Connect dots: Re data on vets & active duty + GOP voter challenges

[havocmom]

Check out Palast on GOP activities to deny voting to the troops, if the troops fit certain demographics...

African-American Voters Scrubbed by Secret GOP Hit List by Greg Palast

Here's how the scheme worked: The RNC mailed these voters letters in envelopes marked, "Do not forward", to be returned to the sender. These letters were mailed to servicemen and women, some stationed overseas, to their US home addresses. The letters then returned to the Bush-Cheney campaign as "undeliverable."

The lists of soldiers of "undeliverable" letters were transmitted from state headquarters, in this case Florida, to the RNC in Washington. The party could then challenge the voters' registration and thereby prevent their absentee ballot being counted.

...

A soldier returning home in time to vote in November 2004 could also be challenged on the basis of the returned envelope. Soldiers challenged would be required to vote by "provisional" ballot.

Over one million provisional ballots cast in the 2004 race were never counted; over half a million absentee ballots were also rejected. The extraordinary rise in the number of rejected ballots was the result of the widespread multi-state voter challenge campaign by the Republican Party. The operation, of which the purge of Black soldiers was a small part, was the first mass challenge to voting America had seen in two decades.

Does that help anyone understand a possible reason someone took that big ol data base home where it was stolen?

Support the troops! Make damned sure Cheney isn't playing fast and loose with their votes.

Didn't Dick just say the GOP would win the midterms election just yesterday? Help your men and women in uniform protect their rights. Get this one out there as a topic of discussion around the water cooler and in the OP/ED pages.

[bluestateguy]

1. I dare some little shit Young Republican to challenge me at the polls

Anyone who does that to me on Election Day will spend Election Night in a hospital ward.

[havocmom]

3. It's gonna happen a lot

Pretty soon the only ones who will get their votes counted will be the ones counting the votes.

[MADem]

2. Single servicemembers beware!

The thing to do is ship out from yer mama's home. That becomes, and remains, your home of record unless you change it. The only time you have issues is if mama moves. Then you need to change your HOR and reregister.

For married service personnel, they just have to keep their HOR where the spouse is staying. Since there aren't any accompanied tours to Iraq (the odd couple active-duty volunteers notwithstanding) that limits the damage to personnel serving in Asia and Europe.

Of course, a lot of kids have no mama, have no permanent home, and are pretty much out there on their own.

It's a shitty, lousy thing the RNC is doing. They should be ashamed of themselves. Perhaps the way to get around this is to change the law so that the DO NOT FORWARD rule does NOT apply to active duty personnel, who show their military ID when they fill out an address forwarding card. That'd screw the bastards!

[havocmom]

4. Sounds like an idea: rule not applicable to active duty

Now, can we get the issue some press and make the case for your suggested solution? It's a good one!

We really need to get people aware of this RNC/Cheney stunt!

[MADem]

10. I'd like to pass it on to my senators, but the link to the original

article isn't working at TO, it goes to http://www.gregpalast.com/massacre-of-the-buffalo-soldiers where I get an error message, and a quick search hasn't turned it up elsewhere thus far. It seems all of gregpalast.com is hard down.

I'm not gonna send them there, given the Leopold mess, but I would like to give them a cite to refer back to.

On edit=I finally got to the original cite, and have contacted one of my two senators...one to go!

2nd edit--Done. We'll see!

[tanyev]

5. It sure would be nice to know the name of the employee

who took the data home. Will we ever find out? If he's ever charged with anything, that is supposed to be public knowledge. At least it was back when we had a democracy.

[havocmom]

20. "...back when we had a democracy"

ain't it the truth.

We get names of people involved in questionable behavior when it serves their purpose. The fact that we have no name to associate with the negliance of losing data on MILLIONS of people who have served/are serving in our military makes one wonder.

Like I said, there's lots of dots

[oneighty]

6. Military personnel

I have read often list their 'State of residence' as being Florida even though they do not live there. Apparently there was/is no requirement to prove residency.

Corrupting the military vote seems to be a failing of all political efforts/parties.

Better residency requirements should be installed and enforced for all voters and further those that vote in two or more jurisdictions and/or states should have to pay a high price-it is fraud.

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[havocmom]

7. Got a link about DEMS challanging military votes in specific districts?

[oneighty]

12. No I do not

A quick Google I did before posting did not help any either.

I spent eight years active duty in the Navy. (Age 17-25) and never voted. Course 17-21 I was not old enough to vote and I spent that period overseas.

Later in the states (Ike was pres) I did not vote either-it never occurred to me. I do remember officers getting a select few to vote.

At the time I lived in South Carolina (stationed there) my home of residence was considered to be New York where I entered the Navy.

I do have first hand knowledge of New Yorkers voting in both Florida and New York-by their own bar room bragging/admission. One high ranking politician in a nearby city lost his job over it a few years ago.

Gotta be a better way to stop voting fraud.

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[havocmom]

13. Re: bar-room bragging about voting in two states...

I'd do one of two things: Take it with a grain of salt (healthy response to most bar-room bragging) OR turn them in.

[oneighty]

15. Indeed

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[robinlynne]

9. I've only heard of one fraudulent voter, named Anne Coulter.

The rest would be election fraud, republican style.

[MADem]

11. TAXES, you see, TAXES

There's no state income tax. NH is popular for that reason as well. And it's entirely LEGAL. You declare your HOR at time of enlistment, but you can change it with a quick trip to disbursing/finance to fill out a short form. All it means is that this is the state to which you declare your desire to be affiliated with, and it is the state to which you intend to return following your service.

I paid taxes to my home state the whole time I was in uniform, and they were damned onerous. I did it because I LIKE the state, and liked being affiliated with it. However, my joy in my old age is that my military retirement is NOT taxed...they take care of us geezers here!

[oneighty]

14. Thank you MADem

That is what I recall reading.

Me too I kept NY as my home during my eight years active duty.

My NY State drivers license was good (Without renewal) as long as I was in the service.

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[Roland99]

8. BASTARDS! One and all!

[ladjf]

16. I , along with most other Americans, don't know the truth behind

the reported loss of 24 million data records. But, as a professional IT person, I can say with a high degree of confidence that there is no reason in the world for a computer worker to bring a file that large home in order to do work. The normal practice is to remotely login to the main secure servers using standard safeguards. If the assignment was report development, the process calls for a small subset of the master file.

In the first place, the VA should have had ironclad security processes in place that would have disallowed the removal of such a confidential set of data.

I am suggesting that the real reason for the data loss has not been given.

[havocmom]

17. Real reason for data loss not given- LOL

Great understatement! And versatile. It applies to just about ANYTHING that has gone on since Nov 2000

[mom cat]

18. Thanks for connecting those dots!

[havocmom]

19. Is it my healthy paranoia kicking in, or is it likely the 'stolen' data

on all those vets and active duty personnel might be used in more of the same sort of voter roll scrubbing for political fun and profit?

What does Dick do with his time when he is tucked away in his undisclosed location?

[raysr]

21. Washington State

"Vote by Mail". The hot set-up imo.