good question.

[fox]

my brother says: "I can't help wondering how it feels to be in a party whose ground operation is centered on keeping people from voting. Wouldn't that feel wrong, somehow?"

what he's talking about:

all newly-registered voters in lake county, ohio received a letter not from the board of elections saying, substantially, that a large number of people had been invalidly registered by the kerry campaign, or by moveon.org, or by americans coming together, and that anyone registered wrong who attempts to vote will be breaking the law. good language to use to scare off poorer or minority-group or inner-city voters.

the rule in ohio had been that each party could register one challenger per polling place. the democrats did this; the republicans, in many districts, registered one challenger per precinct, i.e. several challengers per polling place. the deadline having passed, the (republican) secretary of state decided the one-per-precinct limit would stand -- but of course it was too late for the democrats to register more challengers. a judge told blackwell this was "unlawful, arbitrary, unreasonable, and unconscionable", and ordered him to revert to the previous rule or be held in contempt of court (for all the good that would do).

it seems that the rule has been set back to one challenger per polling place; but if nine republican challengers arrive at a polling place with nine precincts in it, who will send eight of them away? election officials will have the first go at this, but if the challengers won't leave, the police will be called. a clever little plan: send along multiple challengers who happen to be minorities. that way, voters who are already in doubt as to the validity of their registration may arrive to see minorities being hauled away by the cops. niiice.

to say nothing of the "ballot security" people planning to harass voters on their way in to the polling place, posing as election workers (without actually identifying themselves as such, so no, they're not actively impersonating anyone) and telling people they may not be registered, may be breaking the law, etc., and past whom voters will have to be led, as if they were scared young women on their way into an abortion clinic, with assurances that they don't have to listen to them if they don't want.

this is not to suggest that there is one side that's squeaky-clean and one that's up to its ears in filth. no matter who wins, the losing side is going to be utterly convinced it's because the winners cheated. that's not the issue here. the issue is, the republicans are actively trying to prevent citizens from voting.

in what way is this okay?!

republican readers are invited to respond.

[eta: responses so far:

(1) the letter is valid (i don't agree, but there's not going to be a lot of mind-changing on that one);
(2) source it (which i have done);
(3) that's conjecture (it's apparently among the plans, in the toledo area);
(4) scare tactics! bah!
with a running motif of well, there have been cases of early republican voters being intimidated, too, so it's coming from both sides.

none of which actually answers the question: in what way is this okay? i say it's not okay coming from either side, but that it's coming faster and harder from the right than from the left. is the other position that it is okay as long as everybody's doing it?]

Comments

part 1

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

2. Please source this one as I wasn't aware of it.

http://www.cleveland.com/election/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/isvot/109922589190290.xml (http://www.cleveland.com/election/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/isvot/109922589190290.xml)

A Cuyahoga County judge gave Secretary of State Ken Blackwell until 8 p.m. today to reverse himself and notify all 88 boards of elections in Ohio that no more than one challenger per party will be allowed at polling places Tuesday.

Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell scolded Blackwell for issuing a directive last Tuesday that would have allowed many partisan challengers at polling places - two for every precinct, creating a gantlet of observers that might intimidate new voters, civil- rights attorneys argued Saturday.

O'Donnell's ruling injected more confusion into the issue of how many challengers, if any, would be allowed at polling places. While the issue was being debated in Cleveland, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati will hold a hearing tonight on whether Blackwell can ban all challengers from polling places.

Blackwell on Friday sought to prevent political party activists from challenging Ohio voters at polling places, but Republican Attorney General Jim Petro refused to represent Blackwell on this matter.

On Saturday, the Cincinnati court said the U.S. Justice Department had submitted a letter in the case saying that it had no conflict with Republican plans to post thousand of poll challengers.

Saturday's Cuyahoga County hearing focused on the number of challengers that could potentially show up at each polling location. Most polling places, like schools and churches, serve voters from multiple precincts. At a voting site in Cleveland, for instance, there could have been 30 or more partisan challengers hovering around voters and slowing the process, attorney Sarah Moore argued during a nearly five-hour hearing.

She was joined by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and others in filing the suit.

O'Donnell said he overruled Blackwell because Blackwell's directive was unlawful, arbitrary, unreasonable and unconscionable, coming four days after the deadline for partisan challengers to register with their county boards of elections.

Republicans in Cuyahoga County had registered a challenger for each precinct. The Democratic Party had registered one per polling place, based on repeated telephone conferences with the secretary of state's office.

"We were told we could register just one per polling place," Democratic Party attorney Donna Taylor-Kolis testified.

Blackwell "flip-flopped" on the issue, O'Donnell said, by first advising election boards to limit challengers to one per party per building, then, after the Oct. 22 registration deadline, changing his mind.

The attorney general's office sent attorney Jeffrey Hastings to represent Blackwell at the hearing. Hastings said it was within Blackwell's right, as the state's top official over election procedures, to change his mind.

O'Donnell said Blackwell lost that right when he "abused his discretion" and "got us into this mess" so close to Tuesday's elections.

O'Donnell, a Democrat and judge since 2002, in May lost his bid for re-election when Democratic challenger Eileen T. Gallagher won the Democratic primary.

Attorneys representing one of the registered Republican challengers - a Cleveland Heights resident who was to observe voting in Bay Village - said one challenger per polling place will slow voting because a challenger can view only one polling book at a time.

Voters are usually split up by precinct at a polling place, reporting to whichever table holds the book of registered voters' addresses and signatures in their precinct. "Having a challenger at each polling book would be more efficient," attorney Mitchell Blair argued on behalf of Republican challenger Charles Drake.

Drake said the Republican Party would train him today how to be a challenger.

Judge O'Donnell said Blackwell, a Republican, appears to have been "playing political games."

Wondering aloud if Blackwell might ignore his order, O'Donnell said he would find Blackwell in contempt of court. He mused that the contempt charge "might make Blackwell a folk hero in Appalachia.