This is outrageous and it is frightening that after various voter purging schemes since 2000, we have become dulled to the impact that these deliberately sloppy "voter roll updating" plans really have.
We are so accustomed to GOP voter suppression that some things can just pass us by.
I am amazed that since Governor Bush and Katherine Harris ran their "sloppy" voter purging in 2000-- dropping voters with last names similar to convicted felons who aren't allowed to vote-- which resulted in over 40,000 voters purged, that we would have been watching them like hawks ever since. But they've got so many voter suppression activities going on that we don't notice the most effective plan--voter purging. Broad brush cleaning out the voter rolls.
In 2010 we didn't have the odd gaps between liberal initiatives and right wing legislators that we did this year, as far as I recall. Just the regular voter suppression here and there like Republican election officials deciding to allocate fewer voting machines in Democratic districts. And the disturbing vote flipping with those pesky electronic voting machines.
But they've been doing this broad brush, "gee golly, just cleaning up the voting rolls" in different formats. This year they used "Interstate Crosscheck"-- sounds innocuous but it is an absolutely absurdly broad brush-- they are eliminating voters with the same name as those who may have Already Voted In Another State !! That means you, James Washington!
The lists are heavily over-weighted with names such as Jackson, Garcia, Patel and Kim, common to minorities who vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Indeed, one in seven African-Americans in those 27 states are listed as suspected of the crime of voting twice, one in eight Asian-Americans, and one in eight Hispanic voters. White voters too, one in eleven, are at risk, though not as vulnerable as minorities.
http://www.gregpalast.com/
Year 2000 -- Purge the list of convicted felons, and no need to double-check.
Year 2014 -- Purge the list of those whose Names Are The Same as those who have registered in other states.
I'm not sure what other purges are offered by the data analysis companies, but they offer different layers of service and you don't have to order the one with the checking-- don't want to spend too much after all.
And even though there was lots of evidence back in the year 2000, that the quick & dirty voter purging had been done-- testimony from those who were purged, and searches of their records-- it was too awful a prospect that our distinguished Grand Old Party could be so underhanded-- we seemed to have swooned and filed it away.
When you expose this stuff it also may buzz that CT button, and we know we're all supposed to dismiss those conspiracies. And we went through all that election fraud stuff before, didn't we? But it isn't a mysterious conspiracy, it is just a relentless thirst for victory at all costs. Election integrity is far less important to them.
We may have Cheating Fatigue, but clearly some state election officials did not. They used the Broad Brush Purge of 2014-- Same Last Names !!
I wish we could rustle up more sustained outrage for these practices that have continued for over a decade. But the perpetrators understand the Dribs and Drabs Method. A few hundred vote flips here. Drop just 1/10 of the list there. Broken voting machines delay things over there. Voter ID fights going on over there. Each one is reported and seems like an isolated problem.
We need an update for 2014. All the election oddities assembled in a documentary. There have been so many isolated stories, of a few different kinds of vote rigging (each with its plausible deniability rationale), that we need to review it all together.
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