Monday, October 27, 2008

Sleight of Hand: GOP cornered and dangerous

Nothing to see here! Hey, look at that ACORN!
As the end looms, and the smoke clears, the GOP strategy seems clear. It doesn't seem like anyone on the Democratic side is taking a victory for granted, but McPalin's outlook is pretty bleak right now. So, from what I'm hearing and reading, the last strategy is outright stealing the election by reverting to 18th and 19th century voter suppression strategies.

The Repugnicans have been screaming bloody murder about voter fraud, trying to get everyone talking about ACORN, but the true cases of voter fraud are rarer than lottery winners. This is all just a smokescreen to distract people from what is happening across the country, all in the perverted name of the Help America Vote Act. Just like in Florida in 2000, several states are thinning out the voter rolls, and often more likely in poor and ethnic areas. According to the Steal Back Your Vote comic book, co-written by Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Greg Palast, Republican lawyers across the country are challenging and intimidating voters. In their recent article in Rolling Stone, they wrote:
On Super Tuesday, one in nine Democrats who tried to cast ballots in New Mexico found their names missing from the registration lists.

A lot of voters are being challenged because their records don't match on the Drivers License database with the Social Security data. I was called to jury duty twice in one year, just because one list had my name spelled differently than another list. Maybe I won't be able to vote either! I just ran across this story about how certain Florida counties are refusing to go along with the real strict hassling of voters. This is out there to be paid attention to.

This has to bubble up to the top of the media consciousness soon, before it's too late. Please pass the word about this strategy. Enormous sunlight needs to shine into these dark ugly corners, if we are to preserve our democracy.

1 comment:

Pop Argot said...

Enough cannot be said about this. An article in this week's Time, "7 Things That Could Go Wrong on Election Day," also gets into voter-suppression concerns. Thank you for shining a light!