It’s now official Republican policy: If you can’t win ... CHEAT!
“Although the payments were made by state party committees, it’s now clear that the Romney campaign and the national GOP coordinated the effort.”
“ ... the Republican secretary of state said in an interview that he knew of no evidence that any more than a handful of illegal votes had been cast in Ohio in the last few presidential elections.”
“ ... a claim that every election board has thus far found invalid.’
“ ... a targeted vote-suppression drive ... in counties President Obama won in 2008.”
"Too much of this is going on for this not to be a coordinated effort"
GOP Fires Controversial Voter Suppression Operative, but Is He Still Playing Dirty Tricks In California?
September 28, 2012
Nathan Sproul, the infamous voter suppression operative from 2004, accused of running an operation in several states that destroyed voter registration forms signed by Democrats, had been secretly paid by Republicans this year on another multimillion-dollar contract for voter registration in swing states.
Sproul—who managed an $8 million voter outreach program for Republicans in 2004—is accused of having his workers destroy voter registration forms turned in by Democrats in Nevada and Oregon that year. Similar tactics were reported in Pennsylvania, Minnesota and West Virginia. They’re also accused of other hijinx, from gathering signatures to place Ralph Nader on the ballot to deceiving people in voter registration drives at Walmart. CBS News has reported on faxes they received showing Sproul’s firm misrepresenting themselves as the left-leaning America Votes! group.
He’s now in hot water because his firm was caught turning in faked voter registration forms in Palm Beach County and nine other counties in Florida.
Within a day of The Nation’s reporting the story, officials with the national Republican Party cut ties with Sproul, whose firm has already received $3.1 million for work in Virginia, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina and Colorado. Although the payments were made by state party committees, it’s now clear that the Romney campaign and the national GOP coordinated the effort.
Tea party groups work to remove names from Ohio voter rolls
Activists say they're challenging some names to ensure 'election integrity.' Others say it's an effort to suppress the votes of likely Obama supporters.
September 26, 2012|By Michael Finnegan, Los Angeles Times
CINCINNATI — Lori Monroe, a 40-year-old Democrat who lives in central Ohio, was startled a few weeks ago to open a letter that said a stranger was challenging her right to vote in the presidential election.
Monroe, who was recovering from cancer surgery, called the local election board to protest. A local tea party leader was trying to strike Monroe from the voter rolls for a reason that made no sense: Her apartment building in Lancaster was listed as a commercial property.
"I'm like, really? Seriously?" Monroe said. "I've lived here seven years, and now I'm getting challenged?"
Monroe's is one of at least 2,100 names that tea party groups have sought to remove from Ohio's voter rosters.
The groups and their allies describe it as a citizen movement to prevent ballot fraud, although the Republican secretary of state said in an interview that he knew of no evidence that any more than a handful of illegal votes had been cast in Ohio in the last few presidential elections.
Some Democrats see it as a targeted vote-suppression drive. The names selected for purging include hundreds of college students, trailer park residents, homeless people and African Americans in counties President Obama won in 2008.
The battle over who belongs on the voter rolls in Ohio comes as supporters of Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, are making elaborate plans to monitor the polls and mount legal challenges after the Nov. 6 election if necessary.
Obama's reelection campaign and Romney allies are already fighting in court over Republican efforts to block Ohio voters from casting ballots the weekend before the election. In 2008, Ohio's final weekend of early voting drew tens of thousands of African Americans to cast ballots, mainly for Obama.
The racial dimension of the 2012 clash over weekend voting burst into the open last month when one of Ohio's most powerful Republicans, Franklin County GOP Chairman Doug Preisse, told the Columbus Dispatch, "We shouldn't contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African American — voter-turnout machine."
Some Democrats see the developments in Ohio as part of a national drive by Obama's opponents to minimize turnout of his supporters, one that includes efforts elsewhere to impose new voter ID rules.
"Too much of this is going on for this not to be a coordinated effort," said Tim Burke, chairman of the Hamilton County Democratic Party in the tea party stronghold of southwestern Ohio.
Read more about this sickening mess:
More articles on how Republicans hope to keep Obama voters from the polls:
How The Tea Party Hopes To Purge Thousands of Ohio Voters
Sep 27, 2012
Members of an Ohio tea party group are taking it upon themselves to individually police alleged voter fraud, launching challenges to a targeted list of voters that includes hundreds of college students, trailer park residents, homeless people and African Americans in counties President Obama won in 2008. In all, the group has sought to remove from the voter rolls at least 2,100 registrations in 13 Ohio counties, nine of which Obama won in 2008, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The alleged perpetrators of this voter fraud include Lori Monroe, a 40-year-old recovering from cancer, whose apartment for the past seven years was allegedly listed as a commercial property; and eight members of an African American family, whose four-bedroom home where the family has lived since the 1980s was allegedly listed as a vacant lot. The group has also focused on challenging college students for failure to specify a dorm room number, a claim that every election board has thus far found invalid.
The group behind this crusade has dubbed itself the Ohio Voter Integrity Project, an offshoot of Texas-based True the Vote, which champions voter purges and voter ID laws and has been building a “poll watcher” network, an effort documented by Colorlines’ Brentin Mock:
True the Vote encourages recruits to “build relationships with election administrators” because “they control the access to the vote,” as Ouren told a gathering in Houston. In 2010, the group was able to get a list of voter registration data from Republican Harris County registrar Leo Vasquez, who reportedly refused the same to the Democratic Party, for which the party sued. When the King Street Patriots submitted to him their list of fraudulent actions they claimed to see at the polls, Vasquez accepted them without verification and held a press conference with Engelbrecht asserting Harris County polls were “under a systemic and organized attack.”
Florida Officially Restarts Voter Purge, Revised List Still Appears To Be Inaccurate
Sep 26, 2012
Florida has officially restarted it’s controversial purge of registered voters less than 6 weeks before election day. Governor Scott’s intention to resume the effort, detailed in a PowerPoint presentation, was [url= http://thinkprogress.org/elect...esidential-election/] first reported by ThinkProgress[/url].
Initially, Florida identified 180,000 potential non-citizens to be purged from the voter rolls. That list was subsequently narrowed down to 2600 “sure fire” non-citizens. When it became clear in early June that even the smaller list was riddled with errors, elections officials stopped the effort.
For voters like Yeral Arroliga, it’s a pain.
Arroliga, 25, who immigrated from Nicaragua in 1995, said he already sent his proof of citizenship earlier this summer under the first version of the purge program. He’s ready to do it again, after ending up on the new list. But he’s not happy about it.
“It sounds like you have Big Brother watching over you,” he told The Herald. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
Of this list of 198 potential non-citizens, about 58 percent are minority — 41 percent Hispanic and 17 percent black.
Multiple election officials have spoken out against the latest purge.
