Well, They Have a Plan

[Guest MikeSC]

Kerry/Edwards are planning to charge voter intimidation should they lose --- EVEN IF IT DOES NOT ACTUALLY HAPPEN. Yup, gotta love the charge by the Dems that Bush is the one dividing the country.

 

-=Mike

[Slayer 0]

Hey, that looks like the same font as the Bush National Guard "memo"

[Guest MikeSC]

Hey, that looks like the same font as the Bush National Guard "memo"

I'd hope so. Times Roman is a common font for word processors today.

-=Mike

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Might as well beat the commies at this place to the punch.

 

OMG IT'S FROM DRUDGE!

 

There, now 1/2 the people at this place don't need to respond...

[Guest MikeSC]

From the NY Post:

Marc Elias, the general counsel for the Kerry team, has said the campaign intends to be able to "fight five statewide recounts and still have funds available to the campaign." The New York Law Journal reports that the local Lawyers Committee for the Kerry Campaign has raised $2 million to support recount efforts.

 

The legal talent won't be needed in New York, of course, but that's what rent-a-jets are for. Democrats have already launched lawsuits in Florida, New Mexico and Ohio and the Kerry camp has set up its own nationwide legal network, in lieu of the usual local Democratic Lawyers Associations.

 

"It's a case of Florida gone national," says University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato, "They're ready, and I take that as a threat, not a promise."

 

The lawsuits may materialize even in the wake of a decisive Bush victory: Democrats have learned that hinting darkly about the "illegitimacy" of a Republican president keeps their partisan fervor on the boil between elections.

 

Indeed, that effort is already under way. Later this month, a federal judge will hear a case brought by Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), who wants Florida to require a paper record of electronic votes. And on Tuesday the AFL-CIO and other unions sued Florida over alleged "disenfranchisement" of new voters. The suit claims the state has failed to process new registrations (there are unprecedented numbers) in a timely manner, with a disparate impact on minority groups.

 

In New Mexico, Democrats already won one lawsuit, which argued voters shouldn't have to show ID at the polling place because that would have disproportionately affected minority voters. (The suggestion that minority voters can't be trusted to bring their drivers license will strike some as a condescending insult, but never mind.) Meanwhile, the (Democratic) secretary of State bleated that the Bush administration's terrorism warnings are contrived to scare people away from the polls.

 

You can't make this stuff up. Former Clinton Assistant Counsel Jeff Connaughton says the Republicans are engaged in vote suppression because "when a lot of people vote, Democrats win." In short, the argument is: Any time a Democrat doesn't the win the presidency, it's a miscarriage of democracy. That's a good line to fire up the base, and rationalize defeat to boot.

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/20181.htm

OMG IT'S FROM DRUDGE!

 

There, now 1/2 the people at this place don't need to respond...

Maybe so --- but notice that nobody has actually questioned the authenticity of the ABC memo he leaked?

-=Mike

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Great way to silence the boo birds, Mike, quote the N.Y. Post.

 

All this doesn't matter anyway because I'm not voting at all since Cheney's kid is a lesbo...

[Guest MikeSC]

Great way to silence the boo birds, Mike, quote the N.Y. Post.

 

All this doesn't matter anyway because I'm not voting at all since Cheney's kid is a lesbo...

She is?

 

Man, you'd think the Dems would make an issue of that...

-=Mike

[2GOLD 0]

I am now sure this election will end in 2005, after both sides demand EVERY state be recounted for missing votes.

 

There is no longer a question in my mind. Neither side will be a gracious loser.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Man, you'd think the Dems would make an issue of that...

-=Mike

Or perhaps the former employers of the GOP candidates.

 

Didn't Cheney work for Halle Berry or something? Say, maybe she's gay, too...

[Guest Cerebus]

I went to drudge but the link is broken.

 

This just looks too juicy to actually be true if you ask me.

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

I swear, if there's a conspiracy theory ANYWHERE on the internet involving Kerry, Mike is the first one to post it.

[Guest MikeSC]

I swear, if there's a conspiracy theory ANYWHERE on the internet involving Kerry, Mike is the first one to post it.

Unlike the Bush conspiracy theories, I provide evidence.

 

Thanks for your usual (shitty) contribution.

-=Mike

[Guest Cerebus]

DNC has issued a statement. I'll skip all the crap and get to the "full excerpt" of the DNC Field Manual in question (the bolded part is the one Drudge quoted):

 

I. WHAT TO LOOK FOR

 

In general, the goal of minority voter intimidation programs is either to provide a basis for challenging the right of people to vote just before election day or when they show up at the polls, and/or to create doubt, confusion and fear among voters about their right to vote or the location at which they can vote.

 

Prior to Election Day

 

Activities that may take place in the weeks or days leading up to election day can include:

 

1. Mass mailing targeted to minority communities aimed at using letters returned as undeliverable as a basis for challenging voters (on or prior to election day) based on change of residence

 

2. Mailings, signs, and/or phone calls targeted or concentrated in minority communities

 

• Providing "information" about the requirements for voting, for example, that persons not current on child support payments will not be eligible to vote, or that persons who have recently moved will not be eligible

 

• Providing "information" about what questions will be asked or documentation requested of voters at the polls in order to vote, e.g., that proof of citizenship will be required, or that a drivers license or lease will be required to prove residence

 

• Giving warnings about election offenses, i.e., that voting when ineligible to do so, or voting at the wrong place, or providing false information to election officials, etc. is a crime

 

• Suggesting that polling places have been changed

 

3. Any variation of the above in Spanish, targeted to, or appearing in, Latino communities

 

4. Complaints filed by Republican Party or candidates with election authorities (or police or other authorities) about volunteer registrars registering minority voters illegally

 

5. Attempts to encourage voters in minority communities to throw away mail-in ballots

 

6. Attempts to coerce voters in minority communities to turn over endorsed absentee ballots On Election Day

 

Activities that take place on election day itself may include:

 

1. Signs, posters, phone calls, and/or sound trucks giving "information" or warnings about voter requirements or eligibility and/or warning that voting when ineligible to do so is an offense, etc.

 

2. Concentration of numbers of Republican poll watchers or challengers in minority precincts

 

3. Republican poll watchers challenging every voter in minority precincts on some pretext

 

4. GOP poll watchers, local law enforcement officers, or persons with official looking badges or insignia stationed at polling places taking pictures, asking for names, or engaging in other types of intimidating conduct.

 

5. Other persons deliberately placed at polling places to harass or hassle voters

 

6. Efforts to create longer lines in the polls, targeted in minority communities, through means such as limiting the number of registration books; deliberately sending unregistered voters into certain polling places to create confusion and delay and/or create a scene, and thereby slow down voting at those polling places

 

7. Changing polling locations close to election day

 

8. Slower responses to voting machine breakdowns in minority precincts

 

II. HOW TO ORGANIZE TO PREVENT AND COMBAT VOTER INTIMIDATION

The best way to combat minority voter intimidation tactics is to prevent them from occurring in the first place and prepare in advance to deal with them should they take place on election day.

 

1. If there are any signs of present or expected intimidation activity, in advance of election day, launch a press program that might include the following elements:

 

• Prepare and distribute to the press (or have available at a press conference, see below) materials giving the background and history of GOP minority voter intimidation, with emphasis on past activity in your state or district.

 

• Devise separate press strategies for mainstream and specialty press:

 

i. Mainstream press: Consider a press conference

— Featuring a prominent mainstream spokesperson (priest, civic leader, business leader)

— Including a group of established community leaders behind that spokesperson, but with only one person giving a statement

— Emphasizing a message of outrage, but designed to appeal to the broader community: "We thought this community was better than that", "We thought those days were behind us", "Nothing is more despicable than trying to deprive any American of the precious right to vote, the foundation of our democracy for which so many have sacrificed."

— Impugning the source of divisiveness – the GOP, the opposing candidate, whoever can credibly be said to be behind it

— Include call to action

 

ii. Specialty press

— Use minority intimidation as an organizing tool: in a press conference and/or press materials, community leadership should call on the community to rise up against the efforts to disenfranchise them by turning out in record numbers and challenging any effort at intimidation

— Link this fight to the historical fights to enfranchise minorities, going back to the civil rights struggle.

 

2. If no signs of intimidation techniques have emerged yet, launch a "pre-emptive strike" (particularly well-suited to states in which there techniques have been tried in the past).

 

• Issue a press release

 

i. Reviewing Republican tactic used in the past in your area or state

 

ii. Quoting party/minority/civil rights leadership as denouncing tactics that discourage people from voting

 

• Prime minority leadership to discuss the issue in the media; provide talking points

 

• Place stories in which minority leadership expresses concern about the threat of intimidation tactics

 

• Warn local newspapers not to accept advertising that is not properly disclaimed or that contains false warnings about voting requirements and/or about what will happen at the polls

 

3. Train field staff, precinct workers, and your own poll watchers thoroughly in the rules they need to know for election day.

 

4. Plan and completely prepare for possible legal action well in advance of election day

 

5. Have Secretary of State record public service announcements about election day – when polls are open, who is eligible, etc.

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

"Intern Scandal Threatens to Ravage Kerry Campaign"

 

TheMikeSC: SOUNDS GOOD TO ME! *post*

[Guest MikeSC]

That's REAL bad --- and a clear sign the Dems think they're losing.

 

You don't pursue a scorched earth policy from a position of strength.

 

Nice to know the electoral process is less important than Kerry winning an election...

-=Mike

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Didn't Cheney work for Halle Berry or something? Say, maybe she's gay, too...

Ed Gillespie was a lobbyist for some company or another. Shoot, I forget which one, and what a shame since I can't remember who our elected officials were being wooed by for money. Some electric group or something.

 

Oh well, whatever, I'm sure they're good people.

[Guest MikeSC]

Man, Terry McAuliffe was associated with a group that had a bit of a financial scandal. Global - something or the other.

-=Mike