A Maryland congressman has opened an investigation of a group that has tried to remove thousands of voters from registration rolls across the nation in advance of the presidential election.
The inquiry by Rep. Elijah E. Cummings , a Democrat, is being started a week after Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) urged the Justice Department to enforce voting rights laws, citing a Los Angeles Times article detailing attempts by an Ohio offshoot of the group, True the Vote, to strike hundreds of students and others from voting rolls.
“At some point, an effort to challenge voter registrations by the thousands without any legitimate basis may be evidence of illegal voter suppression,” Cummings told True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht in a letter on Thursday. “If these efforts are intentional, politically motivated and widespread across multiple states, they could amount to a criminal conspiracy to deny legitimate voters their constitutional rights.”
Cummings is the ranking minority member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Engelbrecht, a Texas tea party leader, has described True the Vote as an effort to prevent election fraud and clean up voter registration rolls. The group recruits volunteers, largely through tea party networks, to scour voter lists, challenge the registration of those they believe are dead or do not live at their listed address, and monitor the polls on election day.
The Times article described efforts by the Ohio Voter Integrity Project, a spinoff of True the Vote, to remove more than 2,100 names from voter rolls. Hundreds of them were college students the group tried to strike from the rolls for failure to specify their dorm room numbers. Local election boards declined to remove any of them.
The Ohio group also challenged the rights of eight members of an African American family to vote from an address it identified as a vacant lot outside Cincinnati. But the address was actually the house where the family had lived for nearly three decades. The family suspected race was the group’s motive. The white tea party activist who challenged the family said she had made a mistake and apologized.
College students?
African American voters?
Come on. even a blind man could see this for what it is, a naked attempt to keep potential Obama supporters from having the opportunity to exercise their Constitutionally guaranteed right to vote!
And the sad thing is that it is only one example among many that the Republicans have NO desire to preserve our Constitutional rights if in fact it interferes with their ability to hold onto, or attain, power.
Personally I hope that they find these assholes guilty of treason, throw the whole lot of them in Federal prisons, and then start to go after every OTHER GOP driven attempt to take away our freedoms as Americans citizens.
I don't think that it is too much to ask that, at the very least, we protect the right to vote in this country. It seems like something that every American, regardless of their party affiliation, could agree on, don't you think?
Months ago, when I told him about voter suppression in America (he is British), my husband said, "Isn't that treason?"
ReplyDeleteHe is bored by the repetitious ridiculousness of the election, the meanness of one party and impractical idealism of the other with mainstream journalists not holding lying candidates to account.
In the UK the parties have six weeks to campaign, but he knows America is bigger, but to suspend government for over a year? he asks, bewildered.
Interesting article in the NYTimes this weekend about how there is vastly more fraud, abuse and other bad stuff associated with absentee and mail ballots than with in-person voting. But the GOP loves absentee ballots and instead of supporting better controls, they support broader absentee voting! The Ohio secretary of state (GOP) recently sent out applications for absentee ballots to every registered voter (just in case people were finding it too tedious to go to the nursing home and induce comatose grannies to send for their own so they can be "helped" to vote).
ReplyDeleteWe vote by absentee ballot (over 65) and I'm always afraid that the city clerk will somehow manage to lose our ballots and they won't be counted. I'd like to be present when they're counted. Of course I don't trust the computerized voting machines either.
DeleteIsn't it a shame that American citizens have to be afraid that their honestly cast votes won't be counted? When I was young it would never have occurred to me. Then there was Richard Nixon, George W. Bush and now the entire Republican Party! What traitors they all are!
A good bit of the Alaskan vote is counted through absentee ballots. This is due to the high amounts of people who live in remote areas, such as myself and the high numbers of military who are based here, but may be serving active duty. These ballots at least have a paper trail, but there have been several incidents in the past Alaska history of ballots being lost, not counted, or discounted for various reasons.
DeleteOf course they love absentee, those votes can disappear and no one would know. But FOX noise and their idiot pundits have the little lambs running scared about in person voting so they won't notice what is going on right in front of them.
Delete"Personally I hope that they find these assholes guilty of treason, throw the whole lot of them in Federal prisons, and then start to go after every OTHER GOP driven attempt to take away our freedoms as Americans citizens."
ReplyDeleteif this is the case then you'd have to include...barack obama, hilary clinton, eric holder and a whole list of other politicians.
btw, i'd be fine with "in person ONLY" voting, but i would like to include armed oversight of the vote count and report. NO FOREIGN COMPANIES ALLOWED!!! and no electronic voting.
http://www.libertynews.com/2012/10/08/obama-campaign-rocked-by-foreign-campaign-contribution-scandal/
ReplyDeleteOh please, I just went there. Wasted a click.
DeleteIn this "explosive" report they are jumping all over the Obama campaign for a web site set up by someone with no ties to the Obama campaign. With links to Brietbart....well that will tell you just how accurate this information is.
BTW, Anony 6:56 what about the Romney campaign actually having that fundraiser in Israel not too long ago and all the big dollar non-American's who attended it? Hmmm? Romney was actually there. The event was held by the Romney camp.
If they can't win honestly, they feel no guilt whatsoever about lying, cheating and stealing to win.
ReplyDeleteThe only difference between the elections now and those questionable elections in the past are that the Republicans are more blatant about the fraud they're committing and astonished when anyone calls them on it.
As someone who enjoys the proper usage of verbiage, it has really been irking me the continued improper usage of the word "treason".
ReplyDeleteThese voter suppression tactics, the attempt to undermine the President constantly, the usage of false narratives in the attempt to make the President "other" than American is properly termed SEDITION.
Trea·son
1.the offense of acting to overthrow one's government or to harm or kill its sovereign.
2.a violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or to one's state.
3.the betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery.
The proper application of the word is from 1 & 2 of the definition. The actual PHYSICAL attempt to harm the state/leaders. i.e. the acts of the American citizen who joined the terrorist groups and directly acted to harm U.S. citizens' was guilty of treason.
se·di·tion
1.incitement of discontent or rebellion against a government.
2.any action, especially in speech or writing, promoting such discontent or rebellion.
3.Archaic . rebellious disorder
This investigation gives me hope that these criminals will be exposed. We have the voter id laws in Pennsylvania, people took time off from work, went though hoops to get the paperwork, stood in line for hours at the dmv, only to be turned back with new hurdles to go through. A lot of elderly and handicapped people suffered and some had to spend money to get the proper documents to prove they have the right to vote (how many 80 year olds have their birth certificates? how many colleges put an expiration date on student id's?, These people voted all their lives and this caused them time and money, which amounts, in essence, to an illegal poll tax.
ReplyDeleteNow the law is still on the books, but a judge said that it's too close to the election to be enforced.
The same must hold true for other states. The right to vote and have your vote counted is the cornerstone of our democracy.
I hope Cummings and Boxer's efforts start a fire in other state's representatives in the democratic party to expose these sleazy GOP efforts to invalidate voter's rights.
Me too !!!
DeleteAnd maybe they can tell us how many ACORNITES are still on OBAMA's GRAVY TRAIN.