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Voter Suppression

fff

Well-known member
Colorado Democrats accused a Republican county clerk Wednesday of falsely informing Colorado College that students from outside the state could not register to vote if their parents claimed them as a dependent on their tax returns.

At a news conference in Colorado Springs, Democrats also criticized Robert Balink, the El Paso County clerk and recorder, who was a delegate to the Republican National Convention, for taking other steps they said would dampen voting by college students, who are expected to heavily favor Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

"When election officials spread false information about who is eligible to vote and remove, not add, polling places, we need to be concerned that eligible voters will be denied their right to vote," said Pat Waak, chairwoman of the Colorado Democratic Party.

Balink issued a statement saying his office had misinterpreted state law and “mistakenly published information that was incorrect.”

Balink's actions are the latest of several instances in which local election officials, including some in Virginia and South Carolina, have discouraged college students from voting in a year in which legions of students have thrown their energy behind Obama.

Discovery of these restrictions comes as Democrats have increasingly accused Republicans of using an array of tactics to suppress the Democratic voter turnout in the November election.

Liz Olson, the elections manager in Colorado's El Paso County, said that the office “takes full responsibility for what’s in that document. Nobody told us to put anything in there.”

Martha Tierney, an attorney for the Colorado Democratic Party, said she obtained emails showing that Balink's office sent a misleading flier to the Colorado College president's office to provide students with voter-registration information and urged its circulation on campus.

The flier stated: "What this means is that if your parents still claim you on their income tax returns, and they file that return in a state other than Colorado, you are not eligible to register to vote or vote in Colorado."

Voter residency requirements vary from state to state, but must meet the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution, said Jon Greenbaum, a voting rights expert with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Greenbaum said that what states and counties can’t do is adopt rules that treat one group of voters differently than others.

Greenbaum noted that Virginia’s elections board recently revised language on its Internet site that discouraged students from registering after reports of a similar episode at Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, Va. The New York Times reported Sept. 8 that a local registrar had issued two releases that incorrectly suggested dire consequences for the university’s students who registered to vote there, including the possibility they no longer could be claimed as dependents on their parents' tax returns.

Sujatha Jahagirdar, program director of the Student Public Interest Research Group’s New Voters Project in Washington, said she encountered similar problems when she posed as a college freshman last week and called registrar’s offices in Greenville County, S.C., home to Furman University, and York County, S.C., where Winthrop University is located.

Jahagirdar said a Greenville official asked if her parents listed her as a dependent, and when she replied in the affirmative, told her: “You should vote where your parents live.” She said a York County representative asked if she was in town for school, and when she said yes, stated flatly: “You can’t vote here.”

A caller on Wednesday got similar responses.

Told of the information imparted by his staff, Conway Belangia, Greenville County’s director of registration and elections, said that “if a staff person made a statement like that, it was an error.”

A York County official didn’t respond to calls for comment.

Belangia said, however, that if a student lives in a dormitory, he must respond to a series of questions laid out in a 1974 federal court order covering voting registration in the county. He said students must demonstrate their “intent to claim this locale as their home when they finish school.”

Jahagirdar called the counties’ policies “intimidating” and said they “send a message that young voters are not welcome in our democracy” just when they’re first enjoying the right to vote.

The flap over students’ voting rights comes after Democrats last week filed a lawsuit in Michigan, seeking a court order barring Republicans from using lists of people facing mortgage foreclosure proceedings as a basis for challenging their voting eligibility. Michigan Republicans denied using foreclosure lists to cast doubt about voters' qualifications.

And in Ohio, a pivotal state that was mired in allegations of voting irregularities in the 2004 presidential election, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner on Wednesday advised county election boards that foreclosure lists should not be considered proof that voters have changed residences.

"Ohioans faced with the pain and turmoil of a home foreclosure should not be targeted by the forces of disenfranchisement on Election Day," Brunner said.

McClatchy Newspapers 2008

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/53024.html ?

I guess Republicans don't think college students are the "kind of people" we need to be makeing decisions about our country either?
 

Mike

Well-known member
Allowing students to vote in a state/district where they are not considered a legal "resident" is not totally fair to the legal residents there either.

That's why we have an "Absentee" ballot process.......

If someone is voting as a "Non-resident" in a state/district, what's to stop them from voting in both places in one election?

Allowing non-residents to vote is opening a can of worms in a system ripe with Democrat run voter fraud. How much are they getting paid for this vote? :roll: :roll:
 

jodywy

Well-known member
http://ranchers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28391
Chicago, Wisconsin
Why is a clean state suddenly beset by dirty elections?

Saturday, October 26, 2002 12:01 a.m.

The progressive citizens of Wisconsin have reason to worry that Chicago-style vote-buying is creeping north from Illinois. The NBC affiliate in Milwaukee has just filmed Democratic campaign workers handing out small amounts of money and free food to residents at a home for the mentally ill in Kenosha after which the patients were shepherded into a separate room and given absentee ballots. One of the Democratic Party workers fled when she saw the NBC camera. The local district attorney is investigating.

Traditionally a clean government state, Wisconsin is now paying for its loose election laws. In 2000 its same-day voter-registration law was abused by Connie Milstein, a New York Democratic activist, who was caught on camera bribing the homeless with cigarettes to vote for Al Gore. She was later fined $5,000. (Several Wisconsin politicians were also recently charged with violating state campaign laws.)

Absentee ballots pose another difficulty. Along with the states listed nearby, Wisconsin allows anyone to obtain an absentee ballot for any reason. A flood of such requests is now overwhelming clerks in many states, with some being mishandled by the parties that forward them in bulk to election officials. "Voter beware," says Kevin Kennedy of Wisconsin's election board.

'ABSENTEE' VOTERS
States where applicants for absentee ballots need not state a reason or can give "work" as a reason Alaska Louisiana Oklahoma
Arizona Maine South Carolina
Arkansas Massachusetts South Dakota
California Minnesota Tennessee
Colorado Montana Utah
Hawaii Nevada Vermont
Idaho Nebraska Washington
Indiana New Hampshire Wisconsin
Iowa New Mexico Wyoming
Kansas North Carolina

Source: The Hotline






The mentally ill in Kenosha have a right to vote, but Wisconsin Common Cause director Jay Heck says the NBC footage showed Democratic workers engaged in "manipulative" behavior with a group that was "clearly developmentally disabled." The center ordered absentee ballots on behalf of all the residents and then allowed Democratic workers to run a bingo game there. The residents were induced to vote with free refreshments and quarters as bingo prizes.

Robert Jambois, the Kenosha County District Attorney, says the case is a headache for him because he has endorsed Jim Doyle, the Democratic candidate for governor, and because the Democratic worker who fled the scene was an intern in his own office. He will decide later if he needs to recuse himself. He's also candid enough to concede that it's a "good policy question" whether the laws against electioneering and intimidation at polling places are now being circumvented as more and more absentee ballots are circulated by party workers in nursing homes and other facilities.

There's little question that absentee-ballot abuses are growing. Austin Murphy, a former Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty in 1999 to improperly filling out the ballot of a nursing home resident. In Texas, prosecutors say "vote brokers" often accost seniors to "aid" them in filling out ballots.

Early ballots are also problematic, with 15 states permitting voters to cast their ballots as early as a month before Election Day. Two decades ago absentee and early ballots were only 5% of all votes cast. This year political parties pushing those ballots on voters may drive the total up to 30% of all votes cast in as many as 20 states.

Unless the laws are tightened and enforced, incidents such as the manipulation in Wisconsin will become more common and will undermine confidence in the outcome of more and more elections.


Copyright 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
Mike said:
Allowing students to vote in a state/district where they are not considered a legal "resident" is not totally fair to the legal residents there either.

That's why we have an "Absentee" ballot process.......

If someone is voting as a "Non-resident" in a state/district, what's to stop them from voting in both places in one election?

Allowing non-residents to vote is opening a can of worms in a system ripe with Democrat run voter fraud. How much are they getting paid for this vote? :roll: :roll:

You would think fff would think about some of these things before she post them. :roll:

Simple rules to follow, next thing you know the Dem's will want you to be able to vote by texting in your vote from cell phone and as many times as you wish like they do for American Idol. :roll:
 

backhoeboogie

Well-known member
aplusmnt said:
next thing you know the Dem's will want you to be able to vote by texting in your vote from cell phone and as many times as you wish like they do for American Idol. :roll:

You had best keep that quiet. You might give Pelosi ideas. How much could she make off of each call? :D
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
backhoeboogie said:
aplusmnt said:
next thing you know the Dem's will want you to be able to vote by texting in your vote from cell phone and as many times as you wish like they do for American Idol. :roll:

You had best keep that quiet. You might give Pelosi ideas. How much could she make off of each call? :D

You may be correct! She would tell the poor it is to help them but the small print would have a surcharge of so much per call that they would not realize until they go their phone bill :lol:
 

fff

Well-known member
Mike said:
Allowing students to vote in a state/district where they are not considered a legal "resident" is not totally fair to the legal residents there either.

That's why we have an "Absentee" ballot process.......

If someone is voting as a "Non-resident" in a state/district, what's to stop them from voting in both places in one election?

Allowing non-residents to vote is opening a can of worms in a system ripe with Democrat run voter fraud. How much are they getting paid for this vote? :roll: :roll:

In the states mentioned in the article, they are considered residents. The REPUBLICAN authorities wrongly told them they were not allowed to vote. It was a lie. Remember Kenneth Blackwell, of Ohio? He was going to throw out all voter registration applications (printed off the web) that weren't printed on specific weight paper! The Dems are ready this year. Lots of money and attention are going to be paid to voter suppression. :D
 

Mike

Well-known member
In the states mentioned in the article, they are considered residents.

In Colorado:

Only if they have a Colorado Driver's License, Co. license plate, and affirm that they have no other residence in another state.

Look it up.
 

TexasBred

Well-known member
fff said:
Mike said:
Allowing students to vote in a state/district where they are not considered a legal "resident" is not totally fair to the legal residents there either.

That's why we have an "Absentee" ballot process.......

If someone is voting as a "Non-resident" in a state/district, what's to stop them from voting in both places in one election?

Allowing non-residents to vote is opening a can of worms in a system ripe with Democrat run voter fraud. How much are they getting paid for this vote? :roll: :roll:

In the states mentioned in the article, they are considered residents. The REPUBLICAN authorities wrongly told them they were not allowed to vote. It was a lie. Remember Kenneth Blackwell, of Ohio? He was going to throw out all voter registration applications (printed off the web) that weren't printed on specific weight paper! The Dems are ready this year. Lots of money and attention are going to be paid to voter suppression. :D

That's really good....just tell them to check out their own folks in the process. Both have been guilty in the past but I feel most of it was done out of pure ignorance of the law.
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
fff said:
The Dems are ready this year. Lots of money and attention are going to be paid to voter suppression. :D

Won't matter this election will not be close enough for the Democrats to whine! :wink:
 
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