WOOT! WOOT! WOOT!

The U.S. Supreme Court, siding with Democrats, freed Ohio officials from a lower court order that might have limited participation by new voters in next month’s presidential election.

Today’s ruling means Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, doesn’t have to provide county election boards with lists of new registrants whose information doesn’t match up with government databases. A federal trial judge had ordered Brunner to supply the lists by today.

Republicans who sued Brunner “are not sufficiently likely to prevail” in their lawsuit, the Supreme Court said in a two- page order, which came without published dissent.

Brunner said the judge’s order could have affected as many as 200,000 Ohioans, potentially forcing them to cast provisional ballots instead of regular ballots. Democrats likely would have been disproportionately affected by the judge’s order because of the party’s efforts to register new voters this year.

More at Bloomberg

From Rolling Stone:

Don’t worry about Mickey Mouse or ACORN stealing the election. According to an investigative report out today in Rolling Stone magazine, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast, after a year-long investigation, reveal a systematic program of “GOP vote tampering” on a massive scale.

- Republican Secretaries of State of swing-state Colorado have quietly purged one in six names from their voter rolls.

Over several months, the GOP politicos in Colorado stonewalled every attempt by Rolling Stone to get an answer to the massive purge - ten times the average state’s rate of removal.

- While Obama dreams of riding to the White House on a wave of new voters, more then 2.7 million have had their registrations REJECTED under new procedures signed into law by George Bush.
Kennedy, a voting rights lawyer, charges this is a resurgence of ‘Jim Crow’ tactics to wrongly block Black and Hispanic voters.

- A fired US prosecutor levels new charges - accusing leaders of his own party, Republicans, with criminal acts in an attempt to block legal voters as “fraudulent.”

- Digging through government records, the Kennedy-Palast team discovered that, in 2004, a GOP scheme called “caging” ultimately took away the rights of 1.1 million voters. The Rolling Stone duo predict that, this November 4, it will be far worse.

There’s more:

Read more »

Karen Finney of the DNC does a good job talking to Fox News about ACORN. Refuse to let them cut you off. This was great.

Here’s an update of information pertaining to voter’s rights and voter suppression. More on voting here.

RESTORING THE VOTE
MICHIGAN: Yesterday, a federal judge ordered Michigan Secretary of State Terry Lynn Land to restore over 1,500 Michigan voters to the rolls. The ruling was that the voters were illegally purged either as a result of their voter ID cards returned as undeliverable, or because they applied for a driver’s license in another state.

MORE RECORD-BREAKING
NATIONAL: With early voting beginning across the country, officials are seeing record breaking turnout in Illinois and Montana, Washington State officials predict the highest Election Day turnout in 60 years, and Minnesota has seen new voter registrations skyrocket.

THE LATEST STRAIGHT TALK ON ACORN

NATIONAL: Read some of the more level-headed responses to allegations of voter fraud here, here, here, and here.

BACK TO THE FUTURE
OREGON: The Oregon State Senate’s rules committee has proposed an amendment to the Oregon Constitution that would allow Oregonians to register even on Election Day. Election Day registration was allowed in the state up until 1986, when voters instituted a 20-day pre-election cutoff for new registrants. The state legislature can consider this measure in January of 2009.

FIGHTING FOR THEIR COUNTRY AND THEIR VOTE
NATIONAL: According to data and reports by the Election Assistance Commission and the Pew Center on the States, only about 30 percent of overseas military ballots were tallied in the last federal election. For some soldiers, the mail-in absentee voting process may take up to 60 days from start to finish.

OHIO REVERSALS
OHIO: This weekend, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner would not have to comply with a U.S. District Court order that she provide county elections boards with the names of voters whose information does not match state records. Greene County Sherriff Gene Fischer had withdrawn his request for over 300 early voter registration forms under the assumption that checks would be run on the state level following last week’s District Court ruling.

VOTER EDUCATION EFFORT
MICHIGAN: With record voter turnout expected, and with misinformation running rampant, the Michigan Department of Civil Rights is rolling out a massive voter education effort to run through Election Day. The advertising campaign will inform voters of their rights and dispel misinformation surrounding foreclosures, campaign paraphernalia and prior felony convictions.

BREAKING ALL KINDS OF RECORDS
GEORGIA: Not only is Georgia breaking records for how many registrants whose citizenship it has asked the Social Security Administration to verify, there are also so many new voter registrations that in DeKalb County alone about 30,000 registrations are sitting in a box waiting to be entered.

You know, I’ve been listening to this on CNN now for a week. Here’s the thing for me. Even IF ACORN is handing in false registrations, they are vetted and thrown out. No vote. Way different than the voter suppression the Repubicans are famous for.

Barack Obama and the Democrats are stealing the election. Massive voter fraud is being carried out, even as we speak, by their henchmen, known by the innocuous sounding Association for Community Organisations for Reform Now, or Acorn. Clever bastards.

The only problem? Despite the screaming wall-to-wall coverage of “Democratic voter fraud in 11 swing states” as seen on Fox News and even the once-respectable CNN, none of it’s true. None of it.

In just the last week, we’ve had a phoney stunt raid in swing state Nevada (where Acorn had been cooperating with officials for months, concerning problem canvassers they’d long ago fired); a Republican election official in swing state Missouri tell Fox News that she’s being beseiged with fraudulent registration forms from Acorn (in a county where they’ve not done any registration work since August); a Republican sheriff in swing state Ohio, who, the very next day, suddenly requested the names and addresses of hundreds of early voters (with evidence of exactly zero wrong doing, but lots of Democratic-leaning college student in the particular county, and John McCain’s state campaign chair as a partner in the investigation); and a screaming front page headline in Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post about a guy who claims he was somehow tricked by Acorn into registering 72 times (but read the article closely to note he says he registered at the same address each time, which, even if true, would allow him - you guessed it - precisely one legal vote.)

It’s an old Republican scam, but it’s never been carried out with more zeal than this year. The Republicans have been putting so much time, money and resources into the propaganda leading up to this over the last four years, we should have expected no less.

More at the Guardian

Some people are still sincerely struggling over their choice for president, and there are some voters who haven’t had the time before now to look carefully into the candidates on the major issues. Okay. (I would think most people at least would have a take on Iraq and the economy, and know the candidates’ positions on Iraq, but okay.) Engaged but undecided voters are one thing, but proudly or lazily ignorant voters are another matter. These days, it’s possible to catch up on the debates online. Anyone can read the candidates’ websites for key policies. The media’s actually been doing some fact-checking, and good blogs certainly do so. Obviously the hard-core yellow dog voters are going to vote for their party regardless, and added to that, the authoritarians of movement conservatism aren’t big on the whole ‘merit and competency’ thing. But I know I speak for many when I say I’m really sick of worshipping the “undecided voter.” Yes, it is a key voting block. But good grief, why is this choice so agonizing? There’s this guy named Bush who’s been in the White House for almost eight entire years, his party’s been in power for most of that time, and it’s hard to miss that their reign has been kinda a disaster – actually, multiple disasters. One of the candidates, McCain, has voted the Bush line over 90% of the time and has nearly identical policies on major issues. Fer gawdssake, is it this really so goddam hard?
Read more »

Damn Un-American fuckers.

Yep, it’s a shame all right. A damn shame they couldn’t get their way and screw a whole bunch of democratic voters out of their right to cast a vote. In their minds, it makes so much more fucking sense to screw thousands upon thousands of people out of their right to cast a vote than allow, possibly, one or two people who aren’t eligible, to vote.

Appeals court sides with Ohio secretary of state

A federal appeals court has sided with Ohio’s top elections official in her running battle with Republicans over how to verify the eligibility of newly registered voters.

Thursday a federal judge ordered Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to verify voter registration information and provide it to all of Ohio’s 88 county election boards.

Republicans:
“it’s a shame.”

But the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has set that aside in a split decision, ruling the task was simply too arduous and unreasonable. It ruled that the district court’s order would do “irreparable harm to the voting public.”

Brunner argues nothing in the Help America Vote Act required her to do what the lower court had ordered.

The chairman of the Ohio Republican party says “it’s a shame.”

Video: Democracy Now reports on voter purging. Amy Goodman speaks to Myrna Perez from the Brennan Center for Justice.

Democrats are way out-pacing republicans on new voter registrations. And we can’t have any of that!

They say it’s by mistake, but I think it’s funny that it almost always happens to only democratic voters.

Report: Voter purges in 6 states may violate law

NEW YORK - Tens of thousands of eligible voters have been removed from rolls or blocked from registering in at least six swing states, and the voters’ exclusion appears to violate federal law, according to a published report.

The Times said voters appear to have been purged by mistake and not because of any intentional violations by election officials or coordinated efforts by any party.

States have been trying to follow the Help America Vote Act of 2002 by removing the names of voters who should no longer be listed. But for every voter added to the rolls in the past two months in some states, election officials have removed two, a review of the records shows.

The newspaper said it identified apparent problems in Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina. It says some states are improperly using Social Security data to verify new voters’ registration applications, and others may have broken rules that govern removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election.

Democrats have been more aggressive at registering new voters this year, according to state election officials, so any closer screening of new applications may affect their party’s supporters disproportionately, the Times said.

(HT: Bat)

Registration offices in Broward and Miami-Dade stayed open late last night to accommodate all the people in line to register yesterday, which was the cut off date. You can still change your address if you are registered. Miami Dade new voter registrations, Democrats have outnumbered Republicans 5-1. I sure hope we can kick some Republican ass this year. I also hope this in indicative of how things are going across the country. Again, here’s a state by state guide of voter registration information and where to register for each state. REGISTER TO VOTE!!!

From Local 10:

Elections officials in both Broward and Miami-Dade counties have reported huge increases in voter registration as residents rushed to beat the state’s deadline for the Nov. 4 election.

“There’s been significantly higher interest in this election than in any other election,” said Lester Sola, Miami-Dade County Elections Supervisor.

Elections officials scheduled late office hours for Monday in order to handle a last-minute rush of people turning in their voter registration applications. An estimated 200,000 new voters have joined the rolls in Miami-Dade, and 300,000 in Broward since the last presidential election in 2004.

I’m bumping this up. I thought yesterday 10/05 was the deadline in Florida, but it is today. Just as a side not, I was watching WGN news on cable the other day. (Chicago girl has to keep up with what’s up in Chicago) They stated that 10,000 people in Chicago registered to vote in a two day period last week. Just thought I’d share that with ya wink wink gosh darn it!

I’m not sure about the other states, but I know the deadline to register to vote in Florida is today. It’s not too late. You can register online. Please, share this information with your friends, family, neighbors….. it’s not too late and it’s very easy to do online. You can actually register for any state at this site. Also, I think no matter what state you live in, it’s going to be important to try and make sure your voter registration information match up with your ID. Click on the image to register to vote today at Vote For Change.

If you’re looking for voter registration deadlines or information about where and how to register to vote, here’s a state by state listing. If you haven’t done so, REGISTER TO VOTE TODAY!!!

What will they think of next?

Sue Nace thought election volunteers were joking when they told her she would have to remove her T-shirt to vote in the presidential primary last spring.

But it was no laughing matter to the poll workers-turned-fashion police, who said Nace’s Obama shirt was inappropriate electioneering — and made her cover the writing before casting a ballot.

Now, a political fight over what voters can wear to the polls is headed to court in Pennsylvania — with the Republican Party favoring a dress code and Democrats opposed.

More at Yahoo News

The really good stuff starts about 2:40 in:

Don’t Vote video.

REGISTER TO VOTE TODAY. YOU CAN DO IT ONLINE! TICK TICK TICK…..YOU ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!!!!!

WWW.MAPS.GOOGLE.COM/VOTE