This is really awesome. Bring out the WashU protest!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/06/justice-department-subpoe_n_117285.html

Eddie,
What you have stumbled on is another Republican (-con) shell game. The Republicans are trying to confuse election fraud with voter fraud.

They are trying to make us think there are many people voting illegally using names of dead people or felons who have lost their right to vote. This should technically be called voter fraud, but the Republicans are calling it election fraud in order to confuse the real problem, which I shall address in the next paragraph. They have found many ways of wiping people off the voter lists, causing citizens to not be able to cast legitimate votes. Interestingly, these techniques always seem to target people who would likely vote for the Democratic Party. Voter fraud is a very small problem and it would be awfully hard to change an election this way, but the Republicans want us to think it is a big problem.

Election fraud is the real problem. This administration forced voting machines on the states. Over and over again they have proved hackable at worst and unreliable at best. National and local elections have had questionable results and votes cannot be recounted with these machines. Interestingly, major Repulican donors own the voting machine companies. We have allowed private companies to control our most precious democratic right - our vote.

Hometown boy Brad Friedman has an excellent website about election fraud:
bradblog.com

Greg Palast has an excellent website that includes articles on how the Repulicans have stolen, and will continue to try to steal, elections by wiping voters off the registration lists, claiming voters are casting fraudulent votes:
gregpalast.com

So Von Spakovsky is more concerned that somebody MIGHT go in and MIGHT ‘bother’ veterans while helping them register than he is about whether those wounded veterans will be able to vote in November?

So he thinks only elections officials should be allowed to help our veterans. But by his standard, no one would ever get registered to vote because our poor elections officials are already over-burdened just trying to get ready to administer the next election, and they are already grossly under-funded and under-paid.

How are bedridden soldiers supposed to register to vote then? If the Dept. of Justice and the VA won’t help them, and won’t let anyone else help them, just what the hell are they supposed to do?

Preventing our wounded veterans from voting under the guise of “protecting” them from what he fears MIGHT happen (with no evidence to justify himself) is just sickening.

I don’t understand why the GOP tries so hard to prevent perfectly eligible people from having every opportunity to participate in the democratic process.

Maford’s comments below are initially right on. In fact there is a history of voter suppression in the name of ballot security, including secure registration lists. For more, check out the second issue of the William Mitchell Law Review, Volume 34. http://www.wmitchell.edu/lawreview/

The real question is where is the fraud? Members of the RNLA (and I’d love to see a little journalistic digging into the backgroud of this organization) and the Federalist Society are the loudest criers of fraud, but when pressed the registration lists are their focus, not actual voter fraud. Why? Because there is so little evidence of fraudulent votes cast. With all the non-photo id required to vote, it is actually hard to commit voter fraud.

The comments about voter machines being easily subject to fraud has been talked about at length, but, in practice, I believe the StL county machines have a safety backup in the paper tallies. This paper trail allows for an audit. And you can look at the print out as you vote to make sure that your choice is printed correctly.

Regarding the 8th Circuit decision you mentioned in your blog, a quick call to a county election official should give you some ideas when and why voters are removed from registrations lists. The hardest part is keeping up with mobile Americans, the vast majority of whom do not regularly vote in non-presidential election cycles.

It’s called Google, guys. Search for ACORN and voter fraud (or, better yet, indictment). It’s happened in St. Louis and in KC. These ACORN folks intentionally allow and encourage registration fraud to allow multiple votes, noncitizen voting, and votes from the deceased. See the latest SCOTUS case on Indiana voter fraud (2008) and try to disprove those facts.

I don’t care who is squawking about voter fraud, even if it is the Federalists. It’s a real problem and it dillutes our legitimate votes. Why doesn’t Obama, the reform candidate, ever try to reform these abuses?

http://www.grafshepherd.com

Sorry, “Graf”, you’re dead wrong about ACORN. Apparently you didn’t bother to Google ACORN yourself otherwise you’d see that the charges were regarding voter REGISTRATION fraud, not voter fraud, which is the impersonation of a voter. And you’d also know that the bogus ACORN case was directly related to the U.S. Attorney Purge Scandal.

Here’s the coverage you didn’t bother to look for:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/05/06/missouri_attorney_a_focus_in_firings/

“Bradley Schlozman moved aggressively where Graves had not, announcing felony indictments of four workers for a liberal activist group on voter registration fraud charges less than a week before the 2006 election.”

That was against DoJ rules, but he did it anyway. And when the case finally got before a judge it was thrown out because the judge saw right through the lies. Now Schlozman is in hot water for possibly committing perjury.

Next time, Graf, have more respect for your neighbors and stop trying to give them false and misleading info

There is no “epidemic” of voter fraud. It is a lie. The GOP wants to keep people from voting because they lose when people vote. Just google Paul Weyrich, and you’ll see little gems like this:

“I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”