"A national campaign to disenfranchise voters will receive a national response"

By GottaLaff

I've been all over the disenfranchisement/caging efforts of the Republican party, including the DNC/Obama lawsuit against the Michigan G.O.P. and Greg Palast's warnings.

Via a longtime reader of TPM (an excerpt):

The court is more likely to rule narrowly than to recognize those claims in its decision. But by intervening directly in a local case, the Obama campaign is signaling that a national campaign to disenfranchise voters will receive a national response. And by reframing a technical debate over local election laws as a broader discussion of fundamental rights, the Obama campaign has already won. The GOP has long employed the chimerical notion of "voter fraud," and preyed upon unpopular groups like students, non-Anglophone Americans and ex-felons. But they made a strategic miscalculation by going after homeowners suffering foreclosures. And by linking this effort at disenfranchisement to the others, the Obama campaign is going to make them pay.

We must never tolerate attempts at voter suppression. Now Obama's team is doing something about it. That's called leadership.

(The filing is here.)

H/t: I don't remember, but thank you!

Dear TPC, Here's the latest on the absentee ballot issue. Love, BradBlog

By GottaLaff

Brad Friedman, of BradBlog fame, saw our update about the Republican efforts to cage voters in the so-called "purple" states. He has an update for us, via Comments:

Thanks for the update, GottaLaff.

More details now posted here (along with the audio from my appearance today on the Hartmann show on this, as you expertly detailed!)

"McCain 'Absentee Ballot Request' Mailers Are Aggressive, But APPEAR To Be Legit"
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6378

Brad

From the responses we've gotten here in Comments, and from the calls I've heard on the Hartmann show, I'm still wary. Stay tuned.

And thanks for the update, Brad!

UPDATE: Misleading absentee ballot forms being sent to Democrats by McCain campaign

By GottaLaff

Please read this post for the back story, and what a back story it is. Briefly, "misleading" absentee ballot applications are being mailed out by the McCain campaign to registered Democratic voters in purple (toss-up) states. The return addresses of the city clerk's offices are inaccurate, as well as other information. It's a caging tactic.

Lee Rayburn, Thom Hartmann's substitute host, is all over this election fraud, caging, disenfranchisement, you name it, and it's a good thing.

Today he interviews Brad Friedman from The BradBlog and updates the story with news:

Brad says Rayburn has started things moving now. People are reporting the fraud. Absentee ballot request forms are what are being sent out. Good news for North Carolina: There doesn't seem to be, at this time, anything out of sorts with the forms... It's a get out the vote campaign, so that's good. But vote-by-mail are harder to track and are counted by the same machines that count other ballots.

However, in N. Carolina, the McCain camp is off the hook at this point. The correct addresses are on the envelopes.

In Hamilton County, Ohio, a million are invalidated, as I posted here. And in Michigan, many who are in foreclosure also become disenfranchised. In Florida, more dirty tricks. In Virginia, they're telling students lies that disenfranchise them. The Ohio mailer included a box that needed to be checked that people didn't know to check... so those forms can't be counted, and most are from Republicans. The county must now send mailers within 48 hours to all those people, following up... on their own dime.

Brad points out we haven't even touched on the voting machine issue. But he suggests to "make noise" if you have so much as a question about anything. Sometimes the bad guys ARE the county registrars.

If Obama voters receive McCain applications what should they do? If you want to vote absentee, go to the county website and follow their procedures. Don't count on a mailer. But it's better not to vote absentee, but vote on paper. If there is a touch screen (which can never be verified), then consider absentee, and deliver it in person on election day, to the polls. That's a paper ballot. In some states, you can request a paper ballot.

And how do you confirm you're ON the voter rolls? Call your county and/or state to check to see, even if you have previously been ON the rolls.

This is going to be uglier than anyone will even guess this November. At VotersUnite.org, there is a button that asks if you are registered. You can find out if you are. Check it more than once between now and November.

UPDATE FROM A COMMENTER:

ANYONE who has received the phone call and/or received the mailer. PLEASE Call Detective Ed from the Virginia State Police at 434-352-3436. They are wondering if its a SCAM tactic to get social security numbers or is it part of a voter fraud. I called the Virginia DNC yesterday and think thats how the State Police called me. So- If you have any information, Do Your Part and call. Thanks, Cynthia

BUMPED UP: Misleading absentee ballot forms being sent by McCain campaign

By GottaLaff

I am bumping up this post due to the response and new information I've gotten in comments. We cannot let the McCain campaign, or any Republican organization, disenfranchise voters as they have in the last several elections.

Just listening to the substitute host, Lee Rayburn, on the Thom Hartmann show:

"Misleading" absentee ballot applications are being mailed out by the McCain campaign to registered Democratic voters in purple states. The return addresses are inaccurate, as well as other information. "Misleading, lying" mailers are going out in Florida and other purple states. It's a caging tactic.

Calls are coming in verifying that this is happening in small towns, as well as larger ones.

The host is trying to determine the scale of this subversion of our democracy.

Here we go again.

UPDATE: It's happening in Pennsylvania, too. The ballots have included multiple ballots, sender address is a new address while return address is from old city clerk's office... The I'm trying to type this as he says it, and it may not be clear, since I miss some. I apologize for that.

Fraud. Election fraud. Hopefully the local authorities can help, or the local Obama offices. Calling the media could help, too.

A caller: Robocalls asking if you're interested in an absentee ballot. Or, notifying the voter that the ballot will be mailed back postage paid to the National Republican Committee.

Another caller from Detroit. Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida: That's where the absentee ballots are being sent to Obama voters. Add Missouri to that, per one of our commenters.

You can be sure McCain isn't doing this because he wants every vote counted.

UPDATE: A North Carolina caller got THREE of them. In the phone book there's a street address, but on the form, it's a P.O. Box, per the caller.

California caller from registrar's office: McCain should take the application for absentee and submit within 3 days. But the applications will most likely be held for the 3 days and "die". They'll most likely submit the Republican ones, and throw away the Democratic ones.

The return address for the request card goes to the wrong city clerk office address, per Rayburn.

Michigan caller: Wrong home address, and then, wrong city clerk address on the one he got. He donated to Obama, but not a Democrat, so he wonders if that's how they found him.

Hey media? There's a real story here.

UPDATE: Add Oregon to the list.

And Virginia:

I am a mail carrier in Virgina & delived about 20 of those yesterday. They are sent out bulk mail, so if you refuse them, they just go in the trash.

UPDATE: Add Ohio to the list.

And from Shaun:

Two things:

1) If you get deceptive robo calls, please let me know. I run the National Political Do Not Contact Registry and are keeping a database of these. Audio is key.
See my blog for details: blog.StopPoliticalCalls.org

2) Learn more about this by reading the testimony that I gave as well as others about robo calls and voter caging at the US Senate here:http://rules.senate.gov/hearings/2008/022708hrg.htm

Shaun Dakin
CEO
http://www.stoppoliticalcalls.org/index.php

Thank you! I'll add as we go. LEE RAYBURN WILL BE BREAKING MORE NEWS ON THIS SOON.

Via Tim in Comments: "The McCain campaign says it mailed out about 1 million of the faulty forms."

Misleading absentee ballot forms being sent by McCain campaign

By GottaLaff

Just listening to the substitute host, Lee Rayburn, on the Thom Hartmann show:

"Misleading" absentee ballot applications are being mailed out by the McCain campaign to registered Democratic voters in purple states. The return addresses are inaccurate, as well as other information. "Misleading, lying" mailers are going out in Florida and other purple states. It's a caging tactic.

Calls are coming in verifying that this is happening in small towns, as well as larger ones.

The host is trying to determine the scale of this subversion of our democracy.

Here we go again.

UPDATE: It's happening in Pennsylvania, too. The ballots have included multiple ballots, sender address is a new address while return address is from old city clerk's office... The I'm trying to type this as he says it, and it may not be clear, since I miss some. I apologize for that.

Fraud. Election fraud. Hopefully the local authorities can help, or the local Obama offices. Calling the media could help, too.

A caller: Robocalls asking if you're interested in an absentee ballot. Or, notifying the voter that the ballot will be mailed back postage paid to the National Republican Committee.

Another caller from Detroit. Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida: That's where the absentee ballots are being sent to Obama voters. Add Missouri to that, per one of our commenters.

You can be sure McCain isn't doing this because he wants every vote counted.

UPDATE: A North Carolina caller got THREE of them. In the phone book there's a street address, but on the form, it's a P.O. Box, per the caller.

California caller from registrar's office: McCain should take the application for absentee and submit within 3 days. But the applications will most likely be held for the 3 days and "die". They'll most likely submit the Republican ones, and throw away the Democratic ones.

The return address for the request card goes to the wrong city clerk office address, per Rayburn.

Michigan caller: Wrong home address, and then, wrong city clerk address on the one he got. He donated to Obama, but not a Democrat, so he wonders if that's how they found him.

Hey media? There's a real story here.

UPDATE: Add Oregon to the list.

And Virginia:

I am a mail carrier in Virgina & delived about 20 of those yesterday. They are sent out bulk mail, so if you refuse them, they just go in the trash.

UPDATE: Add Ohio to the list.

And from Shaun:

Two things:

1) If you get deceptive robo calls, please let me know. I run the National Political Do Not Contact Registry and are keeping a database of these. Audio is key.
See my blog for details: blog.StopPoliticalCalls.org

2) Learn more about this by reading the testimony that I gave as well as others about robo calls and voter caging at the US Senate here:http://rules.senate.gov/hearings/2008/022708hrg.htm

Shaun Dakin
CEO
http://www.stoppoliticalcalls.org/index.php

Thank you! I'll add as we go.

Nearly 600,000 Subject to Possible Caging in Ohio

By GottaLaff

Unsettling, to say the least:

Ohio election officials are sending out a mass mailer stamped “do not forward” to all registered voters today (Sept. 5) with an absentee ballot application and other important notices for Nov. 4.

What’s important here is not so much what’s going out as what’s being returned to sender.

Unbeknownst to the would-be recipients, the same mailer — just 60 days before the election — has the potential to determine their eligibility to vote, challenged not by election officials but by partisan opposition.

A similar mailer in March netted nondeliverable mail from almost 600,000 registered voters in just five Ohio counties who could now have their ballots thrown out for voting under the wrong address.

The National Voter Registration Act prohibits any state from purging names from the voting rolls within 90 days of an election.

The law doesn’t, however, preclude mass partisan challenges on or shortly before Election Day — known as voter caging — based on the same returned envelopes from state-sponsored mailers like the ones in Ohio and others going out across the country.

Caging: A term of art in the direct mail industry, as well as a term applied to a technique of voter suppression. A caging list is a list or database of addresses, updated after a mailing program is completed, with notations on responses received from recipients, with corrections for addresses that mail has been returned undelivered from, or forwarded onward from.

In 2004, the year the national election hinged on results from Ohio, the Ohio Republican Party challenged 35,000 voters based on returned mail from the GOP's own friendly reminder notices. From 2004 to 2006, Republicans challenged 77,000 voters this way nationwide. A consent decree issued in 1982 and amended in 1987 enjoins the GOP from instituting “ballot security programs” that focus on minority voters.

No evidence so far suggests Republicans — vote caging is essentially a GOP sport — have mounted a caging campaign this year. Yet, in July, Franklin County Election Director and County GOP Chairman Doug Preisse told reporters he didn’t rule out challenges before November, particularly because of increased home foreclosures, which would make failures to change address on voter registration records more common.

A challenged voter will likely cast a provisional ballot, which often requires voters to return to election divisions to prove their identity and address. Nearly a third of all 1.6 million provisional ballots cast in 2004 were thrown out.

How are we all feeling about Ohio 2008 now, hmm?

Voting-rights groups don’t oppose voter-roll housekeeping, but they cite the federal law as evidence that executing it so close to the actual election isn’t fair.

Donita Judge, Ohio staff attorney for the nonprofit Advancement Project:

“A single returned piece of mail is not a reliable basis for challenging the right to vote,” Judge said. “Mail may be returned for many reasons, including errors in the database from which the mailing is derived, errors in the mailing labels, failure to include an apartment number or poor matching criteria.” [...]

Meanwhile, the sweeping Ohio election law loosens the rules around challenging voters. It also strips much of the ability of voters to know they are being challenged and defend their right to vote before an election judge.

In an interview I saw a week or 2 ago, Jesse Jackson said he's been organizing a huge campaign to deal with disenfranchisement. I said then, and I say now, I hope he does a thorough job, or it will be Groundhog Day... again.