Thursday, October 23, 2008

Block the vote

From Rolling Stone:
On February 5th, the day of the Super Tuesday caucus, a school-bus driver named Paul Maez arrived at his local polling station to cast his ballot. To his surprise, Maez found that his name had vanished from the list of registered voters, thanks to a statewide effort to deter fraudulent voting. For Maez, the shock was especially acute: He is the supervisor of elections in Las Vegas [NM].
From our friends at TPM:
A judge weighing whether to close down early voting sites in Lake County's Democratic strongholds questioned local officials about the absentee voting process during visits to the disputed sites.

Lake County Superior Court Judge Diane Kavadias-Schneider toured the Gary, Hammond and East Chicago satellite voting sites Monday and heard hours of testimony and arguments on whether they are legal and fair.

...

When Kavadias-Schneider asked, "What of those who have already voted?" R. Lawrence Steele, a GOP lawyer, replied, "Maybe those votes should be discarded."
So much for democracy.

Your editor will be putting his legal training and license to practice to good use. He's heading for the Sunshine State next week to help keep the bad guys from stealing the election. You can help, too. Many states can use poll watchers or people on phone banks to help voters--even if they are not an attorneys. Or just work for the candidate of your choice on the street or on the phone. If the margins are large enough, they won't be able to steal the vote.

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