http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/09/11/republican-tricks-aim-to-limit-voting-by-students-poor-people-of-color/by James Parks, Sep 11, 2008
With less than two months to go before voters elect a new president, new members of Congress and many governors, the Republican Party is engaged in an all-out effort to deny the vote to millions of voters who traditionally vote for Democrats.
From Michigan to Mississippi, Republicans are actively working to challenge the votes of people of color, the impoverished and students.
AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker defined the problem, saying:
We have learned painfully that in this third century of our republic, we cannot take our right to vote for granted. We have to defend it. There are people in our political system who think that voting is a privilege reserved for those like themselves, that it is fair and right to confuse and intimidate people into not voting.
The AFL-CIO’s 2008 Voting Rights Protection Program, My Vote, My Right, helps ensure votes cast at the ballot box are properly counted, especially those in communities where the public’s political will repeatedly has been compromised by failings in our election system. Click here to learn more about the My Vote, My Right campaign.
One of the most egregious moves to deny voters their rights is cropping up in the key battleground states of Ohio and Michigan. The Republican Party, whose economic policies helped force hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes through foreclosure, now wants to take away their votes as well. Republican county chairpersons in those states are planning to use lists of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election.
Macomb County (Mich.) Republican Chairman James Carabelli told the Michigan Messenger his army of election challengers “will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses.”
FULL story at link.