Maine Elections Chief Uses GOP List To Intimidate Student Voters. . . .

[ensho]

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/09/29/331788/maine-student-voter-intimidation/


Maine Elections Chief Uses GOP List To Intimidate Student Voters And Encourage Them To Re-Register In Another State


The latest voter suppression tactic employed by Republicans can be found in Maine, where last week the Secretary of State sent a threatening letter to hundreds of college students who were legally registered to vote in Maine, floating the possibility of election law violation and encouraging them to re-register elsewhere.

The letter explained that Maine Secretary of State Charles Summers was writing because he “was presented with a list of 206 University of Maine students with out-of-state home addresses and asked to investigate allegations of election law violations.” That list was provided to him not by an uninterested citizen, but rather the Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster, who has accused these students of voter fraud.

-snip-

For the Maine secretary of state to target hundreds of college students with scare tactics on the behest of the Maine Republican Party chairman is one of the worst forms of voter intimidation. Most citizens would be understandably frightened by such a letter, especially college students who were first-time voters. Though these Maine students were performing their civic duty, the same cannot be said for Summers and Webster.

There’s a word for top elections officials who decide not to help students to vote but rather harass them into un-registering: reprehensible.
--------------------------

the only way repugs/neo cons can win election is by cheating, rigging and lying

they have made it into an art form

[msongs]

1. we used to have a democratic party and DOJ who gave a crap about this kind of thing nt

[Tesha]

2. We used to have a lot of good things... (NT)