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MI Dems Fight Back Against GOP Attempts to Challenge Voters on Foreclosure Lists

It's happened before, and it's threatening to happen again -- obstacles placed in the way of voters in low-income, highly Democratic areas.

The most recent charges come out of the swing county of Macomb in Michigan where late last week, the Michigan Messenger quoted the chairman of the Macomb County Republican Party, James Carabelli as stating that the party would be blocking voters who are registered at foreclosed addresses.

"We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren't voting from those addresses," Carabelli told the Messenger.

Michigan state voting laws allow "election challengers" to monitor the polls for the parties. If those challengers have "good reason to believe" that a person is ineligible -- such as not being a resident of the city or township -- they can lodge a challenge with the chairperson of the election precinct.

But according to voting rights experts, a foreclosure notice does not mean that a person is no longer a resident -- making it an inadequate basis for a challenge.

Just a few days after the article was published, Carabelli back-tracked on his statement, telling the Macomb Daily that the party has "no plans to do anything." He has now issued a full-throated denial, calling the original article "not true."

Today, Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer told the AP that he "simply [does] not believe [Carabelli's] denial. This fits the pattern we've seen here in Michigan."

And just in case, Obama's Presidential Campaign, the Democratic National Committee and a number of voters filed for an injunction today, in order to prevent any GOP efforts to disenfranchise voters whose homes have been foreclosed on.


9 Comments

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I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If Obama loses because of voter fraud, we shut government down, and cause a constitutional crisis. Dmand re-vote, after re-vote, after re-vote. We're playing for keeps.

You're right. Enough with the wimping out after the Rethuglikans have obviously stolen yet another election. ENOUGH!

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Boggs gets a hit.

(Bet you never hear that one...)

I've got about 3300 hits already, but I'll definitely take another. I eat a lot fo chicken, so that keeps me going strong.

Anyway, I'm glad so many people on here see the need to throw up a barricade of "ENOUGHS!". We will sue, march, protest, and shut the thing down if they steal it.

Who could be the poster child for preventing a stolen election? Hmmmm.... Let me see....

AL GORE!! He needs to issue a statement now that says in no uncertain terms that if they are cheating they will go to jail, and we will shut this thing down.

It's happening in Wisconsin, too. The Republican state AG, who is also co-chair of the McCain campaign in Wisconsin, is suing to try to force overburdened elections officials to cull through up to a million voter registrations because of alleged no match issues with the data base. And, apparently, to also purge the registration lists.

Thing is, the majority of the no matches are typos or minor inconsistencies - like people using their middle initial on their license but not their voter registration. In fact, 4 of the 6 members of Wisconsin's non-partisan elections body, the Gov't Accountability Board, came us as no-matches themselves.

Oh, and gee, do we think this has anything to do with efforts to knock student voters in college towns, and voters of color in Milwaukee, off the list? Oh, no, that would never happen.

OH!

So they are at it once again?

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Isn't caging a federal crime for the GOP these days? So I can see how someone would backtrack from publicly announcing a criminal conspiracy.

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I dunno if it is or not.
Personally, I think we really really need some fraudulent disfranchisement laws. With teeth, say 30 days per disfranchised voter; after some arbitrary number of such voters(say, 12) it becomes a felony charge with x-year sentences atop the individual penalties. Provisions for conspiracy should also be in there somewhere.

Word on that. We can't sit by and let it be stolen again.

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