Another day, another something else absolutely mind-boggling from the GOP (via Eschaton):
The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.
“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. He said the local party wanted to make sure that proper electoral procedures were followed.
Forget the 1950’s. They honestly want to return to the 1850’s, when you had to be a property owner and white to vote (my memory may be hazy on when those laws were repealed regarding property).
What is really crazy about this is they simply do not care, they are just going to do it. They don’t care how it looks. They don’t care if those people absolutely should have the right to vote. They don’t care that there is no relationship between actual residence and whether or not you have received a foreclosure notice. They don’t care if you are still living there. They don’t care if you are still living in the same county, but at a new address and did not have time to re-register. They do not care that the largest foreclosure firm in the state is an organ of the GOP establishment, and everyone knows it. They don’t care about any of that.
What it boils down to is that there are some people they can keep from voting who belong to a group likely to support the wrong guy, so they will do it. Period. Just win, baby.
Remember this shit when the 101st Chairborne wants to tell you that we are in Iraq to fight for American values.
*** Update ***
More here.
Rick Taylor
It’s not as though any of this is new. Gore would have been President in 2000, if it hadn’t been for the largely spurious purge of the voter rolls in Florida then.
TheFountainHead
It’s shit like this that makes it easier for me to understand why oppressed peoples often resort to violence. I know my first reaction is to throw something.
Linda Binda
It’s one thing to be angry about it. What I want to know, nowadays, is what are people doing about it?
What can be done?
People get away with things when they face no opposition, or even worse, weak opposition.
What will you do about it?
Jake
I have to imagine Obama’s campaign is all over this kind of BS.
Don’t forget, Obama once eliminated *all* of his Democratic challengers for his state seat in IL by challenging how closely they’d followed the law to get their names on the ballot. The guy knows how the system can be worked to one’s advantage.
amorphous
Why would they stop there when they would be so close to their ultimate goal of “Karl Rove is the only eligible voter”?
Stuck in the Fun House
I can see the CNN crawl now. Is GOP trying to suppress voter turnout, or is this just Republicans ensuring the integrity of the election
chopper
yeah, that’s shitty right there. just goes to show how much the GOP feels for those people getting crushed by the mortgage mess.
Tony J
Clearly, this is bad news for the Democrat Party. Their failure to protect their voting block from aggressive culling just goes to show how shallow and hypocritical they are, which in turn proves their lack of credibility, and since it’s only Democrats who are complaining about this, and they have no credibility (see above) there’s obviously nothing to see here but more Democrat special interest whining, which should be ignored.
Shorter wingnut – “What’cha gonna do about it, hippy? Nuthin”! That’s what. So STFU.”
Jeff
I can only see this leading to violence especially if word gets out. People can only take so much crap.
chopper
“words to think about. i’m wolf blitzer, goodnight.”
Bubblegum Tate
Exactly.
Discussions of how disgusting, despicable, and wrong this is must be balanced by having Karl Rove explain how brilliant and non-shady it is.
Litlebritdifrnt
“I have to imagine Obama’s campaign is all over this kind of BS.”
Don’t worry they are. Here in NC it’s called early voting. They know that the RNC is going to be challenging every single one of the new voters that they have been registering so they are encouraging EVERYONE that they have been registering to go to early voting. That way if there is a problem with their registration it can be fixed on the spot and their vote counted on election day instead of being challenged on election day where their vote will be counted last as a provisional ballot. TRUST ME the Obama campaign has got this.
SGEW
I think I’m gonna keep posting this every day until Nov. 4th.
mantis
Woah, Jokeline is still pretty pissed:
oh really
?
Incertus
I”m starting to think Matthews had it right at the end of his segment yesterday when he suggested that the Republican strategy is to get the electorate so tired of the bullshit that they’ll just stay home. I hope that what really happens is that it motivates more people to come out, and fuck the Republicans right in the ear.
The Other Steve
No Drama Obama
Calm Steady Leadership, not another Soap Opera
Hedley Lamarr
The cockeyed Mississippi ballot and now this. Note that they wait until late in the game to spring these, knowing that lawsuits will be settled after the [s]election.
arbitrista
Property restrictions on voting were eliminated in the 1820’s.
Shygetz
What pisses me off is the fact that John linked to the Michigan Messanger, Eschaton and MyDD for this story. Where’s CNN? Where’s MSNBC? Why the f*ck are bloggers leading the charge in an organized voter suppression story in the midst of a national Presidential campaign?
Cris
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” – JFK, 3/3/62.
Brian J
Why is this mind boggling? It’s perfectly in line with what they’ve done or wanted to do for some time now.
Why should they care how it looks? They are going to act like there’s a huge problem regardless of the facts. Look at what happened in Indiana earlier this year. In a state that has had no widespread problems with voter fraud, they passed a new ID law that would put minorities, poor voters, and older voters at a disadvantage. Such a law wouldn’t be outrageous, if there was actually a problem. But shock of all shocks, there isn’t.
Please keep this in mind next time you hear some Republican talk about the Democrats stealing elections. Although they have been tossing out these allegations for years, they have yet, to my knowledge, to prove anything. They are, simply put, full of shit.
Cromagnon
I wanna be a Chairborne Ranger
Live a life of sex and danger
Notorious P.A.T.
Not to sound like a nutcase, but sometimes it looks like the Republicans won’t leave people any other choice.
Lewis Carroll
Next thing you know, they’ll be charging rape victims for their own evidence kits. Wait, hang on a minute…
http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_09_07_archive.html#4448862878393645250
HumboldtBlue
Here is what the chairborne Rangers don’t want you to see …
Notorious P.A.T.
“I wanna be a Chairborne ranger
Pass the Cheetohs and the channel changer”
???
liberal
What can be done?
Hmm…one story said that the “challenger” doesn’t have to reveal his list.
So f*ck’em: create a list of all registered Republicans and challenge every single one.
And do this only in districts that have more Rethuglicans. That way those districts won’t finish due to delays at the polls.
It’s time to fight these criminals with their own methods.
Just Some Fuckhead
I’ve been thinking about these sorts of suppression tactics as we get closer to November 4th. In my gentrified Republican precinct there are four machines working while six sit by idly in case one breaks. Meanwhile, in my buddy’s urban Democratic precinct they’re served by two machines, one broke, with a two hour long line. Imagine how that’s gonna be in November with unprecedented Democratic and minority turnout.
Add to that the relatively new tactic that appears to be in play in my area: Late model luxury cars with middle-aged white folks just magically breaking down in key unfortunate spots on the evening of election day causing ungodly traffic snarls. Four years ago, it almost cost me my vote as our polls close at 7pm. Since then I’ve voted on the way to work in the morning but it’s a known fact Democratic voters vote later in the day.
Anyway, other than early voting which we don’t have here, I hope the Obama campaign has a plan to combat election day shenanigans. I wish he’d start talking about election-day and how one needs to show up when they open and prepare to stay all day to ensure one’s vote. Maybe contrast it with the folks who laid down their lives for the right to vote.
Proffesor Fate
1. If a home is foreclosed the persons who lived there no longer do, and the house is probably empty.
2. Since they no longer live there, they must live somewhere else.
3. If you do not live there, you cannot vote there.
4. If someone is claiming to live there, that is grounds to challenge them. They are either a new voter, the old occupants who should have changed their registration, or some one who is voting early and often.
John Cole
It aint that simple, but it is probably pointless explaining why. Red State is ——>.
LiberalTarian
It’s official. I have the hots for Craig Ferguson.
His rant is longish, but worth every second.
ht Attaturk (Rising Hegemon). Sorry, you’ll have to google it, cuz for whatever reason trying to embed more than one link is an exercise in catastrophe.
TenguPhule
….
I welcome our more intelligent Chinese Overlords.
Just promise that you’ll shoot the stupid gits like that guy first.
dr. luba
Thing is, MacComb county, to the northeast of Detroit, is known as a white Republican (and “Reagan Democrat”) bastion. I kind of doubt that it is only Democrats getting foreclosed on.
They may be shooting themselves in the foot with this one…….unless they
are only going after the voters in the southern suburbs that abut Detroit and have a more multi-racial and less Republican make-up. I wouldn’t put that past them.