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

Comments

[megpie71]

Gods above, below, before, behind, betwixt, between, and beyond. That's just ridiculous. Just out of interest, is there any part of the US electoral or judicial systems which can't get caught up in this sort of partisan politics?

Explain this to a poor bewildered Aussie - how is it that voter registration (which over here is strictly non-partisan and contains only details like your name, address, and a witness from someone who is a competent witness) has a party alignment on it? Who keeps the voting rolls, just out of interest? Here, they're the property of the federal government (or rather of the Australia Electoral Commission) and who you're likely to vote for isn't one of their considerations.

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

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...)

[mrowe]

You know, there *is* something to be said for a system where you just receive your call-up by post, based on City Hall data on all inhabitants ...

And do people *really* have to declare who they're going to vote for when they register? Isn't that supposed to be between you and your ballot paper?

Yes, it's called civilized

[anglachel1]

You have the option to declare a party affiliation, or say you are unaffiliated. This will restrict some of the primary elections you can vote in.

When you get to a final election (local/municipal, county, state, federal), then you may choose whom you wish and cross party lines to vote. Your party affiliation *is* part of your voter record.

Voting is done by precinct, and is almost entirely volunteer. In most parts of the country, it is run above board and civilly. Wherever you find a large concnetration of poor or minorities, the chances for vote fraud goes up dramatically.

My county is so worried about electronic vote fraud and simple technical malfunction, that it has ordered all electronic machines out of the upcoming election and we will be using paper ballots - fill in the circle Scantrons. We used to use punch cards.

The US voting system is a scandal.

Ang

Yes, I'd have to agree it's a scandal

[mrowe]

Ooh, real voting; I remember those lovely red pencils we used to have here. Now it's all computers:( At least the button you have to press is still red. Some people have expressed concerns over voting machine security, but so far it all appears to be done fairly (i.e. results match trends, no suspicious swings etc.)

Primaries
Here, the members of any particular party, not the public at large, determine who gets to stand for parliament, and comparing beyond that point would be meaningless, I guess, since for example who gets to be prime minister is determined by the parties which end up forming the government.

The only thing on record anywhere is whether or not someone is a member of a particular party (parties have to keep records of course, and I'm certain that the intelligence services do so as well - at least for some parties).

I'm not sure the people who sit in the polling stations here on election day are volunteers or not, but I suspect they are; beyond that, organisation is in 'official' hands.

Re: Yes, I'd have to agree it's a scandal

[megpie71]

The Aussies fill in ballot papers in pencil. There were some computerised voting stations at the last federal election, and there's probably going to be a few for the Canberra local elections this weekend. However, these are located at the major voting centres, and they're also watched like hawks by the AEC.

Actually, the one election day tradition I love is the use of the local public primary schools as a polling place. This means that one of the regular sights is the school P&C (Parents and Citizens Association) holding a sausage sizzle outside the polling place. The folks down in Curtin had a sausage sizzle, and they were also selling drinks and fundraising chocolate. So hopefully one positive thing to come out of the elections will be improved facilities at the school.

Bearers of democracy to the rest of the world?

[tanaquilotr]

Good grief, it gets worse. :-( (And you forgot to mention the Floridian trick last time of removing voters from the electoral role simply because their names were vaguely similar to those of prison inmates.)

Of course, if you colonials hadn't got so antsy back in 1776, you could have had the (relatively) decent post Electoral Reform Act approach to voting we Brits eventually let all our other colonials have. ;-) (Waves at megpie - sounds like it's much the same in Aus as here!)

In the UK, the local council maintains the electoral roll and sends a form once a year to each address. You enter (or confirm) who is registered to vote in local, national and European elections. Polling stations are manned by local council employees and a police officer has to visit each station at least once to ensure no riots are happening! We still vote by putting crosses on paper and vote counting is done as an open process scrutinised by representatives of all the parties involved. Electoral law means party workers are not allowed to ask someone how

[baka_kit]

I don't know about the rest of the US, but here in California, when they didn't have my sweetie's voter information (we'd moved recently) they still let him vote as a "provisional voter," meaning they took his ballot and counted it after they checked his information was valid. He had to insist, but they let him do it.

[martal0712]

Urk, Ang. This makes me sick. I'm not a registered Republican (I'm not registered with any party) but I have sent this article on to my parents and brother, who are Rep.s. It will be interesting to see what kind of response I get back.

Is this at all making the newspapers out on the West Coast? I hadn't heard anything about it out here. Not that I'm watching the news all that closely, but I would expect this to be front page-worthy.

2000 was the first election I could vote in; I had just turned eighteen three months before and was excited to finally be able to participate. I assumed that Floridagate was just a fluke - after all, no one's perfect, and in a country this size mistakes are bound to be made. I made all kinds of excuses for why I should support Bush for president. I had voted for him (see above about Republican family members, and I was straight out of high school - I certainly wouldn't vote for him now) but that wasn't the point. The infallible system had chosen him, therefore he deserved my respect. Or so I thought

Double Urk

[anglachel1]

It is outrageous. The story is not breaking water outside of Nevada in the regular news media, but it is wildfire in the blogs. I think this mess stinks *so* badly that the major papers want it set in gold before they will jump on it. I also think no one wants to break it before the debate tonight