Voter Suppression Being Investigated As Criminal Conspiracy
on October 8, 2012 at 5:58 pmYes! It’s one thing to fight GOP voter suppression laws in court, it’s quite another to label right wing suppression tactics for what they are: a criminal conspiracy to steal the vote of tens of thousands (or more) of eligible citizens.
Via Think Progress:
The Tea Party organization launching a multi-pronged voter suppression effort this election is under investigation by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) for a possible “criminal conspiracy to deny legitimate voters their constitutional rights.”
Cummings sent a letter to True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht warning her that the Ohio branch of the group, in suing to throw thousands of students, trailer park residents, homeless people and African Americans off the voting rolls, may be violating the law:
At some point, an effort to challenge voter registrations by the thousands without any legitimate basis may be evidence of illegal voter suppression. If these efforts are intentional, politically motivated and widespread across multiple states, they could amount to a criminal conspiracy to deny legitimate voters their constitutional rights.
I really should be saying this every single day until the election: if you are in, or border, a swing state, don’t just go vote and go home. Stick around and keep an eye out for “concerned citizens” that just HAPPEN to feel the need to challenge voters who just HAPPEN to be minorities or college students. They’ll just HAPPEN to tie up the entire process in crowded Democratic leaning districts. They won’t be in Republican districts for some strange reason but they’ll be VERY concerned about election integrity elsewhere.
These people are there for one reason only: to intimidate others into not voting or waste enough time that people will give up and go home. They will make it sound as if you need ID when you do not. They will accuse people of voter fraud without proof to bog down the lines. They will “accidentally” mention that people with outstanding warrants or tickets will get in trouble if they vote.
Bring a camera. Get their name and face. Check THEIR ID. Make sure everyone on the line knows who they are, what they’re doing and why. Roaches scatter in the light. If a single person says they were lied to, call the police and have that “concerned citizen” arrested. This is their last real chance to steal a national election but they want to steal local and state elections as well.
Don’t let them.
It could be worse than you think. The pretextual “hunt for voter fraud” goes beyond registration purging and poll watchers. In states where poll watchers are more heavily regulated, True the Vote and their affiliates/allies are recruiting and training people to be actual election judges. One organizer went so far as to say “Being an election judge is even better than being a poll watcher as you are actually running the election.”
So do you think that driver’s license makes your vote safe?
Any liquor store clerk knows how easy it is to get a fake. Do we expect TTV not to be aware of this fact in their training? Does the state provide adequate guidance for election judges in determining whether an ID’s picture sufficiently matches the person staning before them? What about the signature matching requirements?
These subjective judgment calls concerning a person’s right to vote a regular ballot may end up in the hands of someone trained to be paranoid rather than reasonably vigilant. See http://www.ragingwisdom.com/who-watches-the-poll-watchers-part-ii/ for some of the flaws in Ohio’s laws protecting voters on election day, and here
http://www.ragingwisdom.com/who-watches-the-poll-watchers-part-iii/ for Florida which has a horrific defect in its voter challenge law that is not getting enough attention.