Columbus Dispatch: GOP Challenges (35,427 Ohio) Voters

[farmbo]

http://www.dispatch.com/election/election-local.php?story=dispatch/2004/10/23/20041023-A1-01.html

In yet another sign of how fiercely Ohio will be contested in the Nov. 2 presidential election, Republicans challenged 35,427 newly registered voters yesterday. And both parties named thousands of people to be challengers at the polls.
<snip>
But overburdened elections officials were left wondering how to comply with a state law requiring a hearing on each challenge no later than two days before the election.

Those who have been challenged must receive a letter by first-class mail no later than three days before a hearing to answer the challenge — with a lawyer and witnesses, if they choose.
<snip>

The Repubs harvested the addresses from all newly-registered voters then sent out mailing to all of them. Any mailing which came back undelivered was automatically challenged.

The good news: over 700,000 new voters signed up statewide.

[Radio-Active]

1. my guess is

The Republicans will be doing all the challenging, of each and every voter in Democratic districts. The Democrats will have to play defense.

What kind of challenges are they going to be coming up with?

[farmbo]

2. If the voter doesn't first show up for their "hearing"...they can't vote

Like the poll tax or literacy tests in Alabama in the 60s, the GOP has devised a major hurtle for these 35,000 voters.

[MadAsHell]

6. Oh, and you left out ...

That the state will be MAILING the notices to the address that the repubs used when their mail was returned undeliverable!!!

[Cobalt Violet]

31. GOP need their own country.

Because they don't belong in America.

[AngryOldDem]

28. Ohio GOP is MANDATING poll challengers...

...whether county chairs want (or need) them or not. Earlier this week the GOP County Chairman in Montgomery County (Dayton) said he was not going to follow the directive of the state party as it concerned poll challengers. He said that the county Board of Elections assured him that there would not be widespread voter fraud, and that was good enough for him.

Yesterday, the state chairman overruled the county chairman, so we will have challengers in Montgomery County.

The Dems are looking into their options, but none are apparent. So -- the Dems will have challengers in the polls too, who will watching the Repubs, who will be challenging "suspect" voters, who will most likely reside in the most heavily minority precincts within the city of Dayton, where Kerry support is extremely strong.

The election could literally turn on Montgomery County, not only as it concerns Ohio but as it concerns Kerry's chances nationally. I look for the GOP to nit and pick at voters all day long. The question is for how long will these voters put up with it?

[trogdor]

3. So, if you have lousy handwriting...

...and whoever was addressing the envelopes couldn't read your address, you get challenged, right?

Is there an attorney in Ohio who is willing to take this on as a class-action or something?

[farmbo]

4. Ohio's AG is a Repub...he probably advised the GOP to do the challenges

:grr:

[spotbird]

11. Presumably also if the RNC mailing was sent back refused

the new registrant can't vote without the hearing. I send back or refuse mail from conservatives all the time.

[Amigust]

23. Self deleted

[T Bone]

29. BAD handwriting is a very REAL problem on these everywhere & for us

I have been working on GOTV efforts in my hometown. Bad handwriting and INCOMPLETE addresses is a very REAL problem in this effort as well for us. We are trying to send a card to every new voter telling them EXACTLY where they go to vote. Some of the handwriting was not easily transcribable by the people who entered the originals into a database back in the summer and early fall. Now that we are pouring back over that database to get a card out to everyone we can't always do a proper lookup of the polling place.

It is rather amazing the number of people who like put a street name but no number or mispelled their street name or called their street an AVE when it is a DR or LN or WY. Unless you have worked with it you can't imagine the problems, and I am sure the GOP is planning on utilizing all these very real problems to further obfuscate and confuse and deter voters. We just have to fight it as best as we can, and in the future on new registrations make sure all the collectors of them KNOW the handwriting has to be LEGIBLE and COMPLETE.

If you have not volunteered in some capacity before now in this effort, you really have no point being here and telling us how bad this is. You did nothing to help or head off problems yourselves.

Just my pique to all the posters on DU who have never helped in the REAL effort to win this election.

[roseBudd]

44. I helped to register a lot of young African Americans and

where they stay can be very fluid. Sometimes with a sister, a grandma, a girlfriend or boyfriend.

[SoCalDem]

39. Perhaps all the 700K newly registered people should just show up

on the same day..:evilgrin:..

and invite the media :)

[sam sarrha]

5. so how the hell do you know if they sent your notice to your neighbor.

How do you know you are on the list...??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[hang a left]

7. Good question.

They should be required to publish all the names in the major newspapers in the counties where the voters are being contested.

[farmbo]

12. Catch 22: The board of elections will notfy you of the challenge...by mail

:crazy:

I believe the Dems will try to notify them by phone...and with these numbers I wouldn't be surprised if the paper ran a list.

[Jawja]

8. I'm afraid this is in line

with the GOP plan to steal Ohio. They've been working on this for awhile.

What they are actually challenging is Ohio going to Kerry.

[bemildred]

9. I know, let's "challenge" every Republican in Ohio! nt

[The Magistrate]

22. Sounds Good To Me, Sir!

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[Q]

10. "a hearing on each challenge no later than two days before the election."

- GOPers know this can't be done...given that they're throwing thousands of challenges at poll workers.

- They're intent is to tie up the system and thus make it impossible to vote for many who are legally registered.

[farmbo]

13. They're breeding a whole new generation of GOP haters...

...but they don't care.

Just as long as they hold on to power now, today.

[JPace]

15. "They're breeding a whole new generation of GOP haters..."

You are so right. I remember when they were hunting
Clinton and attacking him daily for his sexual indiscretion
that it gave birth to MoveOn.org. Now look at what MoveOn
is doing with all the t.v. ads and other creative ways
of fight the GOP. Bill Clinton once said that the right
does not realize how much their policies hurt people,
I would ad to that "not until its too late".

[Philostopher]

17. This is going to cause a real problem in the future, for Blackwell.

He's an African American Republican who had expressed some desire to run for governor, on down the road -- but African Americans make up a sufficiently significant portion of the Ohio electorate, and he'd have to draw at least some Democratic votes to make up for the Republican bigots here in Ohio who might refuse to vote for a minority regardless of his party affiliation. There are lots of Republicans in Ohio who'd vote for any Republican ... as long as he was male and white.

Strategically, he's 'screwing the pooch' with the very people he'd need to convince to vote for him if he wanted to win a race for governor.

These moves all are intended to disenfranchise some Democratic voters who might otherwise have been willing to vote for Blackwell for governor -- which is to say African Americans and conservative Dems. I wonder what the Bush* Borg have on Blackwell? I know some African Americans who are aware of this, and they are genuinely annoyed with Blackwell because they perceive it to be an attempt to keep their community from voting (just as I do, but I hesitate to say so because I'm white). He's probably blown any chance he might have had of winning a race for governor with all this dancing around suppressing the vote.

[mom cat]

20. Bet he already has an under the table offer from the re-thugs for

a cushy appointment. They take good care of their evil-doers.

[Philostopher]

21. Originally, when he was al buddy-buddy with Diebold,

I thought the promise was to 'get him the governorship.' At this rate, though, I don't think there'd be much support. Not only is he doing all this vote suppression stuff, he's come out on support of a 'no gay marriage' amendment in Ohio that none of the 'regular old guy' Republicans will support because it specifies that businesses and educational institutions can't offer partner benefits to anybody who's not hetero and married. The old-line elephants in Ohio are scared -- there are several big companies here in Ohio that provide partner benefits to the unmarried hetero and gay partnered community to get the best employees they can get. They may well pack up and head for New York or Illinois, if they don't like the cultural/social atmosphere here anymore. Ohio's lost enough good employers -- guys like Taft and Voinovich know which side their bread is buttered on. Sadly, that piece of crap amendment to the Ohio constitution will probably pass.

[livinbella]

25. If they hold onto power it isn't going to matter

We cannot allow these dirty tricks to stand.
We have the votes to win; do we have the will to win?

[gulfcoastliberal]

14. Fucking thugs

This is going to be worse than 2000 if the repugs have their way with things. I just wonder if we have the spine for a huge prolonged battle. You know the media will be favoring smirk* just as they did in 2000 should things go the recount route. We need massive scale mobilizations should we not have confirmation of a Kerry win by 12-1am 11/3.

[creeksneakers2]

16. I was a skip tracer

A great deal of mail is returned because of post office errors. They'll send mail back if a person's name isn't on the mailbox. Carriers come to believe that a certain name lives at an address, and when somebody new moves in, the carrier falsely believes that the original person still lives there. They send the mail back.

[DemFromMem]

18. Backlash

While this is not thrilling news, the GOP should consider how their actions will affect overall turnout. Republicans with a conscience are not going to like it and it might be one more reason for them to choose to stay home. And this is only going to anger Democrats and Kerry-leaning independents to get out and vote.

[Skittles]

30. LOL, republicans with a conscience

very rare indeed

[DemFromMem]

32. Oops, my bad

Well, there are probably still a few of the true conservatives out there. Remember when being a conservative meant being cautious?

[CTyankee]

41. It's gotten to the point

where there I don't even visit or phone family members I KNOW will vote Repug. This is bad. But they have fallen so low in my judgment that things just can't be the same. My respect for them is gone forever.:cry:

[Justitia]

19. WTF is happening? What next, dead Fed voting officials found buried?

Holy God, we are heading back to the 60's and 20's at warp speed!

This is unbelievable - GOP goons at the polls, speaking openly about their intention to interrupt the process and throw out voters!

What the hell is happening to our country? Did someone overturn the Civil Rights Act, the unconstitutionality of Jim Crow laws, poll taxes and literacy tests, and re institute fear, intimidation and violent disruption?

I am now convinced these GOP goons will go to any and all drastic measures to get between Americans and their votes. They really are the Anti-Democrats and Anti-Democratic Society.

We need the help of everyone we can get to let them know what the GOP goons have planned - the Nat'l Lawyers Guild, the ACLU, hell, the international poll watchers!

Who would have guessed this would happen (again) in 2004 America!

[BlueStateGirl]

24. They are going to do it in Pa too! I just moved to Montgomery County from

Bucks County. Two days after my new voter registration arrived, so did that letter.


The challenges arose from a letter Bennett sent to all voters who registered between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31. The letter, Bennett said, welcomed the new voters "to the process" and invited them to vote Republican




I thought it was odd, but no big deal.

Only thing is Pa doesn't have early voting so ALL those challenges will occur Nov 2nd, causing confusion and long lines at the polls.

Nasty fuckers.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

26. What a great job for Freepers....poll challenger....

Right up their ally..they can be thugs in real life as well as online!

[Roland99]

27. If most of them aren't valid registrations, no big deal

At least provisional ballots will be provided at the polling places.

[Zorra]

33. Challengers should be responsible for any legal costs plus pain and

suffering damages caused to any legally registered voter. Challengers should be sued personally, and any legal voter that is challenged should clean the little nazis out - take everything they have.

"Those who have been challenged must receive a letter by first-class mail no later than three days before a hearing to answer the challenge — with a lawyer and witnesses, if they choose."

If I were a legal voter and were challenged in Ohio, I would take it as a completely unreasonable and unjustifiable public defamation of my character. I would retain an attorney and sue the person that made this completely baseless attack on my honesty, and who deliberately, and maliciously, made a completely unwarranted public assassination of my good name and character. My good name is priceless. Nevertheless, I would be nice and only sue the challenger for ten million dollars.

[quaker bill]

34. This needs national attention

They need to be outed as the nasty anti-democratic scum that they are.

[quaker bill]

35. This needs national attention

They need to be outed as the nasty anti-democratic scum that they are.

[Jane Eyre]

36. Attempted voter suppression in NC too

We had an interesting attempt to suppress the African American vote her in Charlotte these past couple of days. Our county commission currently has a 5-4 Republican majority. One of the Republicans is a real right-wing nutcase.

Several months ago, the board of elections approved keeping the polls open on a Sunday afternoon during the early vote period. Democrats control the Board of Elections, however the five Sunday poll locations selected were equally located in both heavily Republican and heavily Democratic areas. Many of the African American churches had since planned a "Souls to the Polls" day where members would ride church vans to early vote locations after church services. This did not sit well with the right-wing nutcase on the county commission.

At last week's county commission meeting, the right-wing county commissioner placed on the agenda an item to decline the $56,000 in state funds coming in to the county to open up two additional early voting locations on college campuses IF Sunday voting was allowed to go on! This measure passed with all the Republicans voting for it, even those posing as moderates.

What they did not count on was the outrage in the community over this attempt to cancel voting at a time which had been publicized for months and which the African American community had specifically developed a voter turnout program to maximize turnout in their community. The commissioners were forced to back down by the next day, especially when it became apparent that there was no way that they could legally stop Sunday voting even if they decided not to accept state funding. The rightwinger Commissioner has turned out to be our best organizing tool yet (and he is a tool)!

Here is a link to a discussion of the latest developments:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=170x1926

[Lerkfish]

37. any republican who gets in between ME and my right to vote..

better have good health insurance.

:)

[durablend]

38. Screw that...

They'd better have a burial plan set up.

[progressivebydesign]

40. Those MFs are trying to steal the election AGAIN!!! n/t

[SoCalDem]

42. Haven't we known this siince 2K??

That was their test run.. They finetuned it in 2002, and now they are going full speed ahead..

They are starting something very dangerous..

[AmerDem]

43. 700,000 just for Ohio is enormous

I bet at least 65% are Dems, if not more.

[farmbo]

45. Yep...that's our hole card...and it's an ace!

Democratic registrations are estimated by the NYTimes to be 10X those of the Repubs.

[Sinnerman]

46. I heard the percentage is more like 70% Democratic