Comments on: Protect the Vote

By: dave heasman

dave heasman — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 09:02:47 +0000

“It seems at least plausible to me that if increased attention to the rules (“registration challengers” and such) scares off certain voters, those voters are likely to be ineligible in some way — or at least more likely than the general population of voters.” Possibly; they’re also likely to be less able to spare extra time – childcare probs, inflexible work hours, caring for other family members, you know, the things that affect poor people. And then they get pulled over by a bunch of self-appointed “election consultants” who don’t work for local government, they work for the party that doesn’t want them to vote.

By: George

George — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 04:59:08 +0000

It seems at least plausible to me that if increased attention to the rules (“registration challengers” and such) scares off certain voters, those voters are likely to be ineligible in some way—or at least more likely than the general population of voters. If the majority of people who are thus scared off are of X ethnicity, this would imply that more people of X ethnicity are ineligible to vote. Forty years after the civil rights movement, how many legitimate black voters are really scared away from the polls by fear of violence or even generalized distrust of the authorities? I admit that I may just be naive here. It’s hard to underestimate the dirtiness of political players at the ward-and-neighborhood level. I don’t generally get involved in politics, but I used to know a guy whose job was “election consultant.” Real dirtbag. Shortly after the 2000 fiasco in Florida, we were chatting and I asked him whether he thought the GOP had really consciously acted to suppress the black vote in Florida. He looked at me like I was an idiot and said “Of course! That’s how the game is played.” Unsettling.

By: ChrisPer

ChrisPer — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 03:11:05 +0000

As an Australian I don’t have experience of the American system, but it seems to me that requiring ID of voters would be a damn good start in reducing fraud. I don’t care who engages in election fraud, they should be caught and put in the stocks.

By: ogged

ogged — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 00:45:49 +0000

A bit more on the more-registered-than-eligible voter question: not only are voter rolls inadvertently out of date, but people can’t, by law, be removed from the rolls for a certain number of years, so there are always folks who have died or moved on the rolls.

By: jet

jet — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 22:47:24 +0000

I think work at the polls is just more party bickering. The only voter registration work worth doing is to revamp the system so that there is no doubt who has a right to vote and who doesn’t. Democrats could wave their card and sneer at the poll police as they go to vote and Republicans can sleep at night without having nightmares about Nixon-Kennedy.

By: Mary Kay

Mary Kay — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 21:53:25 +0000

Thanks for the plug Kieran, I appreciate it. It’s still not to too late to contact Election Protection or one of the other groups listed. Go People! MKK

By: PG

PG — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 19:32:09 +0000

Hey, I’m happy to have Republicans file legitimate challenges against voters—I’m just wondering how they plan to pick those folks out of the crowd. “Hm, young black male, probably a felon who doesn’t have the right to vote!” Seriously, how do the GOP poll watchers figure out whom to challenge? I hope they have a coherent clue, because I’m going to be on their collective ass in Cleveland.

By: obeah

obeah — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 18:04:59 +0000

Franklin county? Any takers on coming up with a reasonable explanation for four Ohio counties with more registered voters than eligable voters? I was actually doing canvassing in Franklin County this weekend, and I can offer a perfectly rational explanation. Probably 15-20% of the people on our walk sheets used to live at the address listed, but had either moved away or died. Meanwhile, new people have moved in and, presumably, registered (our sheets weren’t entirely up-to-date, so I can’t swear to that). Election officials just don’t have a very efficient way of getting voters off the rolls who don’t live there anymore, but it’s not fraud if they don’t vote.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 17:45:41 +0000

Question—are those who are alleging more registered voters than eligible voters relying on Census Bureau population figures? (At least on one blog I read, it was stated that there were more eligible voters than census population figures would indicate. I think it was Philadelphia that was being discussed). Isn’t it true that the Census was not an accurate count of inner city populations, due to the powers-that-be’s refusal to allow the Census Bureau to extrapolate (or whatever the word is, I’m certainly no expert) the actual population from the number of census forms returned? Is the right wing going to now use those figures, known to be inaccurate, to insist on voter fraud?

By: fyreflye

fyreflye — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 16:49:14 +0000

Both “major” US parties habitually engage in election fraud and the only issue is who’s more effective. We got Kennedy in 1960 because of it and Bush in 2000. Not a fair trade, but that’s how it goes.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 14:35:23 +0000

I just remembered why I tend to discount right-wingers complaining about election fraud. In the 2002 South Dakota Senate campaign, Republicans made a mighty racket in the build-up about Democratic voter fraud in Native American districts. Afterwards the Republicans filed a bunch of affidavits ostensibly about fraud. The Republican Attorney General ruled that most of them didn't even allege fraudulent activities ("[a] fair number could be read as complaints about how effective the Democratic get-out-the-vote effort was"). Of the ones that did, the affidavits themselves were fraudulent. So, big noise about Democratic fraud, no fraud except by Republicans. This year, several Republican operatives in South Dakota got caught in voter registration fraud. They were fired from the South Dakota operation. They were then redeployed to George Bush's GOTV operation in Ohio. That's not to mention Sproul Associates and the New Hampshire phone-bank jamming scandal. Is there isolated fraud going on in favor of the Democrats? Probably, and efforts like this strike me as a good idea. Are the Republicans carrying out massive, coordinated fraud and voter suppression operations that dwarf anything credibly alleged of the Democrats? Absolutely. Are they also trying to gin up exaggerated accusations of fraud in order to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Democratic votes, whether fraudulent or not? It seems to have worked in South Dakota.

By: jet

jet — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 14:24:05 +0000

The fraud in Ohio gets better by the second. A Clinton [read skawwy] appointed federal judge just ruled that she will decide [in her own sweet time] if the Ohio election committee can rule on 35,000 voter registration forms that were filled out with invalid addresses. So by virtue of a delaying tactic, those 35,000 registrations will remain valid on election day. Funny how “protect the vote” means one thing to a Democrat [even though there is ZERO proof of wide spread voter suppression in Florida, and one cop car investigation a burglary doesn’t count unless you are crazy] and another thing to Republicans [even though there is abundant proof of people illegally voting].

By: Ray

Ray — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 14:21:26 +0000

“Any takers on coming up with a reasonable explanation for four Ohio counties with more registered voters than eligable voters?” Bet-losing Republicans re-registering as Democrats?

By: jet

jet — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 12:59:08 +0000

The polls show the dead are voting 98 to 2 Democract in Ohio. But all jokes aside, anyone want to volunteer to keep the dead from voting? Franklin county? Any takers on coming up with a reasonable explanation for four Ohio counties with more registered voters than eligable voters? The conservative backlash against this rampant fraud is going to be a hoot to watch ;)

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 11:15:56 +0000

I did a get-out-the-vote-stint in 1976. I got my list, showed up in my old precinct in south Berkeley, and knocked on doors. It was kind of a bad neighborhood, working class blacks and hippies. While I lived there I was burglarized twice, losing a couple of cameras, binoculars and a twenty-gauge shotgun. That night nobody objected when I knocked on their door and told them I was from the Democratic Party. I reached one commune just as they were all going out the door to vote. They were registered Peace & Freedom, but I hope they voted for Carter. The hard part was telling younger people who were watching the election news that, since they weren’t registered, they couldn’t vote. Victory was in the air and they wanted to be a part of it.