On August 9-10 , Republican operatives attempted to bully and intimidate our Obama booth volunteers from registering voters at the Asian Festival held in Reston, VA on August 9.  Our booth was located just two booths away from McSame's.  The volunteers were actively asking passersby if they wanted to register.  They did a great job, as I observed many people taking them up on it, and these people, some of them new citizens, some of them newly moved, were very pleased at the opportunity.  But then, Evil reared it's ugly head..... over the fold...

With an uninspiring candidate, an enthusiasm gap and a host of fundamentals against them, obstruction and suppression is really all the Republicans have left.  You can see exactly where they're worried from this story:

As Barack Obama tries to draw hundreds of thousands of new voters to the polls, Republicans are beginning to scrutinize registrants' eligibility as both sides draw a major battle line over voting rights.

Republicans are moving to examine surges in voter registrations in some states. A Republican lawyers group held a national training session on election law over the weekend that included campaign attorneys for Sen. John McCain and other Republican leaders. One session discussed how party operatives can identify and respond to instances of voter fraud.

There are two battlegrounds:

There they go again. With the Dirty Tricks. John McCain promised an honorable campaign. His wife talked about how much he hated negative ads. Just before they started to smear Obama. Even accused him of preferring to lose a war to win an election. Nothing short of treason. Blatant lies about Obama's tax plan. Negative ads even during  the opening ceremonies to the Olympics.

And now they  want to suppress voter registration. McCain is no maverick. He is just the same old kind of Washington politician. Same old Dirty Tricks that got Bush elected. The corrupt lobbyists running McCain's campaign  are scared shitless by the surge of new voter registrations in swing states. They cannot match it, as their base is not excited by McCain.
The WSJ reports that

Republicans are moving to examine surges in voter registrations in some states. A Republican lawyers group held a national training session on election law over the weekend that included campaign attorneys for Sen. John McCain and other Republican leaders. One session discussed how party operatives can identify and respond to instances of voter fraud.

Anyone who still thinks this election will be a matter of polls, attack ads, vice-presidential selections, or whatever, needs to read this:

As Barack Obama tries to draw hundreds of thousands of new voters to the polls, Republicans are beginning to scrutinize registrants' eligibility as both sides draw a major battle line over voting rights...

Republicans said they are particularly worried about prospects for fraud in Virginia and Pennsylvania, and are beginning to comb thousands of new registrations in those states for ineligible applicants. In some cases the huge numbers threaten to swamp their efforts -- and those of state and local governments to verify and process applications.

This is their plan.  They know that, if this election is fair, they will lose.  So they will try to keep as many of "them" from voting as possible.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog Voting Matters

By Nathan Henderson-James

Just yesterday we noted the right way to report on charges of voter fraud and the wrong way to go about it. We explained how the news media had been gamed by people with a partisan interest in the outcome of elections to gin up hysteria to engage in voter intimidation and voter disenfranchisement efforts.

Well, the partisans are back at it in Wisconsin, but this time the press is following the lead of Virginia journalists and scrutinizing the claims rather than simply reprinting the press release.

Here’s the backstory. The community organization ACORN has recently completed a voter registration drive in Milwaukee aimed at historically disenfranchised populations like low-income folks and African-Americans. The drive assisted voters complete some 35,000 cards. So far so good.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns and Nathan Henderson-James

We spend a lot of time in these news updates showing how charges of voter fraud are used to discredit voter participation efforts and prime the pump for voter suppression efforts, such as the passage of voter ID bills, pushing for proof of citizenship, engaging in draconian voter purge efforts, and imposing sever restrictions on voter registration drives. We have also spent a lot of time carefully delineating the politics behind these efforts, starting with our March 2007 report The Politics Of Voter Fraud and continuing on in these diaries to name but two venues.

It takes a lot for Bush's Justice Department to investigate one of its own.  But that's exactly what's happening in Washington, as the politicization of the Civil Rights Division is coming to a head, with Bradley J. Schlozman, perhaps the worst of the worst, right at the front as the target.

In Bristow Virginia, the public housing Executive Director David Baldwin kicked Obama volunteers out, while they participated in a voter registration drive in the area.

http://www.tricities.com/...

A group of Obama campaign workers broke no law when they knocked on doors in a Bristol Virginia housing project last week.

The campaign workers weren’t there to cause trouble. They were registering voters and drumming up support for the Democratic presidential candidate. They got tossed out anyway. Why?

Follow me below for the changing story.

This is a cross post from DU:

http://www.democraticunderground.com...

In sum- he went to vote, but the judges refused to accept an approved form of ID, and refused to read a copy of the state voter ID requirements the voter took with him-----

The Washington Post reported yesterday that GOP operatives in Virginia are raising the spectre of "a very serious and troubling trend" of registration fraud.

In Virginia, as in other states, loads of first-time voters are registering to cast ballots in the fall elections. Through the first six months of this year, 147,000 people, almost half under the age of 25, registered in the commonwealth, a figure that election officials say is unprecedented. As registration drives accelerate, including those run by the Barack Obama campaign and its allies, it's no wonder that Republicans are increasingly anxious about retaining their hold on a state that GOP presidential candidates have carried since 1968. What is surprising is their utterly baseless charge of "coordinated and widespread voter fraud . . . throughout Virginia."

The Republicans have known for some time that their program only appeals to a minority of the voters. So one of their most effective tactics for continuing to squeeze out electoral victories had been to suppress and disenfranchise those voters deemed most likely to vote Democratic in an election. In the past this tactic has focused on racial minorities and the poor. Another demographic that seems to be breaking more reliably against the Republicans in recent years is the young. Can we help counter the Reoublicans' tactics by lowering the voting age by a significant account—say, to 15? And is it reasonable to think that people in that newly enfranchised age group would be mature enough to make responsible decisions when voting?

At a time when organizations across the country are focused on increasing voter registration, the Student Association for Voter Empowerment (SAVE) has worked hard to make sure that when those newly registered voters go to the polls, their votes will count.

Today the movement to protect our votes will take a giant leap forward when SAVE teamed up with Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois and Congresswoman Jan Shakowsky of Illinois and Congressman Steve LaTourette of Ohio present the Student VOTER Bill of 2008.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

Reports and exits polls this entire political season have built a narrative of tremendous, even record-breaking voter participation, pushing us to believe that voter turnout in November will exceed all expectations.

Maybe.

Because it requires your SSN, and identity theft is bad, m'kay?

From WaPo:

"There appears to be a coordinated and widespread effort in Virginia to commit voter fraud," said Frederick, who added the state party is also in possession of affidavit from someone alleging their social security number was fraudulently used to try to register someone else to vote. "These are just two known and documented examples of known voter fraud, and what we believe to be a widespread problem across Virginia."

First, in interest of full disclosure, this was diaried earlier, but didn't receive nearly the attention it should have.  Credit where credit is due.

Onto the story, which is outrageous and requires immediate push-back by all VA-area Dems and the Obama campaign:

[VA GOP Chairman] Frederick is calling on Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) and Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell (R) to launch an investigation. Frederick is also urging residents to avoid giving their names or social security numbers to canvassers seeking to register voters. (emphasis mine)

"Identity theft is widespread problem in Virginia," Frederick said. "Today, I am encouraging voters who have filed out any of these voter registration forms to immediately contact their registrars, and Virginians should exercise caution when approached by a stranger who asks them for their information."

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns and Nathan Henderson-James

Massive voter registration drives, recent passionate immigration debates, and the contested presidential primaries are finally bringing one of the nation's fastest growing populations into the democratic process, despite decades of low voter participation rates and recent voting rights attacks based on anti-immigrant rhetoric. Recognizing their rapidly increasing voting power - which is catching up with their "raw demographic power," particularly in the closely contested states of Florida, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada - both presidential candidates are actively pursuing Latino voters. However, advocates caution a powerful lesson must be learned from voter suppression schemes executed in recent elections in order to ensure this former "sleeping giant" of electoral participation will have access to the polls in November, and most importantly, have their votes counted.

This forthcoming General Election is a bigger battle than many of us realize and we have a hell of a lot of work to do. No more drama about Obama’s "refinements" on policies, please.  Most of what Obama has said about Iraq, for example, has been exaggerated and blown out of proportion by a McCain loving media.  The McCain campaign spouts off a Republican talking point and the media will predictably lead its political news coverage with the very same talking point.  

This election is ours to win but it also ours to lose.  It is time to climb into the trenches and get to work.  The Presidential campaign is only just beginning to get ugly.  

To ensure a strong win and mandate from the American people, the Democratic Party needs a landslide.  Otherwise, the Democratic Party and the American people will have to suffer through at least 4 more years of bitter partisan infighting and sniping.  We will be the losers again.  Nothing new will be accomplished.  Ordinary folks will continue so suffer the consequences of endless oil wars and a wretched economy run by corporate greed mongering pirates and their enablers in Congress. The war in Iraq will not end anytime soon if we have a divided Congress, either.  

After doing some research and general digging concerning the background info on some of the key field operatives and organizations supporting the GOP effort this year, I've come to the conclusion that it's just all so damn UGLY--the more I read the worse it gets--I'm to the point where I don't know where to begin.

Yesterday, I blogged about "2008's Grand Masters Of GOP Dirty Tricks," ( in advance, I ask your forgiveness for any unintended appearance of diary pimping; my sincere goal here is to get some specific realities up on everyone's radar now, in preparation for what lies ahead)  and today I wanted to drill a little deeper on that theme with regard to my concerns about planned and/or potential Republican "caging," voter suppression and any overall, generally racist efforts that we will most likely see supported by those camps in coming weeks and months.

For now, I'd like to focus on the McCain campaign in the always-critical states of Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Specifically, I'd like to zero in on the two or three people that have been put in place by the McCain operation to head those states' efforts for the GE.