Voter fraud and disenfranchisement
by kos
Sun Oct 31, 2004 at 04:21:55 PM PDT
In West Virginia -- it was bad enough the first time.
It`s considered an improper act because when upset citizens called the voter registration office to make sure they were registered to vote, indeed they were. So, who made these misleading calls? The Berkeley County Clerk`s Office traced the number voters gave as the source back to the Eastern Panhandle Republican Headquarters.
Speaking of Ohio, I got this from a Toledo volunteer:
Both the local phone company and our phone systems provider have confirmed to us that phone relay point into the building was purposely severed. Many volunteers were rerouted to other locations and several also had to rely on cell phones when we found our lines down this morning. We thought it was a coincidence until the phone company verified to us that the lines were intentionally cut.
More Republican dirty tactics.
Of course, the letter is not from the Board of Election, and it's obviously all bullshit. (From Law Geek.)
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the GOP wants to take a page from the Ohio playbook.
If the city doesn't, the party says it is prepared to have volunteers challenge each individual - including thousands who might be missing an apartment number on their registration - at the polls.
"We have already uncovered hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of addresses on their (original list) that do exist," said Langley, who holds a non-partisan office. "Why should I take their word for the fact this new list is good? I'm out of the politics on this, but this is purely political."
The Dave Magnum for Congress campaign and the College Republicans took responsibility and apologized for the mailing Friday evening, insisting it was an honest error.
But a progressive group called it a deliberate attempt to confuse student voters. And University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor John Wiley, saying he was concerned that students might not know where to vote, had e-mails sent to all students Friday afternoon containing correct information.
The College Republicans, of course, are mired in a scandal of their own -- bilking innocent seniors of more than $6 million.
The College Republican National Committee has raised $6.3 million this year through an aggressive and misleading fund-raising campaign that collected money from senior citizens who thought they were giving to the election efforts of President Bush and other top Republicans.
Many of the top donors were in their 80s and 90s. The donors wrote checks -- sometimes hundreds and, in at least one case, totaling more than $100,000 -- to groups with official sounding-names such as "Republican Headquarters 2004," "Republican Elections Committee" and the "National Republican Campaign Fund." [...]
Some of the elderly donors, meanwhile, wound up bouncing checks and emptying their bank accounts.
"I don't have any more money," said Cecilia Barbier, a 90-year-old retired church council worker in New York City. "I'm stopping giving to everybody. That was all my savings that they got."
Barbier said she "wised up." But not before she made more than 300 donations totaling nearly $100,000 this year, the group's fund-raising records show.
Let's wrap up in Alabama, where Democratic areas have been infested with this flyer:
Update: Here's another one -- a fake letter, supposedly from the NAACP, threatening South Carolina blacks with arrest if they vote with outstanding parking tickets, or if they haven't submitted a credit check, provide two forms of photo identification, a Social Security card, a voter registration card and a handwriting sample.
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