October 17, 2008

Purging Ohio

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PURGING OHIO….A couple of weeks ago the Ohio Republican Party sued the Ohio Secretary of State. Their aim: forcing her to turn over to county officials the raw results of database matching operations for new voter registrations. She had refused because these matching efforts are notoriously unreliable, effectively purging tens of thousands of new registrations because of inaccuracies in the DMV and Social Security databases.

But of course the bulk of new registrations this year are Democratic voters, so the Ohio GOP went to court anyway. Today, in an impressively quick ruling, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against them. I guess Scalia and Thomas must still be feeling guilty over 2000.

UPDATE: Elsewhere, Matt Yglesias makes the case for a national ID card as a way of cutting voter fraud. He doesn’t actually say that, mind you, but that’s how I choose to intepret his tale of voting woe anyway. And I agree.

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With just hours left, we need a huge surge in reader support to get to our $400,000 year-end goal. Whether you've given before or this is your first time, your contribution right now matters. All gifts are 3X matched and tax-deductible.

Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do. That’s why we need you right now. Please chip in to help close the gap.

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