“Lori Monroe, a 40-year-old Democrat who lives in central Ohio, was startled a few weeks ago to open a letter that said a stranger was challenging her right to vote in the presidential election,” the L.A. Times is reporting
“Monroe, who was recovering from cancer surgery, called the local election board to protest. A local tea party leader was trying to strike Monroe from the voter rolls for a reason that made no sense: Her apartment building in Lancaster was listed as a commercial property.
‘”I’m like, really? Seriously?’ Monroe said. ‘I’ve lived here seven years, and now I’m getting challenged?”‘
“Monroe’s is one of at least 2,100 names that tea party groups have sought to remove from Ohio’s voter rosters.
“The groups and their allies describe it as a citizen movement to prevent ballot fraud, although the Republican secretary of state said in an interview that he knew of no evidence that any more than a handful of illegal votes had been cast in Ohio in the last few presidential elections.”
The rest of the article is here.
More background is here and here.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Well It Looks Like The Tea Party Is A Bit Sweaty & Desperate. Not A Good Look. The Deadline For Ohio Registration Is October 9. So Ohioans, Go Ahead, Make Their Day…
Get ready for the battle for the heart, mind and soul of the Republican Party that is going to ensue if (when) President Obama wins in November, the Democrats retain a majority in the Senate, and the Republicans come close to losing their majority in the House.
I suspect that Republican moderates (a relative position if there ever was one), who have suffered declining ranks, will make one more play to get the party back on an even keel. The only way to do this is by creating a rational centrist policy on immigration reform and assimilation, the role of government, and women’s rights.
In the end, I suspect that the internal bloodletting will have been too great for more reasonable forces to prevail, and the Republican Party, weakened by the leeching, will tip even farther to the right, making them a minority party for at least a few cycles.
With governance comes great responsibility; and to build an enduring majority based on civil rights, rational governance and equal protection, we must take up those causes and deliver.
Steve, can you imagine what would happen if the Republican’s lost their majority in the house?
There will be crying in the streets, and I should go into the ear plug business as I’d be a millionaire!
Nancy Pelosi said on Rachel Madow’s show last night that she thinks the Dems will regain the House.
I would be popping the champagne, but I am hedging my bets. If Obama smokes Romney in the debates I think it is possible.
How does a group or an individual get voter registration lists or the authority to purge voter rolls?
Wanda, voter registration is a matter of public record, and you can get an electronic copy of the file from the Clerk Recorder’s office. I think any citizen can file a complaint challenging someones right to vote. I’m not sure what the requirement of the Clerk-recorder to respond is. I suspect you could have some fun challenging some individuals right to vote.
I suggest we challenge certain naturalized Estonian’s based on the fact that Estonia was not a legally recognized country at their time of birth, and their citizenship papers did not state their citizenship in the Soviet Union.
I have to admit that I am only half joking here. George Rebane is a naturalized US citizen. I wonder, upon entering the US and applying for citizenship, whether he claimed prior citizenship in the Estonian Republic, which existed when he was born, the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic which was formed in 1940, the Greater Third Reich which was formed while Estonia was under German occupation and when his family fled Estonia, or the Federal Republic of Germany, created in 1949, and where he was interred after the end of the war.
(By the way, an interesting note: George’s entire path from post war Germany to the United States was provided by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration–housing, food, travel, etc.)
If you deliberately withhold information from or misrepresent information given to the USCIS or INS when filing your N-400, the USCIS may cancel your Certificate of Naturalization and revoke your US citizenship. This includes withholding information and misrepresenting yourself during your naturalization interview or oath ceremony. If your Certificate of Naturalization is cancelled and your US citizenship revoked, you may also find yourself facing criminal prosecution as well as deportation proceedings.
This is particularly relevant since it is a question of character…George’s wife Joanne Rebane is very involved in the True the Vote movement, and he is a vacl supporter of that movement, and one aspect of truing the voter is ensuring that citizens who vote are really qualified to do so.
So although I am largely joking….and I of course highly value George’s contributions as a United States Citizen, I wonder….did he claim prior Estonian citizenship? citizenship in the Third Reich? citizenship in the Federal Republic, or citizenship in the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic?
You all do realize that this is satire, right?
After the Democrats take over the House in November, perhaps a new version of HUAC might be in order to ferret out these un-American vote suppressors who seem to have infiltrated the federal gov’t.
In Florida the Republican Governor has condoned, just before the election, an agreement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to use the federal immigration database in the key swing state. Voter purge, shades of discrimination, all in swing states in a coordinated effort (throw in strategic redistricting), voter ID laws, voila you’ve swung an election.
Reason is gone. Rec’d a all too long email from an old friend yesterday promoting Tea Party. I’ve mentioned his case before; hunting accident (?) day before shipping to Vietnam blew out big section of his foot. Got hooked on morphine in Navy hospital; was released and was a hard core junkie. Gov’t took care of him. Finally got straight, created a good business, now retired, still with some VA benefits. Had it tough in High School, with mean old man always knocking the sh++ out of him; and very poor. But reason is gone for so many. Gov’t benefits and supporter of tea people. Again, partly due to finding religion as Susan Jacoby seems to rate the fundamentalist revival in USA, in her book. The Age of American Unreason, as about the number one reason. (Haven’t finished the book yet.) Idiot America makes the point and I’ll keep on seeing the 25% to 30% evangelical vote as anti-reason, science, intelligence, expertise and a great danger to freedoms. The Puritans demanded strict observance of their rules, no friends of freedom for other viewpoints. (Check it out if in doubt) The age of superstion and ignorance, anti-science. Just read a local blogger who always demeans the intelligent as the idiots.
Poor Estonia, victimized forever from Vikings, Germans, Nazis, Stalin, Stalin some more.
The Republicans have become so much like the people they fought in the forties. I view the upper echelons–Rove, Bush, Koch–similar to the Outfit, which was what organized crime was/is called in Chicago. Not Mafia, because anyone could join, not only Italians.
Have to first and foremost, defeat these people.
Wow Ed, that is a great book. I read it a couple of years ago. Highly recommend it to all here…..
This is priceless:
“George’s entire path from post war Germany to the United States was provided by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration–housing, food, travel, etc.”
Wasn’t this part of the UN Agenda 21 kick off?
Yeah, I really enjoyed that one…I mean really, your ass is saved by the UN and 60 years later you excoriate them every chance you get.
Here is another Rebanism from today:
“If you resist the implementation of a regulation and its subsequent government enforcement, you will be killed – and that goes all way down to what kind of lightbulbs you are now required to use in the ceiling of your remodeled kitchen.”
George’s entire career is based on government dollars, maybe his understanding at the ineptness and inefficiency of government is internal demons.
This pretty much sums it up:
Whoops, I should have made note that this is NSFW.
I love Sarah….
Thanks Michael for my good laugh at the stupidity of this whole attempt to eliminate peoples right to vote.
The optimism running through this discussion thread is probably driven primarily by Obama’s recent favorable polling.
But given the following three wildcards, I won’t be convinced of his ability to win until it’s an accomplished fact:
(1) All the various forms of cheating that comprise election fraud (as distinct from negligible voting fraud) — caging and other forms of improper removal of Democratic voters from rolls, voting machine/computer tampering, ballot tampering, misdirection/misinforming voters, reduction of the number of polling places in Democratic neighborhoods, etc. — have always been more decisive in a close election.
(2) ALEC-driven voter-ID laws (especially on the scale of being attempted in Ohio) could be decisive.
(2) The ocean of money from super-PACs will be greater than ever this year. It’s too soon to know how decisive this will be, but the disparity in amounts already spent in, for instance, Wisconsin’s Scott Walker recall election (about 8 to 1), and now being spent against effective legislators like Sherrod Brown of Ohio … does not bode well.
These factors together could trump the “will of the people.”
Don, I totally agree. Polls are nice, but meaningful, IMO and by checking past elections, with election a week or two away. Then, I’ve noticed, nationally, they are fairly reliable. Bush’s last win was larger than predicted I believe because of the successful effort to get the evangelicals to vote in above normal numbers.
But, for me, elections are like the suspense that develops when selling real estate–in my case my condo project at Killington, VT, from 1980 to 1984, terrible economic times if you remember. No gas, second home interest rates up to 18.5%, 23% interest on building loans, 1980 a winter without snow, etc. A sale could seem certain, then fall through at closing. So, the deal ain’t done until you got the check and it has cleared. Anything can happen as The Outfit will do anything to win, always referring to themselves as just businessmen.
agreed….
Me? I’m very much looking forward to the Romney win and the subsequent bombing of Iran. I love the smell of World War III in the morning.
“The Republicans have become so much like the people they fought in the forties”…. Spot On.
The pieces are in place to execute a massive election fraud sweeping all three White House, Senate, and House by the republicans. The question is can Romney hang in there close enough to make it happen? If the polls get 6-10 pts in Obama favor the heist is off but if they can keep them in the margin of error, we’re in for a roller coaster ride come November.
I agree, Ben. They are rich, angry, armed to the teeth, anti-expertise, many racists and just plain dislike liberal thinking. And the ones I know, totally ignorant of American history or any history in fact. Anybody wondering how most huge fortunes are made–except I’m sure, the techie fortunes, although it appears Steve Jobs, was a real SOB–should re-read Ida Tarbell’s book on John Rockefeller. And read Theodore Rex, by Edmund Morris, depicting Teddy Roosevelt’s battle with the Trusts in order to prevent a perceived revolution due to income inequality and a rigged system.
Question: What ruling class ever handed over power w/o fighting with everything they had; totally ruthlessness is epitomized.
I believe that one third of the wealthiest 400 on Forbes List inherited it. The other 2/3rd, not so sure, but quite possibly they took “small fortunes (millions) and turned them into large fortunes (billions.).
Voter suppression operative from the GOP is in California.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/170246/gop-fires-controversial-voter-suppression-operative-he-still-playing-dirty-tricks-califo
I am kind of enjoying the irony of the fact that the major voter fraud case of the election season to debate is the Republican scandal over the use of Strategic Alied Consulting.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-riverside-voters-20120930,0,7018210.story
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/2012/0929/Potential-voter-registration-fraud-in-Florida-GOP-s-own-ACORN-scandal
I so much want to send all these stories to a dude back east who insisted fraud was real and by the Dems. I haven’t.
A good question would be, “who is the oldest voter who still has all of his or her marbles?”
On a related note, is it voter fraud if you vote by mail and then die before election day?
Perhaps the answer to purging the polls by the Tea Party is just registering every damn voter in the state via new technology and linking those voters in the future to on-line voting technology. If everyone voted we would be a much better place!
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_21839726/calif-voter-registration-site-draws-1-million
Another goddamn case of voter fraud!
http://news.yahoo.com/wwii-vet-dies-age-93-casting-last-ballot-203523077.html