Home
Archive
Columnists
Video
Blogs
Discuss
About
Search
Donate
Advertise
100 words for 100 days: submit your 100 word essay and get published on AlterNet
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
  • AlterNetYour turn

Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.


Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.

Advertisement
Advertisement

GOP Backs Off Montana Voter Challenges

Posted by Steven Rosenfeld at 3:03 PM on October 8, 2008.


Republicans in Montana say they will not challenge 6,000 likely Democratic voters' right to vote.
anncommtg06030623396w

Share and save this post:
Digg iconDelicious iconReddit iconFark iconYahoo! iconNewsvine! iconFacebook iconNewsTrust icon

Got a tip for a post?:
Email us | Anonymous form

Get PEEK in your
mailbox!

 

The Montana Republican Party, which just last week notified local election officials in a handful largely Democratic counties that it intended to challenge the registrations of nearly 6,000 voters, has withdrawn that action.

According to press reports from the big sky state, the Montana Republican Party announced on Tuesday it would no longer pursue the challenges, which potentially would have forced targeted individuals to produce additional documentation of their legal address when voting.

The Montana GOP had selected individuals who were likely Democratic voters in university towns and on Native American reservations, local political analysts said. Reaction from election officials and editorial writers was uniformly negative, saying the threatened challenges were a ruse to discourage likely Democrats from voting.

Versions of this tactic are playing out across the country as GOP officials, either party leaders or office holders, are seeking to verify the validity of new voter registrations by saying they must match information for these same individuals in other government databases, such drivers' licenses or Social Security numbers. These demands come against a backdrop of reports saying Democrats have been more successful than Republicans in registering new voters in 2008.

Most notably, in Wisconsin, the Attorney General, a Republican, is pushing his state's election officials to screen registrations with the Social Security database. This past Monday, the Social Security Administration issued a press release asking six states -- Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, Nevada and Ohio -- to "review their procedures" to ensure voters were not mistakenly removed from voter rolls before the November election.

The problem with this name matching standard is two-fold: some government databases, notably Social Security records, are known to have errors -- which could result in legal voter registrations being rejected through no fault of the voter. Second, data-entry errors, such as typos involving people's names, can also lead to rejected voter registrations. Here, too, voters often have little recourse to correct mistakes by public agencies or government contractors who prepare and manage these databases.


Democratic Senators: Franken Won't Be Seated with New Class
Fallout from the surreal political scandal in Illinois has now wafted into Minnesota.
Post by Sam Stein and Ryan Grim. January 6, 2009.
Update: Al Franken Declared Winner; Coleman's Options Dwindle
"Today, the Supreme Court once again affirmed the validity of the rules under which this recount was conducted."
Post by Steve Benen. January 5, 2009.
Franken Winning Vast Majority of Wrongly Rejected Absentee Ballots
Norm Coleman's lawyers tried to stop the counting of hundreds of wrongly rejected absentee ballots and now we know they had good reason.
Post by tremayne. January 3, 2009.
Advertisement
Comments Turn comments off sitewide Give us feedback »
Comments closed.
The comments for this story have been closed. Thank you to everyone who participated.
View:
Everyone can vote in the US
Posted by: Karl.Ben on Oct 8, 2008 6:02 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It is amazing how porous our voting system is. ACORN is signing up the same person 10 times in various states.

We have this BS thanks to the ACLU and ACRON type groups putting pressure on states to not ask questions, just take the persons word for it..

Seems democrats and republicans are intent on keeping this two party system!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

It's Amazing...
Posted by: bobtr900 on Oct 9, 2008 12:08 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...how far the wingers will go to win an election, and it's equally amazing that their right wing religions, mine included, will do the same to corrupt our democratic processes.

They really hate this country, and will not be satisfied until it becomes another China, a totalitarian country ruled by authority and obsessed by Fascist business profits, the golden idol, mammon, the 30 pieces of silver. Until then economic terrorism will rule the day and drive people into submission, after that economic slavery will rule their New World Order. For people whose sole motivations are profits that is the only way they can think. People values mean nothing to them. They worship profits because they think profits come from their god (small g). The manifestation of their fears is their intent to render as many Dem voters as possible, unable to vote. Thus destroying our democracy and it's processes. That is how much they hate America.

In many European countries, if you are born there, you have lifelong voting rights. But the Rethugs are so frightened and find it so difficult to win that they must resort to disenfranchising voters. That is the egregious extent of their fear, and it's manifestation is their always virulent hate mongering. Their small minds, so full of fear, must resort to hate mongering. Their behavior is nothing more than a manifestation of their rampant fears, they are overwhelmed by fear, they are driven and onsessed by fear.

The wingers are hell bent on dismantling America, and our democracy. Though they claim to espouse democracy and are desirous of seeing that democracy is spread throughout the world they, nevertheless, are destroying it, right here in America. Our nation was, once upon a time, considered to be the home of democracy and the most democratic country in the world, but no longer. The Rethugs will turn us into a Fascist Theo-Business nation just as Italy and Germany were before and during WWII.

Rethugs are very fearful people. At one time all Rethugs were business people. Now there are two kinds of them, the business Repubs and the religious Repubs. They have even dragged religion into the abyss, the hell hole, of their thinking. To both business and religious Rethugs the sky is always falling, catastrophe is always imminent, and they are constantly screaming. Chicken Little is alive and well and runs the Rethug party,so they continue their screaming and their hating.

Though it may sound strange to say, possibly the best thing that could happen to America in the long term, is if McCain-Palin and the Rethugs win this election, in the short term. They and Palin's subsequent Veep, most likely Jeb Bush will trash this country. When they do that, the ignorant low-information Rethug voter will finally be in enough pain and agony that they will realize what the Repub party is all about, and only about, which is to take care of the very small number of very rich people who contribute the many millions of dollars necessary to continue to live in the lifestyle to which they are accustomed. While, in the short term many will die, in the long term our nation will finally throw the 'Culture of Death for Profits' Rethugs out of power, quite possibly forever.

At that time, I may have to hold my nose, and vote Republican, because our nation is dependent, for it's survival, on there being two adversarial political parties. Or, America will have to create some few additional political parties, which is really the best way to go. That will prevent the same thing from happening once again where a single political party, Repub, can take over our nation.

America really needs about five political parties. That way no single party can ever get so strong or vile, thus appealing to the worst instincts in the hearts of some, that they can destroy our nation, as the Rethug party of bullies and thugs have done.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]