GOP to voters: fuck you

if you’re following the election at all, you’re sure to have heard about ACORN and the GOP’s allegations that voter registration fraud is equivalent to voter fraud.

not true. this video gives you the short story:

ACORN hires street canvassers to go out and register new voters, primarily in low-income/minority neighborhoods. unshockingly, some of these minimum-wage workers are slackers, and rather than knocking on doors they go and knock back a few beers with their friends, filling out the voter-registration sheets with phony names.

this is not registration fraud. none of the mickey mouses and colonel sanders that are “registered” this way are ever going to show up at the polls. this is just the stupid action of some lazy workers. it happens all the time in voter registration drives — the exact same thing happened when the republicans ran a voter registration drive in california a few years ago. the democrats didn’t try to block all the registrations based on these errors, and the GOP shouldn’t be trying to block the ACORN registrations now.

here’s REAL registration fraud: registering in a state where you do not live specifically so that you can “legally” operate as a registrar in that state. mark jacoby, employed by the california republican party, was just arrested for this.

ACORN is obligated by law to turn in all the voter registration forms it receives, even clearly phony ones. why? this is to prevent voter registration fraud, which is often practiced as follows: registrars go into neighborhoods where they’d rather people didn’t vote, runs a voter registration drive and then dumps all the registrations in the trash. when those people show up on election day, they won’t be able to vote. and will they ever try to register again? it’s a toss-up. that’s voter registration fraud of the most grievous sort, and it has been routinely practiced by the republican party.

the republicans are quite well aware that bad registration forms are not a form of voter registration fraud. nonetheless, they brought a lawsuit in ohio, seeking to invalidate all of the registrations gathered by ACORN, which was shot down by the ohio supreme court.

according to CNN, these lawsuits are a fraud perepetrated by the republicans against ACORN, not vice versa.

here’s what the obama campaign said to the special prosecutor about the GOP’s efforts:

I request that Special Prosecutor Dannehy’s inquiry incldue a review of any involvement by Justice Department and White House officials in supporting the McCain-Palin campaign and the Republican National Committee (“RNC”)’s systematic development and dissemination of unsupported, spurious allegations of vote fraud. It is highly likely that the very sort of politically motivated conduct identified in the Department’s investigation to date, necessitating the appointment of a Special Prosecutor, is repeating itself, and for the same reason: unwarranted and politically motivated intervention in the upcoming election.

basically, the campaign is accusing the RNC of colluding with local DOJ operatives to deprive US citizens of the right to vote. this is exactly what the nine attorneys improperly fired by alberto gonzales refused to do, and that refusal is what cost them their jobs.

after the ohio supreme court ruling, the ohio secretary of state received death threats and her website was hacked. acorn offices were ransacked and the organization received race-based insults and threats. if you’ve got a strong stomach, you can listen to recordings of some of the calls here.

other republican efforts to disenfranchise democratic voters in this election include:

buying lists of foreclosures in michigan in an attempt to disqualify former homeowners from voting. michigan supreme court forbade the use of these lists.

many early voters in virginia reported being unable to vote for obama, because the machines kept flipping back to mccain.

absentee voter ballots in florida are so fucked up that most people can’t figure out how to mail them.

nevada latinos who registered as democrats at the DMV (the DMV!) routinely had their registration forms thrown away. only the democrats, mind you, republican registrations (few as they are) made it through.

and on and on.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO PROTECT YOUR VOTE? glad you asked.

first, you can sign the ACLU petition urging the DOJ and special prosecutor to do all they can to stop the GOP’s attempts to disenfranchise voters. encourage your friends & family to do the same.

second, you can volunteer some time to work on the election protection wiki.

last, but not at all least, you can VIDEO YOUR VOTE. this is really important — take your cell phone or tinycam into the booth with you and document your vote.