You're Ready to Bring About Change, but Can You Vote??

The McCain campaign is down to a "narrow victory" strategy, focusing on a few key states to eke out victory in, without any real hope of a nationwide popular vote victory.  Part of that strategy appears to be straight out the Rove playbook of voter suppression of constituncies that are likely to support Obama, in order to get those small victories; and ginning up "massive voter registration fraud scandals" to make any losing results for their man become "tainted."  

In the suppression arena, the GOP gets a big assist from provisions in the not quite correctly titled "Help America Vote Act" passed in 2002.  In 2004, the first election after the law passed, over 3 million votes were cast and not counted.  Investigative journalist Greg Palast, the man that first brought us the story of the "felon purge lists" in Florida in 2000, along with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., tells the whole story of the ways that voter suppression is being committed.  They do it in two ways; in an explosive Rolling Stone article and  in comic book form.

Here are the 6 ways that Palast tells us that "they're trying to steal your vote":

1)  "Bust the League"- As in the League of Women Voters.  The League does voter registration drives, and since new voters are usually Democratic voters, Republicans don't like them.  So what do they do?  In Florida the Republican Governor and legislature of Florida, made voter-drive groups subject to a $5000 fine for every voter form they submitted with any errors.  You can imagine how many groups that conduct voter drives can afford fines for 100 (or even 10) mistakes.

2) "The Purge'n General"- One aspect of the Help America Vote Act is the provision that requires states to match the identities of new registrants to government records.  Now that partisan Secretaries of States, instead of bipartisan election boards are in control of their states' registration apparatus, this has allowed from some mighty shady purges.  Then you turn organizations that register voters, like, say ACORN, into the perpetrators of, "one of the greatest frauds in voter historyin this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." When the stakes are that high these mass purges of voters start to seem a little more justified right (maybe that's why John McCain said it in front of his last debate audience)?  One of the most horrendous cases has been in Colorado (a big time swing state) where as many as 20% of voters were taken off of the rolls.  The Colorado Secretary of State's punishment for this? She was appointed as Chairman of the US Elections Assistance Commission; she'll "police the whole nation’s vote in November."  Great!!

3) "Spoiling America"- In 2004, over 1.3 million votes were not counted at all, because they were "spoiled"; "supposedly unreadable, blank, or just somehow lost in the machines."    And spoilage does not occur equally, Black votes are 900%,  and Hispanic ones 500%, more likely to be spoiled then white votes. 

4)"Provisional Democracy"-  3,000,000 provisional ballots were given to "questionable" voters in 2004.  1/3 of those votes were thrown out.  'Nuff said.

5) "Votes Gone Postal"- Idaho will send new voters absentee ballots, then throw them out when they're sent back.  Why? Because new voters in Idaho have to appear with their ID to vote legitimately.  So many states have strange technicalities like this that aren't well known, and they won't let you know if they throw your ballot out.  It leads to 10% of absentee ballots getting tossed.  

6) "Nuns on the Run"- Who doesn't have a state ID in this day and age?  Well, nuns for one, the elderly that aren't driving anymore for two, students that haven't gotten an ID in a state that they go to school in for three and Black people for four, five and six.   In Indiana there are about 400,000 Black voters and 28% of them do not carry the necessary ID to vote in that state.  That's 100,000 Black voters that can't vote in a state that Hillary won in the primaries by 14,000 votes.  

Pretty scary stuff, but you can make sure that your vote counts.  The 7 Steps laid out (in greater detail), by Palast and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the stealbackyourvote.org  comic are:

1) Don't Don't Don't Mail In Your Ballot

2) Vote Early...Very Early

3) Register and Register and Register

4) Vote Unconditionally, Not Provisionally

5) Occupy Ohio, Invade Nevada (or stay home and phone bank on Election Day)

6) Date a Voter

7) Make the Democracy Demand: No Vote Left Behind

I didn't explain the list because you MUST go read the article and comic yourself, then spread the word!