Count Every Vote in Minnesota

Great video from the Al Franken campaign:

In the closest Senate race in Minnesota history, every vote should be counted fairly.

But there are Minnesotans who had their votes thrown out, even though they did nothing wrong.

They voted absentee, but their ballots were improperly rejected because of someone elses mistake.

And in the closest Senate race in Minnesota history, their votes remain uncounted.

Election Protection News, October 30, 2008

Colorado: Voting rights activists and the Colorado Secretary of State reached an agreement that will allow an estimated 20,000 voters removed from the election rolls in the 90 days prior to election day to vote. They will have to vote by provisional ballot, but those ballots will be given priority and counted ahead of other provisional ballots. Not much of a deal in my estimation.

Florida: Election officials are in full revolt over terrible new voting laws, and many are allowing voters to cast full ballots after signing affidavits of residence, rather than forcing voters to vote by provisional ballot.

Ohio: The Justice Department will not intervene in the Ohio registration dispute, despite a request from George W. Bush to do so.

Virginia: There will be a hearing today in the NAACP's suit against the Commonwealth of Virginia asking for more voting machines and longer poll hours in minority precincts on Election Day. Virginia has also decided to count military ballots that don't contain a line for witness signature, a technicality required under a 2002 Virginia law that is not required under federal law.

Paging Katherine Harris

Miami Herald: Gov. Crist extends early voting hours statewide

Declaring a state of emergency in Florida because of long voting lines, Gov. Charlie Crist on Tuesday extended early voting hours across the state to 12 hours a day.

The executive order comes after record early voting turnout has contributed to long lines at polling sites.

Current Florida law allows for early voting to be conducted eight hours a day each weekday and for a total of eight hours during the weekends. With Crist's order, early voting sites will be open the rest of this week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. They will be open a total of 12 hours on Saturday and Sunday, the last day of early voting.

''It's not a political decision,'' Crist said moments after signing the order. ``It's a people decision.''

Crist said he made the decision after seeing numerous news reports about long lines and after he had a conversation with state House Democratic leader Dan Gelber of Miami Beach. Crist's appointed secretary of state, Kurt Browning, had rejected the idea of extending the early voting hours earlier this week.

Speculation is that Charlie Crist is putting it to McCain because after he got married to prove his I'm-not-gay conservative cred, McCain still picked Palin instead of Crist.

Regardless of why, it's refreshing to see a Republican come out in favor of voting instead of vote suppression. Especially in Florida.

Election Protection News, October 28, 2008

The New York Times reports on the army of lawyers being deployed to protect the vote. Most numbers, quotes and anecdotes are from the Obama campaign; the McCain campaign and the RNC refuse to give any numbers, probably because they pale in comparison to the Obama juggernaut. Obama as usual has a better strategy than McCain, which is why the Democrats have won so many of the electoral challenges in court so far.

Georgia: A three-judge federal panel ruled that Georgia violated federal law by flagging voters ineligible, using a system that had not been approved by the Justice Department beforehand. This could affect as many as 55,000 voters statewide.

Virginia: A phony flier is circulating telling voters the election has been postponed to November 5th. It hasn't been postponed, and all voting takes place on Tuesday, November 4th. From the Virginia Pilot:



Virginia: The NAACP sued Virginia Governor Tim Kaine for not being adequately prepared for election, and asked the court to (a) reallocate voting machines to precincts likely to have the longest lines, and (b) order the polls to remain open an additional two hours.

New Mexico: The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the ACLU have filed suit to stop the Republican Party from harassing and intimidating voters. This all stems from the Republicans hiring private investigator Al Romero who went to the homes of two newly registered voters last week.

Sunday Morning News Round-Up

Can't get enough of Peek-a-Boo Panda

George W. McConstitutionFucker would like to steal one more election, so has directed his Justice Department to intervene in the Ohio fight to force new voters to vote by provisional ballot if their registration conflicts with some other database (disenfranchisement by typo). Now we'll find out if the Democratic morons who voted for AG Michael Mukasey were right, or if he's just a Republican hack like all the rest. (And remember that Bush is asking the Justice Dept. to do the same thing that they fired all the U.S. Attorneys for refusing to do, bring false charges of voter fraud. There ain't any.)

McCain's circular firing squad aims at Palin: she's "going rogue" and a "diva". McCain faces a Palin insurgency! Teehee.

Another endorsement for Obama: Anchorage Daily News (again, tee hee).

Republican dirty tricks: The Pennsylvania state Republican Party sent out an email to 75,000 Jewish voters saying that if you vote for Obama, there will be a second Holocaust.

Oregon Senator Gordon Smith(R-Pretending to be a Dem This Year) owns a frozen food company that supplies 10% of the nation's frozen vegetables. They irrigated their fields with sewage. Or as Dr. Murphy says at firedoglake, "Gordon Smith's Menu for America: Eat Sh*t And Die". Ewwwwwwwwwww.

If you have the stomach for it, watch the video from the Las Vegas Sun of this angry, fearful and racist group outside a Palin rally. These people are frightening.

And one completely nonpolitical topic: Isiah Thomas OD's on sleeping pills [suicide?], 911 got called and took him to the hospital; then he tried to say it was his 17-year-old daughter who needed help. Except for the local police chief who said, hey, it was him, not her. As the police chief said, "[W]hy they're throwing her under the bus is beyond my ability to understand."

Election Protection News, October 24, 2008

Good:

Indiana judge rejects Republican party lawsuit seeking to shut down early voting in Lake County, Indiana (Indiana's second-largest county).

Wisconsin judge rejects state Attorney General von Hollen's lawsuit trying to have all new registrations checked against flawed state databases. (No coincidence, von Hollen is a Republican and co-chair in Wisconsin for John McCain's presidential campaign.)

In Ohio, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has issued two directives: (1) election officials cannot challenge voters on Election Day or reject absentee ballots based solely on discrepancies from verifying new voter registrations, and (2) county election workers cannot uses mismatches as the basis for not counting an absentee ballot.

The Nevada Secretary of State has ruled against a Republican Party motion to have voter registrations invalidated for typos.

Bad:

Military ballots are thrown out in Fairfax County, Virginia because while they comply with federal law, they don't comply with a Virginia law requiring the voter's current address be on an absentee ballot.

Help Spread the Truth About ACORN

Forward this video by Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films far and wide.



Brave New Films:

Host a house party: http://acorn.bravenewtheaters.com

In recent weeks, the McCain campaign has been attacking ACORN, a widely respected voter registration organization, claiming ACORN knowingly participated in "voter fraud." In reality, this is just another calculated attempt by the McCain campaign and the RNC to suppress new and marginalized voters.

You can help spread the truth about ACORN by hosting a house party. Have your friends over and make new friends while watching ACORN's video and Brave New Films' REAL McCain series to keep the dialogue going about these issues.

Election Protection News, October 21, 2008

John McCain has hired veteran Republican fraudster and vote suppressor Nathan Sproul to do voter registration, paying his company $175,000 in June alone.

The website of Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner was hacked into yesterday, part of a campaign of intimidation. "[It's] the latest in a string of recent harassing efforts to disrupt the election....in recent weeks, phone lines and e-mail channels have been barraged, even in the business filings section of the office, with menacing messages and even threats of harm or death. Last week, a suspicious package covered with threatening messages and containing an unidentified powder was mailed to the Secretary of State's office..."

Voting machines in Jacksonville and elsewhere in Duval County, Florida broke down on the first day of early voting yesterday. Optical scan voting machine problems were reported in Leon County (Tallahassee) Florida.

More West Virginia voters have come forward to report voting machines flipping their votes from Democrat Barack Obama to Republican John McCain.

PBS and YouTube have started a new channel on YouTube called "Video Your Vote" so voters can document any problems they have voting. Warning, in some states it is illegal to film within the polling place, so check local laws before filming.

Note to readers, posting will be slower today as I have a busy schedule.

Election Protection News: Michigan Republicans Admit Scheme to Steal Foreclosed Homeowners Right to Vote

emptywheel: MI Republicans Admit to Illegal Foreclosure Scheme, “Surrender” to Democrats

This is from the statement issued by the Michigan Democratic Party:

An agreement announced today by Obama for America, the Republican National Committee, the Democratic National Committee, the Michigan Republican Party, the Michigan Democratic Party, the Macomb County Republican Party, the Macomb County Democratic Party, and plaintiffs Duane Maletski, Sharon Lopez, and Frances M. Zick protects the voting rights of foreclosure victims. The settlement acknowledges the existence of an illegal scheme by the Republicans to use mortgage foreclosure lists to deny foreclosure victims their right to vote. This settlement has the force of law behind it and ensures that Republicans cannot disenfranchise families facing foreclosure. [emphasis added]

Republicans deny that the settlement acknowledges the vote suppression scheme. I will link to the settlement agreement if and when it comes online.

Chicago Tribune: GOP, Dems announce settlement in foreclosure flap

DetNews.com: Dems, GOP settle foreclosure lawsuit; debate over plan continues

Election Protection News, October 20, 2008

Brad Friedman breaks the story on the arrest of Republican vote suppressor in California, live on Fox yesterday.

A new article in Rolling Stone by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Greg Palast about the GOP's campaign to deter new voters and discard Democratic ballots.

In California, the head of the firm the Republican Party hired to register voters -- that has been charged with fraudulently getting voters to change their registration from Democratic to Republican -- has himself been charged with voter registration fraud.

Touchscreens in West Virginia switching Democratic votes for Obama to votes for McCain.

Ballot confusion in North Carolina. You vote for President at the top of the ballot, then your next choice is to vote a "straight Democratic ticket". Problem? You must vote separately for President. This trouble was caused by a racist 1967 law that was intended to prevent North Carolina Democrats from voting for a liberal Presidential candidate (like Kennedy, Johnson, or Humphrey) while voting for Democrats in local races.

To counter all this, Obama is assembling a team of thousands of lawyers (I'm one of them!) to monitor the election in every state.

CNN FactChecks ACORN Attacks

CNN reporter Drew Griffin correctly reports, “Our research is showing — this more looks like a fraud perpetrated on ACORN,” not by ACORN. The people who ACORN paid by the hour to register voters committed fraudulent acts against the organization.

Obama Lawyer Bob Bauer on Olbermann

Obama attorney Bob Bauer: Republicans are already under investigation for ginning up fake voter fraud claims (in the U.S. Attorney scandal); we're not going to let it happen again.

Election Protection News

1. The big news is that the Supreme Court delivered a quick rebuke to the wingnutty 6th Circuit, overruling their decision to order the Ohio Secretary of State to have to "review" 600,000 new voter registrations against driver's license and social security databases. This prevents disenfranchisement by typo, whereby perfectly qualified voters are denied the right to vote because a letter in their name was entered incorrectly (that would have made Joe Sam the Plumber ineligible, as his name is Wurzelbacher, but the registrar has him listed as Worzelbacher).

[It must be noted that the decision, while good in protecting voting rights on the eve of this election, denies the GOP a private right of action to enforce the statute. That means that only government action can enforce that law. That is a bad principle in civil rights cases when you have a virulently anti-civil-rights administration like the Bush Administration, who allow civil rights violations to proliferate by not bringing such action. Good decision on this narrow case, made on a terrible basis for many future cases.]

2. David Iglesias, the New Mexico Assistant Attorney General who was fired for failing to bring bogus election fraud cases the Bush Administration was pushing in 2006, says the hysteria about ACORN being whipped up by the Republicans is equally bogus. [And whenever I mention David Igleasias, I have to mention that his actions in the JAG Corps were the basis for the Tom Cruise character in A Few Good Men. "You can't handle the truth!" indeed.]

David Iglesias says he's shocked by the news, leaked today to the Associated Press, that the FBI is pursuing a voter-fraud investigation into ACORN just weeks before the election.

"I'm astounded that this issue is being trotted out again," Iglesias told TPMmuckraker. "Based on what I saw in 2004 and 2006, it's a scare tactic." In 2006, Iglesias was fired as U.S. attorney thanks partly to his reluctance to pursue voter-fraud cases as aggressively as DOJ wanted -- one of several U.S. attorneys fired for inappropriate political reasons, according to a recently released report by DOJ's Office of the Inspector General.

Iglesias, who has been the most outspoken of the fired U.S. attorneys, went on to say that the FBI's investigation seemed designed to inappropriately create a "boogeyman" out of voter fraud.

3. The AP (the AP!) factchecks the McCain campaign's allegations about ACORN and rejects them.

[I]n alleging voter fraud, McCain goes too far. To commit fraud, a person would have to show up on Election Day with identification bearing the fake name.

4. In perhaps the best news, the Obama campaign is aggressively tying the bogus ACORN investigation and the U.S. Attorney Scandal, including conducting a telephone conference with the media today:

The General Counsel of the Obama campaign is currently holding a media conference call to "Announce Major Action Taken Today To Address Illegal Conduct and Improprieties in the Sham "Anti-Fraud" Campaign Orchestrated By McCain-Palin and the RNC."

Check out this letter from the Obama campaign to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, asking for an investigation into ties between Bush's Justice Department and the McCain campaign's "systematic development and dissemination of unsupported, spurious allegations of vote fraud." I.e., don't try ginning up voter fraud prosecutions from the Justice Department in this election, my friends. This Democrat won't be caught napping.

Barack Obama is a fighting Democrat, and it's been a long time since we have seen a Democrat wage such a tough, disciplined fight.

6th Circuit Strikes a Blow for Vote Suppression

MSNBC: Ohio must set up a way to verify all new voters
Federal appeals court rules the system must be in place before Friday

Tuesday's order directs [Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer] Brunner to verify new registrations by comparing that information with data from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles or the Social Security Administration.

The 6th Circuit is one of the most conservative, Bush-Bush-Reagan laden federal courts in the country. Not surprising that a decision which could disenfranchise tens of thousands of new voters comes from such a conservative circuit.

Somewhere tonight, Hans von Vote Suppressor is smiling.

Republicans Were for ACORN Before They Were Against It

John McCain attends ACORN-sponsored conference, March 2006

HuffPo: ACORN: McCain And GOP Used To Be Supporters

Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, Texas Governor Rick Perry, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, all have supported ACORN's work and appeared with members of the organization -- all in the past three years.

And now ACORN is the boogeyman, because Republicans don't have any issues to run on. Oh, and don't forget that many of the leaders of ACORN are black. Race-baiting, anyone?

Republican Zombie Lies Debunked - Part I

Obama, ACORN and "voter fraud" - dispelling the myths

Republican Zombie Lie #1: ACORN is going to steal the election through voter fraud.

Ridiculous. ACORN is an anti-poverty organization. They advocate for affordable housing (including a campaign against foreclosures by predatory lenders), better schools, a living wage, reform of immigration laws, health care, and paid sick days, among others. Here's a video that describes the work ACORN does. As part of their work they have launched a voter registration project along with Project Vote, another 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

States and the federal government all require that voter registration be non-partisan. In most states, it is required that if you register voters, BY LAW you must turn in every registration form. (That's to keep a group from registering voters and then only turning in the registration forms for people they think will vote for their candidate, or the way they want them to.)

ACORN pays people to do voter registration, often people who are unemployed and have a hard time getting jobs otherwise. (Again, that's part of their mission, ending poverty. One way to do that is to give an unemployed person a job.) And sometimes, not often but sometimes, those people cheat and turn in forms with the entire roster of the Dallas Cowboys on them, or some other fakery. By law ACORN is required to turn in those registration forms, even if it knows they are fake.

And that's the only fraud involved here, voter registration fraud. The Dallas Cowboys do not show up to vote. Poor people are not going to the polls and pretending to be Tony Romo and Terrell Owens. The fraud is perpetrated by the paid help who cheat ACORN. ACORN actually flags bogus registrations when they turn them in to the states to alert them that there is a problem. Therefore, as this Cincinnati Enquirer column points out, bogus registrations are a pain, not a problem.

There are almost no cases of actual voter fraud where a voter voted frauduently. The Bush Administrations's push to crack down on (nonexistant) voter fraud has only resulted in 120 prosecutions -- and only 86 convictions -- in the past five years. That's not .00001 percent of the voting electorate. Infinitesimally small.

And the current Republican obsession with ACORN? It's a made up issue. John McCain has supported ACORN over the years, including his appearance at an ACORN-sponsored event in March of 2006:

John McCain, in March of 2006, sitting beside Florida Rep. Kendrick Meek at an event ACORN co-sponsored in Florida.

That's right, John McCain was for ACORN before he was against it.

And here's John McCain extolling the virtues of ACORN in his address to the group. Remember, this is March of 2006, 2 1/2 years ago, John McCain was "telling immigration rights activists at a rally in Miami that they "are what makes America special."



Don't let the Republicans defraud you into believing that ACORN is going to steal the election, or that ACORN is a bad or scary group. They're just using this as an excuse to attack Obama, because they have no plan to fix the economy, and no other way to win the election other than lies and deception.

Election Protection News, October 9, 2008

The New York Times reports today on vast purges of eligible voters from the voting rolls. Although the Times concludes that the purging does not appear to be coordinated by one party, since Republicans are always the party in favor of vote suppression, I doubt that this is just a coincidence. The Democrats have registered millions of new voters, and Republicans are carrying out a sustained campaign to disenfranchise as many as possible.

NYTimes: States’ Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal

Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law, according to a review of state records and Social Security data by The New York Times.

[]

States have been trying to follow the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and remove the names of voters who should no longer be listed; but for every voter added to the rolls in the past two months in some states, election officials have removed two, a review of the records shows.

The six swing states seem to be in violation of federal law in two ways. Michigan and Colorado are removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election, which is not allowed except when voters die, notify the authorities that they have moved out of state, or have been declared unfit to vote.

Indiana, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio seem to be improperly using Social Security data to verify registration applications for new voters.

In addition to the six swing states, three more states appear to be violating federal law. Alabama and Georgia seem to be improperly using Social Security information to screen registration applications from new voters. And Louisiana appears to have removed thousands of voters after the federal deadline for taking such action.

Under federal law, election officials are supposed to use the Social Security database to check a registration application only as a last resort, if no record of the applicant is found on state databases, like those for driver’s licenses or identification cards.

The requirement exists because using the federal database is less reliable than the state lists, and is more likely to incorrectly flag applications as invalid. Many state officials seem to be using the Social Security lists first.

In the year ending Sept. 30, election officials in Nevada, for example, used the Social Security database more than 740,000 times to check voter files or registration applications and found more than 715,000 nonmatches, federal records show. Election officials in Georgia ran more than 1.9 million checks on voter files or voter registration applications and found more than 260,000 nonmatches.

Election Protection News

A coalition of civil rights and voting rights groups has filed a motion to intervene in the Wisconsin Attorney General's suit against Wisconsin election officials. AG Van Hollen sued to force election officials to purge voter rolls if the election list does not match exactly with other databases, like those for driver's licenses and social security numbers.

The AG's suit would force election officials to remove someone from the list for typographical errors or minor differences like middle initials or titles.

For extra credit, guess the political party of Wisconsin Attorney General van Hollen? (First two guesses don't count; of course, he is a Republican!)

Alternet: Wisconsin Attorney General Sued To Stop Voter Purge

PDF: Amicus Brief, Van Hollen v. Government Accountability Board, et al., Case No. 08-CV-4085

The Campaign Legal Center

Are You Registered to Vote?

This is the time to check. Voter registration deadlines differ among states, and many end this week.

Check your state's voter registration deadlines, how to register, where to vote, etc., here.

You may have voted before, but the Republican National Committee is making a concerted effort to knock voters off the rolls. It's worth your time to check to make sure you are still registered.

In Montana the Republicans are challenging everyone who filled out a change-of-address card in the last 18 months in seven Democratic-leaning counties. If you've filled out a change of address card recently, go check your registration.

In Virginia, the Republicans are challenging college student's residency, asking for tax returns for registration, and warning students (falsely) that they will lose their financial aid or health insurance if they vote in Virginia. If you're a college student, go check your registration.

In Mississippi, a local election official purged 10,000 voters from the rolls from her home computer. If you are not on a first-name basis with your local election officials, go check your registration.

In Georgia, 700 voters were purged from the voter rolls even though many of those 700 had never committed any crime, never even received a parking ticket. If you've never committed a crime, go check your voter registration.

Don't the ratfuckers prevent you from voting.


Senator Edward M. Kennedy, dailykos: Are you registered to vote?

Republican Vote Suppression Comes to Virginia

The RNC is sending fake "Vote by mail" applications to Virginia voters. The woman who received it took to a local election official, who told her this:

1. He had heard about similar fake applications being mailed out in other states.

2. The envelope contained the second part of the application for absentee voting, but not the first--a cover letter explaining exactly what the procedure was and who was eligible.

3. Most disturbing were the instructions on the inside flap of the envelope telling people to "vote early by mail." Virginia DOES NOT have either EARLY VOTING or VOTE BY MAIL. The envelope tells potential voters they can complete and sign a card, place a stamp on it, and drop it in the nearest mailbox.

I'm sending this to my sister who lives in Virginia (and who is leading the family contest to register new voters). Get the word out.

The official told my husband the RNC had been specifically told not to do this, and apparently they mailed them out anyway.

dailykos: Fake Vote-By-Mail Applications in Virginia