fox | good question.

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?]

good question.

update