Why Do Democrats Want More Americans to Vote and Republicans Want to Eliminate Urban & Young Voters?
In 2004, election integrity activists challenged the results of Ohio’s presidential election before the Ohio Supreme Court, and convinced Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (D-OH) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to challenge the state’s Electoral College vote before a joint session of Congress. The reaction by Ohio’s then Republican-controlled Legislature was to enact a series of election reforms that punished likely Democratic voters. Some of the laws adopted were later thrown out in court, such as penalizing voter registration drives. But others, including a technical process to require certain voters to prove their registrations are valid on Election Day — or lose their right to vote, remain in effect. Two of the nation’s top voting rights groups, Advancement Project and Project Vote, this week reported 600,000 Ohio voters could be effected. This article is a combination of the releases both groups issued this week. George W. Bush beat John Kerry by nearly 119,000 votes in Ohio in 2004. — Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet Democracy and Elections editor.
Columbus, Ohio August 13, 2008 — Nearly 600,000 eligible Ohio voters may be dropped from the voter rolls if Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner doesn’t act to protect these voters, according to findings based on publicly available information discovered by Advancement Project and Project Vote.
These voters — disproportionately voters of color and young voters — are subject to being removed from Ohio’s voter registration rolls without notice or a hearing because of the state’s vague regulations on vote caging, a process that enables representatives of one political party to challenge the voter registration credentials of voters at polling places on Election Day.
The Ohio counties with largest numbers of returned notices prior to March 2008 Presidential Primary are Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton, Lucas and Summit, where Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo are located.
Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign’s national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called “caging list”.
It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.
An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: “The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day.”
Ion Sancho, a registered Independent, noted that Florida law allows political party operatives inside polling stations to stop voters from obtaining a ballot.
http://www.gregpalast.com/bbc-tv-reveals-new-florida-vote-scandalrepublican-caging-list/
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