cold Medicine Makers...
And I will be visiting different voting locations throughout the day in my community on November 4th looking for problems, long lines, and inconsistencies. I will be equipped with my cell phone, a pen and notebook, all local news organizations phone numbers, and the county voter registration hotline number to report any problems. I'll be damned if I am going to sit back and let anyone think they are going to stand in the way of allowing registered voters to vote in my community. I have organized a group of twenty of us who will be going to different locations at different times throughout the day.
And when are the citizens of Washington DC going to get full citizenship and full representation? That is another backward anti-democratic idea. You can understand why Repubs don't want to get rid of the Electoral College, which favors GOP small states, and give full citizenship and voting rights to largely black and Democratic DC, but why doesn't a majority Democratic Congress vote to change these discriminatory rules? (Hilary wanted to change this.) Write your Congressional Reps and Sens and tell them to change this!
No taxation without out representation.
David Scott. Me too. I describe my stance by showing my right hand as the right, my left as the left (for perspective) and I'm standing way over there on the left horizon looking back flipping off the right. I'm a lefty liberal and damn proud. We're in good company too.
Felons should be able to excersize their right to vote after they served their sentence. They were sentenced in court and paid their price to society. And that should be it. But we all know that's not reality. Yeah, so many supposed Christians don't believe in forgiveness and redemption. Redemption is one of the most beautiful things in existance.
I for one greatly fear waking up Wednesday morning, the 5th, to find McCain/Palin elected to the highest offices. 4 more years of the Bush administration or worse. And a kick in genitals to the equal rights movement. Not that Obama should be elected because he's black (sort of), but it will be a great day for America and the world when a person of color becomes the US president. I was hoping for a non-white pope but doesn't look like that's going to happen.
Without each person being able to confirm their vote after the tally for count verfication, no voting system is failsafe. Regardless of the system used to vote none of us have any idea if our vote has been nullified or cast aside after we voted. My town uses reader cards. You pen/pencil in your choices. A machine is supposed to read it. I have no verification if it read right or at all.
I agree with the common voice here. Election reform should be a priority. Each election should be monitored by UN officials and each vote should be verified by officals. Each voter should be able to verify their vote and call 'shenanigans' if it wasn't counted or counted right.
For the rest of you...the UN, PLEASE! As if they are so far above politics. Get real. All this whining and no mention of ACORN? Amazing!" -- Jimmy the troll
What, this old saw again? Jimmy, a democracy is what we have -- by whatever name you wish to call it today. Ours is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, unless you wish to argue with Abraham Lincoln over this. How COULD such an animal NOT be a democracy? It matters not, whether you call it this or that. Our system of governance is that of people deciding (by electing their representatives) which way the country will go.
You don't think that your heroes Bush and Reagan would have spent so much breath talking about spreading democracy, if democracy were not the system America uses, do you? Democratic Republic; Capitalistic Democracy; these are the terms most often used to describe the American system.
But the really interesting question, is why you, and those you get your disinformation from, would LIKE Americans to believe that we're NOT living in a democracy. I'd say it's yet another illustration of the point of this article: that Republicans will go to any lengths they can get away with, to discourage general participation in this democracy of ours. If they (through tools like you) can convince people that they have no legitimate say in the way the country works, then those people probably won't vote. Combine that with a concerted effort to get the people who think like them to vote, and voila -- a partisan shift in voting roles!
But it ain't gonna work, Jimmy. We know your tricks, and we're watching for them. At least half the people with cameras at polls this cycle, will be progressives looking for evidence of Republican-biased poll-winnowing.
As for ACORN -- there again, you're not paying attention. ACORN is but one of hundreds of efforts to up registration -- which true, makes them a Republican's natural enemy -- but there is nothing illegal about what they do. Ironically, elections officials wouldn't even know about most of the problem registrations, if ACORN hadn't flagged them before sending them in.
"Steven, your first mistake is that the United States is NOT a democracy. did you learn otherwise? It is a representative republic. Remember the Pledge.."and to the Republic for which it stands..."
For the rest of you...the UN, PLEASE! As if they are so far above politics. Get real. All this whining and no mention of ACORN? Amazing!" -- Jimmy the troll
What, this old saw again? Jimmy, a democracy is what we have -- by whatever name you wish to call it today. Ours is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, unless you wish to argue with Abraham Lincoln over this. How COULD such an animal NOT be a democracy? It matters not, whether you call it this or that. Our system of governance is that of people deciding (by electing their representatives) which way the country will go.
You don't think that your heroes Bush and Reagan would have spent so much breath talking about spreading democracy, if democracy were not the system America uses, do you? Have all of our elected officials since the Revolution been FOOLED into thinking this country is a democracy? Did we have to wait for the evolution of FAUX NOOZ, to find out that for two hundred-some years, we've all been mistaken about our form of governance?
Democracy; Democratic Republic; Capitalistic Democracy; these are the terms most often used to describe the American system. They all use the term "democracy," because that's what America is. Those who say otherwise could be called traitors, you know -- for attempting to reduce citizen investment in their own governance. You probably throw that word (traitor) around pretty indiscriminately, yourself, but how do you like being called one?
But the really interesting question is, why you, and those you get your disinformation from, would LIKE Americans to believe that we're NOT living in a democracy. I'd say it's yet another illustration of the point of this very article: that Republicans will go to any lengths they can get away with, to discourage general participation in this democracy of ours. If they (through tools like you) can convince people that they have no legitimate say in the way the country works, then those people probably won't vote. Combine that with a concerted effort to get out the people Republicans WANT to vote, and voila -- a partisan shift in election results!
But it ain't gonna work, Jimmy. We know your tricks, and we're watching for them. At least half the people with cameras at polls this cycle, will be progressives looking for evidence of Republican-biased poll-winnowing.The fraud was committed by ACORN'S base-pay registration canvassers, in order to pad their pay; but ACORN reviewed all the registrations, and caught the frauds themselves. They've even turned those people in for prosecution, and witnessed against them -- all before you vote-killers ever took notice.
How could that POSSIBLY be voter fraud on ACORN's part -- especially when the names on those false cards can't show up to vote, because they don't exist?
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
Our country is based on Capitalism. What should we do with those who do not share their capital. (Big or small) How can you have rights to elect representatives if you do not contribute to society? What kind of person believes that one could be represented without paying any taxes? Representation without taxation.
(Social Security and Medicare are not taxes they are a form of insurance and the Government collects your premium every other week)
The Talking Heads on TV talk all day long about taxing corporations, are you aware of the fact that corporations are taxed and yet have no right to vote. They vote through lobbyist, support to our politicians and support to our country. If they don't feel that they are part of the country they will take their business elsewhere.
We all talk about the rights of the poor and disenfranchised but when 40 % of the population pays no taxes what so ever and when 10 % of the population pays 60% of the taxes then we have reverse discrimination. Soon the 10 %'ers will do as the corporations do. Take their business elsewhere. Who will pay the taxes then??? Wake up Johnny.
I believe that our country as we know is in for tumultuous times and if we do not take control and
responsibility, will lose it all.
Yoda
First of all, if you would pretend to judge the capacity of other individuals to make an intelligent choice as regards the Nation's future leaders, you yourself should at least be able to write an intelligible sentence in the English language. Second, having once stepped outside the law should not - and does not - preclude one from being a valuable citizen. Sometimes, quite to the contrary. Have you any idea of the felony records of countless important Americans, beginning with our founding fathers? As a member of this group, I can only state that - while my voting privileges have still not been reinstated - I have no doubt whatsoever that my experiences - if anything - make me MUCH MORE QUALIFIED to make a meaningful judgment and statement regarding who might be the best choice for upholding the U.S. Constitution (what remains of it, that is) and the American way of life. So, think about it, my dear friend. Cheers
Many of you know of meditation and of making intentions and know how very effective they are. It is my intention that Barak Obama is our next president, and I believe that he has made that intention as well. If the millions of American voters who want Barak Obama to be our president not only vote (early, for vote-security purposes) AND also make the same intention...how can we fail?
MEDITATE FOR OBAMA.
INTEND THAT BARAK OBAMA IS OUR PRESIDENT
I personally know of three or four instances of citizens being denied their right to vote--and none of them were felons. Where are the election observers we send to third world countries"to ensure fair elections?" Heaven knows we need them here! I quit trusting our elections when exit polls showed John Kerry winning by a landslide, yet losing in the end (when have exit polls EVER been THAT far off?), and when some observant professor stayed up all night and watched Bush/Gore numbers suddenly change drastically in the middle of the night when few people are still up and watching the returns? Why should we trust voting machines that make recount impossible? Any bright computer literate teen could program those computers to count votes to match the desired outcome--I learned simple stuff like that on the first day of a programming class I took in high school. Why won't voting machine manufacturers let anyone see the programs), and why will the media not investigate?
Why aren't those people/organizations who disenfranchise others by trickery, e.g. "voting by phone" or "voting on Wednesday" being prosecuted and jailed? Who has a right to disenfranchise anyone?
Republicans have wrapped themselves in the flag while they continue to
burn the Constitution ? Let's wake up and smell the coffee folks before it's too late!
ACORN wasn't VOTER fraud, it was registration fraud. Big difference - registering to vote and actually voting.