Thursday, September 30, 2004
Ohio
Everyone is obsessed with Ohio this year and for good reason. No Republican has ever reached the White House without winning it and only two Democrats, FDR and Kennedy, have done so in the last century. Ohio being such a key swing state has attracted throngs of volunteers who have devoted much of their Summer to getting out the vote. Republicans are running scared now because it seems that Democrats have managed to register over 90,000 new voters (a nearly 10 to 1 margin over Republican efforts). The race in 2000 was so close that it appears that these new voters will, in all probability, swing the election to Kerry.
What is the Republican response? Well, the Republican Secretary of State, J. Kenneth Blackwell, has sent a memo to local election officials advising them to strictly enforce the 10 year old rule, enacted while the current Republican governor Bob Taft was Secretary of State for Ohio, that all voter registration forms be on thick 80# white paper. According to the Secretary of State's office this rule was enacted to prevent mail sorting equipment from shredding or otherwise damaging thin paper forms. The Secretary's instructions to election officials are to send the proper form back to any voter who has used the wrong form. The deadline to register in this November's election is this coming Monday and election offices are still swamped with a deluge of voter registrations.
So this is what it has come to. A rule designed to minimize the accidental disenfranchisement of citizens is being used by the Republican party to purposely disenfranchise voters. As someone who has spent a great deal of time canvassing door to door and helping voters register to vote over the last month in Oregon I take this kind of thing very personally. Just the fact that such a thing is being attempted is anti-American, anti-democratic and sleazy as hell. This attempted theft of an election should be front page news, not just in Ohio but all over the country. Due to angry calls and letters from across the country Blackwell seems to be backing down, but enough damage may already have been done to effect the election results. There remains a great deal of confusion over the matter and clearly Blackwell's spokesman Carlo LoParo hasn't helped clarify things very well.
But LoParo disputed suggestions that Blackwell was reversing his Sept. 7 directive, which states that "any Ohio form not printed on this minimum paperweight is considered to be an application for a registration form. Your board should mail this appropriate form to the person listed on the application."
Are we really expected to believe that thugs like this really invaded Iraq to bring about the dream of a true functioning democracy in the middle east? Give me a break.
Everyone is obsessed with Ohio this year and for good reason. No Republican has ever reached the White House without winning it and only two Democrats, FDR and Kennedy, have done so in the last century. Ohio being such a key swing state has attracted throngs of volunteers who have devoted much of their Summer to getting out the vote. Republicans are running scared now because it seems that Democrats have managed to register over 90,000 new voters (a nearly 10 to 1 margin over Republican efforts). The race in 2000 was so close that it appears that these new voters will, in all probability, swing the election to Kerry.
What is the Republican response? Well, the Republican Secretary of State, J. Kenneth Blackwell, has sent a memo to local election officials advising them to strictly enforce the 10 year old rule, enacted while the current Republican governor Bob Taft was Secretary of State for Ohio, that all voter registration forms be on thick 80# white paper. According to the Secretary of State's office this rule was enacted to prevent mail sorting equipment from shredding or otherwise damaging thin paper forms. The Secretary's instructions to election officials are to send the proper form back to any voter who has used the wrong form. The deadline to register in this November's election is this coming Monday and election offices are still swamped with a deluge of voter registrations.
So this is what it has come to. A rule designed to minimize the accidental disenfranchisement of citizens is being used by the Republican party to purposely disenfranchise voters. As someone who has spent a great deal of time canvassing door to door and helping voters register to vote over the last month in Oregon I take this kind of thing very personally. Just the fact that such a thing is being attempted is anti-American, anti-democratic and sleazy as hell. This attempted theft of an election should be front page news, not just in Ohio but all over the country. Due to angry calls and letters from across the country Blackwell seems to be backing down, but enough damage may already have been done to effect the election results. There remains a great deal of confusion over the matter and clearly Blackwell's spokesman Carlo LoParo hasn't helped clarify things very well.
But LoParo disputed suggestions that Blackwell was reversing his Sept. 7 directive, which states that "any Ohio form not printed on this minimum paperweight is considered to be an application for a registration form. Your board should mail this appropriate form to the person listed on the application."
Are we really expected to believe that thugs like this really invaded Iraq to bring about the dream of a true functioning democracy in the middle east? Give me a break.
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