While we still have 7 days left it appears that the long awaited "October Surprise" is actually an election day surprise. In Ohio, the Bush campaign has paid over 3000 poll watchers a $100 bucks a piece to go into heaily dem polling stations and challenge every voter possible in order to accomplish three things: 1) Disqualify as many voters as possible. 2) Create long lines that discourage voters 3) Cast a pall of illegimatcy on a Kerry victory. If Kerry wins this election, by whatever margin, you will hear a bleating and caterwauling from the Ed Gillepsie's of the world that will be unprecedented. You saw this tactic this weekend when Gillepsie on MTP started mewing about "Illegal Voter Registrations" and actually cited examples where voter registration fraud had been committed by someone the RNC was actually paying. Black is white and up is down. This is the October surprise. This is why they have been so quiet on the GOTV front. Why GOTV when you can surpress? New Donkey has a good round up of this: http://www.newdonkey.com/ Tuesday, October 26, 2004 The GOP's November Surprise I should have known when George Will started writing columns about the dastardly threat of voter fraud that something big was in the works. And sure enough, the conservative media echo chamber is now vibrating from a cacophany of warnings that Democrats are trying to steal the presidential election by fradulently registering ineligible voters. What's happening here is an effort to soften up the news media and the public for a truly audacious, and perhaps even desperate, gambit by the Republican Party that appears to be planned for election day: wholesale challenges to minority voters in battleground states in an effort to either (1) intimidate or demoralize likely Democratic voters, or (2) lay the groundwork for one of those Bush-v.-Gore-enabled retroactive legal actions aimed at reversing an adverse result. More likely, the aim is (3) both.
Very interesting. I found some more information related to this subject: http://www.tomsdomain.com/aesop/id87.htm We all should be cautious before we make unfounded accusations, or risk the possibility that the day something serious really does happen to threaten our democracy, people will think it's politics as usual.
I want them to deny one voter their right to vote and have that person sue the RNC for everything its worth. NY Times editorial on this issue: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/26/opinion/26edt1.html?oref=login
The more I read, the more I think that we won't "elect" a president till January 19th. Even then I can see the Supreme Court just saying "**** it" and picking a name out of a hat.
So the fact Repubs are challenging 35,000 registrations in Ohio for no other reason than they are new voters registered as Democrats doesn't bother you? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62645-2004Oct25.html That Repubs are paying people to intimidate African-American voters doesn't bother you? http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/23/p...=649b5c012f3d326b&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland Or that white men are sitting in polling places just staring at African American voters, looking to see if they are being "led" by anyone. That doesn't bother you? http://interestalert.com/brand/site...r&Fid=NATIONAL&Type=News&Filter=National News That a secret Bush campaign "Caging list" (Bush campaign term not mine) of African American voters in Jacksonville, FL has been discovered with names, addresses, SS#'s etc and private detectives are stationed outside their houses. This doesn't bother you? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/3956129.stm What's wrong with you man?
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Garcia again. You didn't hear? We went the Britney Spears-Vegas route. It's over already.
When it comes to something as basic to this country as the right to vote, count me amongst those people who think that it's better to be accused beforehand of crying "wolf" a little too much than to be accused afterward of not crying "wolf" loudly enough.
Jefe, I think you completely missed my point. The boy who was crying 'wolf' was not interested in keeping people safe from wolves. He had selfish motives. Likewise, those who make transparently partisan one-sided accusations are not interested in the health of our democracy, but rather want to take advantage of a contentious issue for political gain. These obviously political motivated accusations will undermine the true honest and legitimate efforts to ensure that we have a clean democratic election.
Are you talking about mostly Republican efforts to target black and Hispanic neighborhoods for voter fraud or mostly Democratic efforts to see that minority voters are not driven away from the polls through intimidation and harassment? If you're talking about both, then "bravo" to you for your bipartisanship. However, I suspect that you're a bit more skeptical of "election protection" efforts on the parts of liberal and progressive groups. Now, where that skepticism stems, I have no idea. After all, there is no lack of documented evidence that efforts have been made, in this election and previous ones, to "suppress" minority voting through intimidation and harassment.
Jefe, I am not saying there is no problem, but the way I see it, it's like this: 'A' accuses 'B' of encouraging illegal voting, and 'B' accuses 'A' of repressing the vote. There is probably a little of both, but these overblown one-sided partisan accusations only compound the problem by providing a justification (to those who are engaging in illegal means of influencing the election) to increase their efforts. The way they see it, they are only trying to even the field, and counteract the 'organized efforts' of the other side. The real solution is to try to look at the whole picture. In this case, it would be to try to find a way to minimize the illegal voting without suppressing legal voting in the process. It has to be done in a way that is not partisan and one sided. These obviously partisan types of accusations are part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. We should stop crying 'wolf' and look at the whole picture, and then we can begin to address the problem.
It is not partisanship when you look at past behavior as a model for what someone might do in the future. If some guy mugged you the last two times you went to the ATM, you would probably be on your toes the third time. Well, the GOP has been making a fine art of systematic voter supression in the last several general elections. There is no reason whatsoever to think that, with this much on the line they've suddenly turned into a bunch of choirboys. Which isn't to excuse any rouge DP operatives attempts to stuff ballotboxes. However, in almost 15 years of working in politics I have yet to see a ballot stuffing/voting the dead operation larger than ward level. It is just not something that gets done by Democratic parties at the state or national level, at least not in my experience. Odd though how the DP always seems to want to maximally franchise people -- even to the point of allowing them to vote mutiple times, vote regardless of their corporeal status, etc.; but that the GOP always moves towards disenfranchising people through intimidation, mucking with voter lists and registrations, jamming GOTV phone banks, etc. The way they (try to) cheat says a lot about the core diffeences in the two parties.
The mostridiculous thing out there is the GOPers attempt to go on about voting fraud, multiple voting etc. Guess what people? HALF OF ALL ELIGIBLE VOTERS DO NOT EVEN VOTE. We are a LOOOOOONG way from systematic votefraud. We can't even get those who are registered to vote.
Liberals are actually just a bunch of bad drivers. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041027/ap_on_re_us/harris_assault