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Here, I
use the definition of Swing States by the Swing State Project. Please
select your state of interest to proceed. (If there is no link, that
means there is no content for that state yet).
NEVADA 11/2/04
[Permalink]
Kerry/Edwards supporters'
bus held up for 40 min for no reason at Nevada checkpoint by
anti-Kerry state troopers The
Moderate
Independent reports that:
The bus our reporter
was on, which had a Kerry/Edwards sign on it, was stopped and held
for 40 minutes for no reason whatsoever at a highway checkpoint that
is virtually never open. While the state troopers at the
inspection station were checking the vehicle over, and over, and
over, anti-Kerry comments were made repeatedly to the bus driver.
...
As for whether tonight’s bus caravans of Kerry’s supporters will
be harassed and stopped, Nevada Senator Harry Reid, upon learning
about the situation, has taken action that he says will guarantee it
does not happen again.
11/1/04
[Permalink]
Illegal (felon) and false
voter registrations reported in Nevada Via
Votersunite,
here is a story in the Chicago
Tribune:
Shuttling
frenetically from desk to desk, Clark County election official
Catherine Smith was racking up another 12-hour day during Nevada's
early voting last week as an investigator on the front lines of
registration fraud in this year's presidential election.
This month alone, the elections supervisor found 805 felons who
appeared to be illegal registrants, her second largest catch of
possibly improper voters since 1994 changes in national election
laws.
The discovery of possible illegal and fraudulent registration,
coming on the heels of huge and expensive efforts by both parties to
register voters, augurs a contentious aftermath to the election.
That may be particularly true in swing states like Nevada, where
attorneys for both parties are gathering and suggesting
post-Election Day legal challenges.
Smith's inquiry led to the purging of the felons unless they could
prove, as some did, that their civil rights had been restored in
Nevada or their convictions were from a state with no voting
restrictions on felons.
Make-or-break figures
Her computerized dragnet identified the 805 individuals this month
and 63 more in September, a seemingly small number compared with the
more than 800,000 voters in Clark County, but possibly a
make-or-break figure in this year's presidential race. The margin of
victory in 2000 came down to a few hundred votes, and this year
appears just as close.
Despite Smith's efforts, there may be more felons on the rolls in
Clark County, which includes Las Vegas.
A Chicago Tribune comparison of the county's voter rolls and a state
database of those who have served time in the Nevada prison system
over the past 18 months found 719 more felons who appeared to be
illegally registered to vote.
They include people serving time in prison, those on parole, and
those who have committed violent crimes and sex offenses. Such
people, under state law, are banned from voting.
The analysis demonstrates challenges elections officials across the
country face in identifying and dealing with possible illegal
voters.
In Clark County, registration investigators like Smith struggle to
keep up with the demands of running early elections and processing
an avalanche of new registrations, which have amounted to 274,817
this year alone in the county, a figure that's more than the last
three years combined, officials said.
Every month, Smith uses a list provided by the Las Vegas
Metropolitan Police Department of felons released from prison who
took the initiative to register their status.
But that list doesn't include felons who don't abide by the
requirement to file with police, election officials said.
The Clark County Election Department just doesn't have the staff to
check those names, though it has recently considered plans to obtain
felon lists from the state corrections, parole and probation
departments, according to Smith and her boss, Registrar of Voters
Harvard Lomax.
Officials noted that Nevada recently loosened laws prohibiting some
felons from voting and said some of the 719 felons identified by the
Tribune may now be eligible under those provisions or upon request
by the felon for a reinstatement of voting rights.
Lomax said that for all his office's vigilance in weeding felons
from the rolls, some will slip through the cracks, though such
registrations are illegal.
"Well, with the database of 800,000-something registered
voters, I'm sure we missed some," he said. "With all we
have to deal with, it's not at the top of the priority list."
The No.1 imperative is "making sure that we have an election
where people can go out and vote," he said.
Of the 805 notices Smith mailed to felons, 118 were undeliverable,
she said after counting a 6-inch stack of "return to
sender" letters.
A little more than 200 of the felons responded and demonstrated to
Smith that their voting rights should be restored.
That left just a little under 500 illegally registered felons who
apparently got Smith's cancellation notice and hadn't responded as
of last week.
Possible illegal registrations are one example of how electoral
problems are rapidly emerging in several states. Lomax said his
office this summer intercepted hundreds of other fraudulent
registrations submitted by Democrat, Republican and non-partisan
organizations conducting intensive voter recruitment campaigns.
Lomax said he found that canvassers returned stacks of 1,000
completed registration forms that often contained 30 to 50
applications filled out in the same handwriting. Lomax had no total
figure for such fraudulent registrations.
He also found that canvassers registered the same individuals
several times over the span of a week.
Some legitimately registered voters called to ask why they were
getting registration forms--with their party affiliation changed,
Lomax said. Apparently some canvassers went through the phone book
and reregistered people without their consent, listing their parties
incorrectly, Lomax said.
Paid per registration
Though registration drive organizers told Lomax's office that
canvassers were paid by the hour, many canvassers told his staff and
even provided pay stubs that showed they were paid $2 for every
completed registration form they collected in malls, stores and
neighborhoods, Lomax said.
"They were on both sides. It wasn't just Democrats, it wasn't
just Republicans," Lomax said. "The money was clearly the
root of all evil here. They were paying people to register the
voters. And the people doing this were way down the economic scale,
and they wanted their money and they were just filling in forms.
"This was back in June and July when these people started, and
we got that stopped pretty quickly," he added. "We've
never seen it before, but we certainly saw it this go-round."
One of the registered felons recently identified by elections
supervisor Smith was a 41-year-old Las Vegas trucker who asked that
his name not be printed. Once the truck driver received the notice
his registration was canceled, he told Smith that he had a state
certificate restoring his civil rights.
Smith then reinstated him as a voter, leading him to leave a
thank-you message on her voicemail, which she said she saved.
10/21/04
[Permalink]
Nevada's GOP Secretary of
State rightly declares the Nevada Republican Party's attempt to
"challenge" voters using overly broad definition of law as
wrong Via Dailykos,
we have this report in the Las
Vegas Sun:
CARSON CITY --
Secretary of State Dean Heller has told the Nevada Republican Party
that its interpretation of how election laws may be used to
challenge voters during early voting was wrong.
Heller also said he
was concerned about the possibility that the challenges might be
abused to intimidate voters and prevent them from casting their
ballots.
David O'Mara, state
Election Day coordinator for the GOP,asked Heller for a
clarification of the election laws regarding the challenges.
Heller, also a
Republican, told O'Mara in a letter Friday that his interpretation
of the law was wrong. And, Heller added, "This office is very
concerned about any use of the election statutes in a manner that
could result in the intimidation or discouragement of voters from
going to the polls."
Heller said a
challenge against a voter must be supported by a "good faith
belief" that the person is not eligible to vote. He said a
person is not subject to challenge merely because he or she has
moved within the county, even if the move is across precinct lines.
In those cases, the
voter is permitted to cast a ballot at his former precinct, Heller
said.
O'Mara questioned a
law that says a person applying to vote may be challenged by any
registered voter of the precinct or district. But when it comes to
early voting that started Saturday, the smallest voting area is the
entire county.
10/12/04_2
[Permalink] UPDATED
10/27/04
Vote fraud in Nevada
leads to destruction of Democratic voters' registrations; Republican state judge
refuses to allow re-registration of people whose forms were shredded
by the GOP-funded firm CBS
News in Las Vegas, NV is reporting (via
DailyKos) that a GOP funded private vote registration firm is
involved in destroying new Democratic voter registrations, potentially
by the thousands [bold brown font is
eRiposte emphasis]. It is unclear if this is going to throw Nevada
into the Bush column in November given the very tight race in that
state. Note that it seems
implausible that the organization involved in the registration
shredding - "Voters Outreach of America" - is being referred to
in this report as "AKA America Votes" - since America
Votes appears to be a very different organization that is [either] pro-Democrat
based on the groups that are part of it or non-partisan
and does not list Voter Outreach of America as one of its members.
Indeed - via Lestatdelc
in Dailykos, Max
Blumenthal's article in The American Prospect states that "According
to several sources, two of the contractors Sproul hired to oversee
petition gathering for No Taxpayer Money For Politicians -- Aaron
"A.J." James, who directs Voters' Outreach of America,
and Diane Burns -- were also paid by Sproul to get as many
signatures as possible for Nader." Who's Sproul you ask? A
prominent
Republican from Arizona who is GOP funded. Other information
(below) shows that Voters Outreach of America are funded by the RNC.
George
Knapp, Investigative Reporter
Voter Registrations Possibly Trashed
Employees of a
private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps
thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely
surprised on election day. The company claims hundreds of
registration forms were thrown in the trash.
Anyone who
has recently registered or re-registered to vote outside a mall or
grocery store or even government building may be affected.
The I-Team has
obtained information about an alleged widespread pattern of
potential registration fraud aimed at democrats. Thee focus of
the story is a private registration company called Voters Outreach
of America, AKA America Votes.
The
out-of-state firm has been in Las Vegas for the past few months,
registering voters. It
employed up to 300 part-time workers and collected hundreds of
registrations per day, but former employees of the company say that
Voters Outreach of America only wanted Republican
registrations.
Two former
workers say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and
trash registration forms signed by Democrats.
"We caught her
taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he
ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of
the garbage and she tells her assisatnt to get those from me,"
said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee.
Eric Russell
managed to retrieve a pile of shredded paperwork including signed
voter registration forms, all from Democrats. We took them to the
Clark County Election Department and confirmed that they had not, in
fact, been filed with the county as required by law.
So the people on
those forms who think they will be able to vote on Election Day are
sadly mistaken. We attempted to speak to Voters Outreach but found
that its office has been rented out to someone else.
The landlord
says Voters Outreach was evicted for non-payment of rent. Another
source said the company has now moved on to Oregon where it is once
again registering voters.
It's unknown how many registrations may have been tossed out, but
another ex-employee told Eyewitness News she had the same
suspicions when she worked there.
It's going to take a
while to sort all of this out, but the immediate concern for voters
is to make sure you really are registered.
Call the
Clark County Election Department at 455-VOTE or click
here to see if you are registered.
The company
has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National
Committee. Similar complaints have been received in Reno where
the registrar has asked the FBI to investigate.
A follow-up here
[via Buzzflash]:
A
company called Voters Outreach of America has been operating in
Nevada for the past several months. The company is largely, if not
exclusively, funded by the Republican National Committee. VOA has
hired scores, perhaps hundreds, of temporary workers and has been
paying them to go out and sign up new voters. But the company
doesn't really want just any voters. It only wants Republicans.
Employees
of the company say they were given special training in how to
identify potential GOP voters, and how to avoid signing up any
Democrats. Workers were told that if they signed up as many
Democrats as Republicans, they would not be paid for the hours they
spent in front of shopping malls, grocery stores or government
offices. In a cold, harsh way, this makes sense. Why would the GOP
put out a pile of cash to sign up Democrats? But it goes far beyond
merely giving Democrats the brush-off.
Two
employees of VOA say they personally witnessed the managers of the
company removing and destroying the voter registration forms of
those who signed up as Democrats. The registration forms of
Democrats were ripped into shreds and tossed into the garbage. The
employees managed to retrieve some of the shredded papers from the
garbage and handed them over to this reporter. The forms were
completely filled out and were signed by people who thought their
registrations would be filed with the county Election Department.
That didn't happen.
County
election chief Larry Lomax confirmed that all three of the shredded
registration forms I showed to him had never been filed with the
county. What's more, the people who filled out and signed the forms
were surprised and angry when informed that their registrations had
been sent not to the Election Department, but to a wastepaper basket
instead. In addition to the ripped forms, the employees showed me a
dozen or more registration receipts that had been tossed away,
instead of being handed over to the people who signed the forms.
Without those receipts, the voters would show up at the polls on
Election Day and would have no proof whatsoever that they had ever
registered. They would not be allowed to vote, and it would be too
late to do anything about it.
This
is as low as it gets. We can't say for certain how many Clark County
residents are going to be stripped of their most basic American
right by this scheme, but it could easily number in the hundreds or
thousands. After all, VOA has been up and running for a long time
here and has employed an army of temporary registrars. But Clark
County may not be alone in this.
The
story didn't make much of a ripple in this end of the state, but a
few weeks ago Washoe County Voter Registrar Dan Burk, who is a
Republican by the way, told the Reno Gazette-Journal that he
has asked the FBI to investigate a pattern of voter registration
fraud, a pattern that he alleges is centered on private groups
funded by the Republican National Committee. Burk took this action
after receiving numerous complaints, including one from a potential
voter who says a street-corner registrar advised her to leave blank
the section that specifies a party preference.
Clark
County's Lomax says he has received numerous complaints about VOA
over the past few months, and that he contacted local Republican
leaders to find out what was going on. Lomax says he was assured the
registration drive in question was being directed by the National
GOP, not by the locals.
Josh
Marshall also points out that:
And here's a careerbuilder.com listing
for the same company looking for door-to-door canvassers. Paid for
by the GOP. And here it seems that the same
outfit was doing work for Nader in Arizona.
Chigagoprogressive
at Dailykos reports this:
I just got off the
phone with the General manager of the firm in Vegas that was hired
to outsource for Voter's Outreach, Inc by the RNC. Telephone number
called was: 702-307-1320. The gentleman told me that they were hired
by the GOP to "man" people for Voters Outreach, Inc. He is
very upset about what happened. He also advised me that ALL OF
THE REGISTRATIONS WERE TURNED OVER TO THE GOP. He gave me a
number to contact "Voters Outreach Inc" in Arizona. He
said it is a cell phone. Here is the number he provided:
623-205-9169
He also confirmed this
advertisement that was placed on Career Builder:
SomeoneFound this on
Career Builder:
DESCRIPTION
$8.50/hr part-time,
$10.00/hr full-time
Canvassing Neighborhoods in Support of the GOP!
Voter's Outreach of America is hiring door-to-door canvassers asking
people to register to vote. Must be at least 18 yrs of age, no
felonies, registered to vote and have own transportation. Need good
communication skills and professional appearance. Hours are 4pm to
8pm Monday-Friday and 8am to noon Saturday.
Call toll free
702-307-1320 for more information.
Paid for by the
Republican National Committee. www.gop.com. Not authorized by
any candidate or candidate's committee.
Source - Reno Gazette
Journal - Reno, NV
UPDATE 10/15/04
Josh Marshall also
points out:
Nathan
Sproul, it
seems, is also a regional
president of Voyager
Expanded Learning Company, a company chock-full of Bush cronies
currently supping
at the No Child Left Behind act gravy-train. Also at Voyager is Jim
Nelson, President Bush's education commissioner during his tenure
in Texas. That was before the president appointed him as deputy
education czar in Baghdad for a brief stint in 2003. This thread
at Kos seems to provide a complete Sproularama.
UPDATE 10/18/04
Via Chigagoprogressive
at Dailykos there's this
distressing report:
A state judge refused Friday to
reopen registration for Clark County residents whose voter
applications might have been destroyed by a Republican-funded group.
Clark County District Court Judge
Valerie Adair said she was presented with evidence of just two
voters who might have been disenfranchised by having their
registration forms ripped up, and said that did not justify
reopening the registration process.
"While this court believes that
each individual's vote is important and must be protected ... the
court finds the requested relief is not warranted," she said.
Nevada Democratic Party spokesman Jon
Summers said the party was considering its options on the lawsuit it
originally filed Wednesday seeking to extend the registration
deadline. Registration for the general election closed Tuesday.
The judge had said she was concerned
about opening "floodgates" to manipulation of the voter
rolls on the eve of early voting for the Nov. 2 election. The state
allows voters to cast early ballots for 14 days beginning Saturday.
Lawyers for the state Democratic
party and county had said they thought the number of voters affected
might be in the dozens.
The judge said any voter who thinks
they were wrongly denied the opportunity to vote can file a lawsuit.
She noted that registration forms also contain a disclaimer advising
registrants to submit their completed applications in person or by
mail, or run the risk of not being registered if another person
doesn't turn in the form properly.
...
Nevada state law requires anyone registering voters to accept and
submit forms regardless of a voter's party affiliation.
The lawsuit, alleging voter
intimidation and fraud, sought to reopen registration in Clark
County, where nearly 700,000 of the record 1.1 million registered
voters have signed up to vote.
Here's a CBS
report via
Jim in Chicago at Dailykos about the judge:
On Friday, Judge
Valerie Adair instructed the lawyers for the Clark County Election
Department and the State Democratic Party to huddle together and
bang out a compromise about whether voter registration could be
opened up for a few hours to provide for those citizens who may have
been disenfranchised by the alleged destruction of registration
forms by a republican backed private company.
The judge told
both sides to return at 4:30 p.m., at which time she might or might
not rule. The deal worked out called for a three-hour window on
Monday during which some voters could sign up again. But when the
court reconvened Friday afternoon, there was no discussion of
the plan.
The court informed
both sides that there would be no comment at all, that the judge
would read a statement. In her ruling, she turned down the request
to reopen registration and said individual voters could file their
own actions if they choose.
Democratic attorney
Paul Larsen said in his 15 years of practice he's never had a judge
ask for a deal and then tell him to keep quiet when he showed up to
present it. The lack of input from the two sides caused some to
question the judge's motives.
Sen. Dina Titus, (D)
Clark County, said, "You never want to question a judge's
ruling, but certainly in this case, which is so partisan and
political to start with, you'd think she would have the common sense
to disclose her partisan connection."
What is Adair's
partisan connection? She's listed online as an active member in the
National Federal of Republican Women. County records show she also
owns a home with Tom Lozzi, who is listed on the website of the
Clark County Republican Party as an officer in that group.
Lozzi is also related
by marriage to Republican Senator John Ensign. Lozzi told the
I-Team by phone that he had no idea the GOP website lists
him as an officer because he is not active with the party, although
he was a few years ago.
Judge Adair cannot
comment, but a court spokesman says that she expected the
lawyers in the case to submit the proposed compromise to her before
the 4:30 hearing so she could review it.
Lawyer Paul Larsen
says that's not the way he heard it, and even if so, he wonders why
the judge didn't at least question the parties when they sat before
her.
Dina Titus said,
"That sounds like revisionist history. I think she decided she
didn't want to hear the arguments; she had made up her mind and
issued her opinion. She told them to work it out. Why in the world
didn't she ask them, do you have a compromise? Both sides would have
been willing to tell her, but they never had the opportunity."
The bottom line is
that the questions are more than mere political sniping. They could
provide yet another basis for post election challenges -- in court.
Mary Ann Miller of
the D.A.'s office, who represents the election department, told the
I-Team late Monday that she also thought the two sides were
supposed to hand something into the judge before the 4:30 hearing,
but she is unsure why the judge chose to ask no questions once the
hearing began.
Another
update via Hesiod
(bold text is my emphasis):
Voter
registration fraud has plagued Clark County since spring, but Lomax
said early in the process it was money-driven. Some voter
registration outfits were paying canvassers $3 per form submitted,
not by the hour.
But
former Voter's Outreach of America employee Eric Russell told KLAS-TV,
Channel 8 a different story earlier this week. Russell said the
Republican-backed organization paid only for Republican forms and
tore up any Democratic registration forms.
"I
have proof. I have a witness. It happened," said Russell, who
was disappointed in Adair's ruling.
Two
other former employees, Tyrone Mrasak and Ashlee Tims, have told
similar stories about their experiences working for Voter's
Outreach.
Chris
Carr, executive director of the state Republican Party, said
organizations tied to the Democrats are not innocent of political
tricks against the GOP. On Friday, he presented three registration
forms submitted by Moving America Forward that listed addresses that
do not exist or are empty lots. Moving America Forward is a
Democratic group linked to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
"The
Democrats have used selective outrage," Carr said. "This
is nothing more than a thinly veiled, politically motivated effort
to draw media attention away from the real issues just days prior to
early voting."
Carr
called a recent Channel 8 report that two Republican Party
registration supervisors instructed a female employee to destroy
Democratic forms "outrageous."
The
woman who launched the allegations, Patricia Parker, was a Democrat
who eventually switched parties, Carr said. The employees Parker
accused of destroying Democratic forms work at party headquarters
and are experienced and professional, he said. Parker could not be
reached for comment.
Republicans
outraged by the accusations said some party workers believe
Democratic operatives are volunteering in their office under the
guise of being Republicans and then using their employee status to
add credibility to their unfounded claims.
When
asked if he suspected the same, Carr responded: "Absolutely.
That's going to cross your mind."
The
controversy surrounding the validity of the Democrats' recent claims
have reached Washington D.C., where representatives of both parties
are accusing each other of trying to steal the heated presidential
election.
During
a rally Friday morning at the West Las Vegas Library, U.S. Senate
candidate Barack Obama of Illinois, who rose to political stardom
with his rousing speech during the Democratic National Convention,
expressed concerns about trickery.
"We
get bamboozled sometimes, but not this time," he said.
Clark
County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates, who is also chairwoman of
the Democratic National Committee's Black Caucus, told the crowd of
about 300 that Republicans have twice tried to pull
"shenanigans."
She
referenced the attempt to remove 17,000 Democratic voters from the
rolls by a Republican and the recent allegations of Republican
operatives destroying Democratic voter registration forms.
"They
stole the election four years ago in Florida, and we're not going to
tolerate it Nov. 2," Atkinson Gates said.
UPDATE 10/27/04
More on Mlasek (via CAP,
a report
in the Los Angeles Times):
Broke, disabled and
living at the Daisy Motel in downtown Las Vegas, Tyrone Mrasek Sr.
took a temporary job late this summer registering voters here.
The employer primarily wanted President Bush supporters, but they were
not easy to find. So Mrasek handed out cigarettes to drunks and
ex-felons at a homeless shelter in exchange for signatures. Later he
found a stack of signed registrations for Democratic voters in a trash
can outside the company's office, he recalled.
...
Mrasek, who is
disabled with emphysema, said he and his son spotted a newspaper ad
for the Sproul group. The younger Mrasek, who also is disabled and
lives with his father at the Daisy Motel, bowed out when he learned
the emphasis was to register GOP voters.
His father took the Sproul job, which paid about $8 an hour and
allowed workers to go home early with full pay on days they managed to
register 18 Republicans.
Mrasek said he was given a written script to ask people whether they
favored Bush or Sen. John F. Kerry. To those favoring the
Massachusetts senator, Mrasek replied that he was just taking a poll
and thanked them for stopping.
But for those who liked Bush, Mrasek offered to register them.
"George Bush really needs your help this election," he said
he was told to say.
In predominantly Democratic Las Vegas, however, Mrasek had a hard time
finding unregistered Republicans, he said. One day, he registered
himself and his son as Republicans to meet his quota, though he
opposes Bush's Iraq policies and plans to vote for Kerry.
Eric Russell, another temporary employee for the project, also alleged
that he saw Democratic Party registrations thrown in the trash. With
legal assistance from the Democratic Party, he went to court and
tried, unsuccessfully, to reopen registration.
Russell, a Republican who now plans to vote for Kerry, also gave
authorities a copy of the written sales pitch, which said, in part,
"Use your training to find likely Republicans."
CAP
has more on Sproul:
LEAVE NO
REPUBLICAN OPERATIVE BEHIND:
Nathan Sproul doesn't just collect money from the RNC for running
voter registration scams. As a director for Voyager
Expanded Learning, he receives buckets of cash for selling the
"Voyager reading curriculum" to schools attempting
to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act.
SPROUL'S COMPANY
USES CONNECTION TO BUSH TO GET CONTRACTS:
The Public Advocate of the City of New York accused Voyager of using
"politics to gain contracts," including close
ties to Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The
Public Advocate notes, "as Texas Governor, George W. Bush
pushed a proposal giving $25 million in state money to after school
programs that would aid Voyager, which had contributed more than
$45,000 to Bush and over $20,000 to Bush's lieutenant governor
running mate."
SPROUL'S COMPANY
MANIPULATES RESEARCH TO PUSH PRODUCT:
There is controversy on the effectiveness of the Voyager reading
curriculum. Most of the research that does exist has been conducted
by people with "connections
to, or financial interest in, the company." The research is
described by university scholars who specialize in reading
curriculum as "flimsy and unscientific."
ED DEPARTMENT
PRESSURES SCHOOLS TO HIRE SPROUL'S COMPANY:
Many education experts believe "the research used to justify
Voyager's claims to success were unscientific and produced very
little results." Nevertheless "the U.S Education
Department led applicants for federal reading funds to believe that approval
of their application would be speeded up if they indicated a
preference for particular commercial programs, including
Voyager."
10/12/04_1 [Permalink]
UPDATED 10/15/04
Nevada GOP operative and
former director of the Nevada GOP attempts to get about 17000 Democrats off the rolls in Nevada
- but election officials rebuff his attempt
From the Nevada
Democratic Party:
Dan Burdish, a
Republican operative and former director of the Nevada Republican
Party, told the Las Vegas Review Journal, “I'm looking to take
Democrats off the voter rolls,” adding that his “motives were
purely political”. [Las Vegas Review Journal, 10/10/04]
Late Friday afternoon Burdish filed tens of thousands of documents
calling on the Clark County Registrar of Voters and the District
Attorney to toss out the rights of 17,000 Clark County voters because
they have changed addresses. In Nevada, citizens can still vote, even
if they have moved to another part of the city.
During an interview on KCEP-FM on Saturday, Bush Campaign spokeswoman
Tracey Schmitt denied Burdish’s activities took place,
“Republicans are doing nothing of the sort.” Schmitt added,
“Republicans have done nothing but encourage everyone to vote.”
During the interview, Schmitt maintained, “Nothing is more important
to President Bush and nothing is more important to the Republican
Party than making sure everyone, every single person has their God
given right to get out there on Election Day…”
Now that it has become public that Ms. Schmitt’s comments on the
radio were false, the Nevada State Democratic Party is calling on her
to stand by her statement of making sure “every single person has
their God given right to get out there on Election Day”. If Ms.
Schmitt was being honest when she said that “nothing is more
important to President Bush”, it is incumbent on her to make the
Bush administration and campaign aware that this voter suppression
tactic is taking place in Nevada and call for an end to this type of
voter intimidation immediately. Anything short of that will expose her
comments on behalf of the campaign as disingenuous at best.
UPDATE 10/15/04:
AP reports
that:
Elections officials
have rebuffed an attempt by a former GOP operative to purge about
17,000 Democrats from the voter rolls in the battleground state of
Nevada, where the two presidential candidates are in a dead heat.
Larry Lomax, the
Clark County registrar of voters, rejected the challenge filed by
former state Republican Party Chair Dan Burdish last week that
claimed the Democrats should be removed from the rolls because they
were inactive voters.
Lomax said Burdish
could only challenge voters in his precinct, and then only if he has
personal knowledge that they are inactive.
"I don't think
pulling names off a database equates to personal knowledge,"
Lomax said.
Under state law,
voters are placed on "inactive status" if they move and
don't update their addresses within 30 days of receiving notice to
do so. Their registrations are then canceled if they don't vote in
two consecutive federal elections.
Democrats have
criticized Burdish for trying to influence the hotly contested
congressional race between Republican Rep. Jon Porter and his
Democratic challenger, former casino executive Tom Gallagher, in the
3rd District.
But Burdish denied
trying to disenfranchise people, saying he only wants to prevent
people from voting "in a local district they are not allowed to
vote in."
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