Colorado GOP Purging Thousands of Democrats from Voter Rolls

19 October 2008

Colorado GOP Purging thousands of Democrats from Voter Rolls

A searing investigative report by Rolling Stone with Robert Kennedy Jr and Greg Palast show a shocking and systematic purging of voters from the voter rolls in Colorado before this year's election.

According to the report, Colorado has kicked 10 times the average amount of voters from the voter rolls; some 1 in 6 people will not be allowed to vote this time when they show up at the polls.

The republican Secretary of State in Colorado, says Rolling Stone and Palast, "stonewalled every attempt...to get an answer to the massive purge".

Palast reports that more than 2.7 million people's voter registrations have been rejected outright. New rules signed into law by Bush have given "GOP operatives" the ability to "create new barriers to registration, purging legitimate names from voter rolls, challenging voters at the polls and discarding valid ballots," Rolling Stone reports.

Many suspect this faux outrage over ACORN voter registration controversies is a way to keep the media's eye off  of the real voter fraud; to keep a great number of people and especially new registrants, who will vote overwhelmingly for Obama, from voting at all.

According to two years worth of investigations done by former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, there was not one prosecutable case of voter fraud despite over 100 complaints in 2004.

Why is that? Because "individual voters almost never try to cast illegal ballots", Iglesias apparently told Rolling Stone. Actual voter fraud is extremely rare according to mainstream studies and reports about it.

In fact, there is no widespread voter fraud where individuals try to cast a ballot under false pretenses despite the ridiculous claims from the McCain campaign and it's supporters.

From 2002 to 2005, out of the millions of people voting in elections held during that time, there were less than 25 voters found guilty of fraud.

Donna Brazile, Chair of the Voting Rights Institute for the DNC, is quoted by Rolling Stone on the issue of voter suppression:
"The Republicans have a long history of erecting barriers to discourage Americans from voting," says Donna Brazile, chair of the Voting Rights Institute for the Democratic National Committee. "Now they're trying to spook Americans with the ghost of voter fraud. It's very effective — but it's ironic that the only way they maintain power is by using fear to deprive Americans of their constitutional right to vote."



Keeping the process of voting complicated or outright obstructing the process are staples in the playbook of republican tactics, some say.

These tactics include obstructing voter-registration drives, demanding 'perfect matches', purging legitimate voters from the rolls, requiring unnecessary voter id's, rejecting "spoiled" ballots (stray marks or tears on a ballot), and challenging provisional ballots.

Many people are kicked off the voter rolls because of typos made by data entry personnel who make mistakes while transcribing the information into the computer.

Some have a more sinister connotation. For example, before the 2000 election, the now infamous Secretary of State and Republican co-chair of the Bush campaign Katherine Harris, along with her predecessor, purged 57,000 voters from the rolls. Most of those people were African-American because their names simply resembled those convicted of a crime.  

"The state eventually acknowledged that the purges were improper -- two years after the election," reports Rolling Stone.

Since the media, one CNN reporter in particular, started to focus a white-hot spotlight on ACORN, my sometimes cynical nature got the better of me, telling me there has got to be something more sinister going on.

Why else would this group, who has a past with both McCain and Obama, suddenly become this election's "boogie man"?  McCain, by the way, is on tape as the keynote speaker two years ago at a function co-sponsored by ACORN. Woops!

See VIDEO:


ACORN is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of current, valid voters who may be blocked from even casting a ballot because of some hardworking/overworked governmental employee's mistake, or because of a systemic purging of mostly black people whose names are merely "similar" to felons.

I guess Larry J. Johnson (or whoever) better hope he's not blocked from voting because somebody else named Larry K. Johnson is a convict.

The republicans' hands aren't clean by any stretch of the imagination on the issue of voter fraud.

Just today the LATimes reported the owner of a firm hired by the California Republican Party was arrested on Ontario last night on suspicion of voter registration fraud.

He oversaw the registration of dozens of voters who were fraudulently registered as republicans:
Jacoby's arrest by state investigators and the Ontario Police Department comes after dozens of voters said they were duped into registering as Republicans by his firm, Young Political Majors, or YPM. The voters said YPM tricked them by saying they were signing a petition to toughen penalties against child molesters. The firm was paid $7 to $12 for every Californian it registered as a member of the GOP.


Jacoby also fraudulently registered himself as well by claiming to live at a California address at which he no longer resides.

Voters better be ready to stand in line all day long in the rain and cold, and be ready to fight to get their vote on record. Bring an umbrella, a lawn chair, a video camera, a cooler full of ... of.... soda or a thermos of hot coffee and just be ready to make your mark. If you have to stand in line for 3 hours, call up all your friends and make a gathering out of it. Whatever you do, VOTE.

Since people in high places will use every trick in the book to suppress Democratic turnout, Democrats especially should heed the advice above.

Source Material:
http://www.gregpalast.com/rolling-stone-its-already-stolen/#more-2118 - Rolling Stone: It's Already Stolen
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/23638322/block_the_vote - Block the Vote
http://webcastr.com/videos/politics/mccain-acorn.html - McCain Has Ties to ACORN too
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fraud20-2008oct20,0,3842357.story - GOP voter registration fraud case leads to arrest