This makes me want to give up! .........Purge of voter rolls could swing 2008 election

[babsbunny]

http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Purged_voter_rolls_could_swing_2008_0912.html

Jason Rhyne
Published: Wednesday September 12, 2007



Using statistics and methodology that some voting experts are calling "flawed," the Justice Department's Voting Section is telling 10 US states to purge voter rolls which allegedly show more registered voters than are eligible--a house-cleaning effort AlterNet's Steven Rosenfeld says could swing the 2008 election.

"Voting Section Chief John Tanner called for the purges in letters sent this spring under an arcane provision in the National Voter Registration Act, better known as the Motor Voter law, " says Rosenfeld, adding that the letters "notify states that 10 percent or more of their election jurisdictions have problematic voter rolls. It tells states to report 'the subsequent removal from rolls of persons no longer eligible to vote."

[againes654]

1. Great....

just what the hell we need right now.:banghead:

[crikkett]

2. Aha! Just as it was designed to do.

Have courage and smile, my friend, they're fighting dirty because we're in the majority.

[dugggy]

3. What's wrong with honest voter rolls?

I am all for getting rid of ALL fraud in voting,
and that includes electronic machines without a trail,
illegal voters etc etc.

[tkmorris]

4. You really have to get out more

These voter purging efforts have nothing to do with honest elections, and everything to do with removing the eligibility of as many Democrats as possible.

[dugggy]

5. How can they purge legitimate US citizens?

I am a naturalized US citizen and no one could
purge me ...so far...for 37 years after my citizenship.

[kdmorris]

9. Let's take.. for example..

That your name is Steven F. Jones, born on 11/20/1956 (the year is the important part) and you're a black man. You've never done anything in your life wrong. You go to work, you come home, you watch TV, you love your wife and kids, and dog. You're the average hard-working American.

Now, let's say that there's a man on the "felony list". His name is Steven R. Jones, also black and he was also born in 1956 (in Florida in 2000, they didn't even BOTHER to look at the year of birth. I'm being really generous making the year part of the criteria). He's a bad mofo. He started stealing cars when he was 14 and has a rap sheet a mile long. He never votes. He's not even registered to vote because he was told he couldn't because he'd been convicted of a felony.

So, here's how this works. You take EVERY person on the voter registration rolls that has been convicted of a felony. Steven F. Jones is not on that list. Steven R. Jones is so they figure it's the same person.

Here's the real kicker. Steven F. Jones has NO IDEA that he's been thrown off the list until he goes to vote. And there's no remedy once you get to the voting booth. You can fill out a provisional ballot, but once they will likely not count it because it appears that you've been legitimately thrown off the voter registration rolls. There's no communication between the state and the local polling places.

So, Steven F. Jones doesn't get to vote for his favorite candidate. He doesn't get to vote at all.

I would say no one could purge you because your name isn't very similar to a felon's and/or you are white. 80% of the people that were thrown off the list in 2000 were African American and Latino, the population that was most likely to vote for Gore.

[dugggy]

12. Gotcha! I am safe then because my name is from India, and

not many Indian immigrants have committed felony, yet!
Whew!!

[Breeze54]

6. Argh!! They're at it again!!!

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

:grr:

"Voting Section Chief John Tanner called for the purges in letters sent this spring
under an arcane provision in the National Voter Registration Act, better known as the
Motor Voter law.."

What do we know about this guy? :shrug:

[peacetheonlyway]

7. Don't get mad, get even

do like the rest of us, sue the voting machine vendors now!

[Breeze54]

8. Resurrecting Jim Crow: The Erratic Resume of the Voting Section Chief

Resurrecting Jim Crow: The Erratic Resume of the Voting Section Chief

http://www.epluribusmedia.org/features/2007/20070505_resurrecting_jim_crow.html

7 May 2007

When John K. Tanner replaced Joe Rich as section chief of the Justice Department's Voting Section in 2005, a breathtaking politicization -- already under way after Alex Acosta was put in charge of the Civil Rights Division -- accelerated sharply. The exodus of talent, expertise, and knowledge of civil rights law in the two years under Tanner's stewardship is numbing. Roughly 50% of the staff1 -- attorneys, including many of the top litigators, researchers and analysts -- have left, and Tanner has waged an aggressive effort to remake the section in his own image -- not an image that most people who promote the core mission of the Voting Rights Act, which the Section is primarily responsible for enforcing, would support.
Why it matters

Forty years ago, black and white Americans were murdered for trying to stop Jim Crow. Thugs, drunken good old boys and miscreants pulled the trigger, lit the torch, yanked the rope.

Courageous men and women like Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and Viola Liuzzo fought and lost their lives to get rid of the Jim Crow laws that deprived African-Americans of the right to vote.

Eventually, with the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the voting rights of every American citizen were secured.

But Jim Crow, like the Dark Lord in the popular Harry Potter children's books, never completely died. And the resurrection, assisted by the seeding of political appointees and agreeable new hires within the very government institutions designed to protect the civil rights of Americans, is now dangerously close at hand.

Tanner, the new Section Chief, who received his law degree by attending American University night school, cites his early civil rights bona fides in a recent FLA-Law piece "'I would go into the projects and knock on doors and take people to the federal registrars,' explained Tanner, who met King during this time."

Yet according to many insiders, Tanner -- who was born and spent his early years in Alabama, graduating in 1967 from Indian Springs School near Birmingham -- has in just a little over 2 years essentially gutted the ability of the Voting Section to protect the voting rights of these most vulnerable members of our society.

:argh:

[cooolandrew]

10. We just make sure this story gets out. Awareness is ev erything to overcome these people.

[cooolandrew]

11. We just make sure this story gets out. Awareness is everything to overcome these people.