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States Deny Problems with Voter Registration
States reached out to reassure voters yesterday, after a story in the New York Times said that tens of thousands of voters were being blocked from registering or purged from state rolls.
Colorado, one of the states named in the story, has said they will review the process that has removed an estimated 37,000 voters from the state registry, but denied that the number was accurate.
"I have no idea where they got the numbers from," Colorado's Secretary of State Mike Coffman, a Republican, told the Denver Post.
Other states expressed confusion over the report and denied that they had widespread problems with their procedures.
Nevada's Secretary of State, a Democrat, assured Nevadans that, "any suggestion that eligible voters will be denied their right to participate in this election on Nov. 4 is false."
Michigan elections director Chris Thomas has said that only 11,000 voters were removed from Michigan rolls, a figure dramatically different than the 33,000 estimate in the Times report.
But it's important to note that both Michigan and Colorado repeatedly declined the Times request to make voter purge files public so they could be compared to the Times research compiled from state records. Both states also failed to respond to requests for comment on the story, days before it was published, but then provided their own sets of numbers on Thursday.
I hope the uproar continues. These states need to prove the numbers they're claiming (or denying).
I'd like to see an Obama or Democratic Party TV ad that alerts people to the possibility that they've been purged, for the various reasons given—foreclosure, name discrepancies, etc.
And without naming the source (i.e., Republicans and McCain), they can also warn about bogus mailings and phone calls that potentially undermine voters' rights.
October 10, 2008 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
One of my friends is canvassing in northwestern Indiana for Obama. A federal judge has DELAYED the opening of 3 early voting sites in Hammond, Gary, and East Chicago (Lake County) as the GOP filed a suit stating the sites were illegal. All 3 cities are poor, predominantly African American. If forced to go to the ONLY early voting location in Lake County which is open, they would be going to Crown Point - headquarters of the KKK in Indiana. It is 19 miles, for example, from East Chicago, Indiana to Crown Point.
There are hundreds of illegal schemes around the country the GOP is unloading now - This is just one of them:
http://progressillinois.com/2008/10/04/lake-county-voter-supression
We must continue to be viligant and work essentially 24/7 to stop this and make sure everyone has their voting rights protected.
October 10, 2008 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
The president of Common Cause was on C-SPAN last night and he affirmed the purge in NY. He said that 30,000 people received letters regarding their registration, instructing them to either confirm their information or their registration would be purged. 3,000 confirmed and 27,000 were purged.
Protecting the vote (Press Release)
October 9, 2008: Common Cause has launched a far-reaching "Protect the Vote" campaign in nearly a dozen states nationwide to strengthen and protect our nation's system of voting and assure that eligible voters are able to vote and that those votes are counted in this historic election. The campaign includes election protection work in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, California and New York. http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=186966
October 10, 2008 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not to denegrate the Hoosier state, but do you know just what Crown Point is all about?
while
Crown Points is also home to unaccredited fundamentalist Hyles-Anderson Baptist College.
October 10, 2008 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
With... what is it? 23 days to go?... I think this is all the more reason why we need to drive, pay bus fares for, or carry any and all theoretically valid voters to the polling centers. You know, make sure not one possible Obama/Biden voter stays home?
I think we all know the voting systems are being tampered with, but the effects of that tampering still mainly effect those places where the voting is relatively close.
If we can tilt this toward landslide territory we may be able to swamp the effects of all this tampering. And this will hopefully also create a larger Democratic majority that we can then lean on as heavily as we know how to correct this mess as best as possible within the next four years.
It may be naive on my part to hope for all this, but I also think it could be naive to believe we can make a mad-dash correction of these situations in 23 days. If that latter point is in the ballpark of "correct," overwhelming numbers may be our only answer at this time.
P.S.: If you're under 30 and newly registered and maybe active for the first time? We NEED you. We WANT your voices. Pardon this 56 year old activist for ranting and going all hippy on you on this point, but... . You must follow through and get to those polling centers!
Peace out.
October 12, 2008 9:51 AM | Reply | Permalink