Voter Registrations Possibly Trashed

[anglachel1]

Well, well, well. The Rethuglicans are at it again. While their Xtian adherents rant about the sacred life of embryos, the Republican National Committee is disenfranchising their rivals through the most crude manner possible - destroying Democratic voter registrations

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Welcome to 'Murika

[anglachel1]

The actual voter rolls are kept by local voter boards and varies by state. The laws also vary from state to state as to what qualifies you to be a voter beyond residency and citizenship. You do not have to indicate a party preferance on a voter registration form, but most people do. If you do not indicate a party in most states, you are not permitted to vote in party primaries, which reduces all turn-out in primaries. California recently tried to have this declared illegal, but both Dems and Rethugs fought against it.

Rethugs are the worst about voter registration fraud and polling intimidation, though the Dems used to be the bastads in this regard. Same target, blacks primarily. Anyone who isn't white, upper-middle class and Rethug is at some risk these days. Destroyed applications, uniformed and armed cops visiting new voters at night and demanding they prove they aren't committing registration fraud, purging voting rolls of black democrats just before elections, moving polling places in poor and minority precincts with no warning and no address for where it has been moved to, putting rent-a-cops at the door to polling places and threatening people with arrest if they don't show IDs, having police road-blocks in black and poor neighborhoods to prevent people from reaching the polls, handing new citizens voter registrations premarked "Republican" (if the citizen tries to indicate Democrat instead, the form is discarded for "registration tampering"), etc.

The worst places are in the former Confederacy states, and it is the same people - white power brokers stirring up racial hatred against racial minorities. The former Dixiecrats have mostly migrated over to the 'thugs where they can rot in hell. Zell Miller is one of the last. Cities with large minority populations in old Rust Belt areas are also prone to this. It used to be under the command of the old, racist Democratic party, but then the racists decamped for the Republican Party (once a bastion of decent if slightly fuddy-duddy folks) following Richard Nixon.

It has always been a relatively pernicious system. Whomever is the nativist party will inevitably end up doing the most damage, but this is really getting out of hand. Jimmy Carter (best ex-President in US history) flat out said that Florida does not meet standards necessary for the Carter Center to even agree to monitor the vote: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/092804W.shtml

This is why Americans who give a damn about their country are not just concerned - we're scared. These people are fascists. Senior leaders in their own party are scred of these bastards. They have the Bible in one hand and the flag in the other and are running roughshod over the nation. The 30% of America that simply *is* fascist love 'em, and then there's about 15% more who think they can use them, and so vote for 'em. The remaining 5% they need for electoral victory comes from the idiot middle who are single issue voters - saving embryos for Christ, kill all muslims, flat-tax or bust, gun ownership, etc.

And one of the things they count on is the fractured voting system of the country.

Ang

a felony in Nevada

[bellatrys]

(Funny, we were both working on this at the same time.)

They tried to pass themselves off as another, Democratic outfit, too - "America Votes" they were calling themselves, too, but there's alread a GOTV group by that name. This is going to be really, really ugly, and it may turn into yet another case of them shooting themselves in the foot with an RPG. These people didn't even pay the bills for their office, just decamped. And the guy running it, Sprout? Former GOP guy, AND Christian Coalition.

(There needs to be a Pharisees Anonymous group, but nobody'd come...)