tomgeer.com

Yes, this article was written by RFK Jr. And yes, the GOP has some reciprocal allegations…but this is scary, scary shit.

Rolling Stone published “Block the Vote”. It is a must read.

I’m not here to claim every word is true. BUT…if you don’t believe that any of it is true, then PLEASE check out what J.B. Von Hollen tried to pull right here in Wisconsin right before this year’s election. All tactics aside, this was bullshit and there’s zero chance the suit would have been filed if McCain were ahead in the WI polls.

Regardless, facts and allegations from the article include:

• Policies to protect against “fraudulent” voters cleared 1/9 of Democrats from registered voter lists in New Mexico
• Voters cleared from the list have no choice but to cast provisional ballots, which can be thrown out by (partisan) election officials without explanation
• Hundreds of thousands of voters could be affected this November
• If this year’s election is as close the previous two, the result could be flipped because of the voters blocked
• At least 1.6 million votes were not counted in 2004
• One US attorney fired by the Bush Administration for not prosecuting voter fraud cases claims to have examined 100 cases over two years, but did not find one legitimate claim
• Recent university analysis showed that only 24 voters were proven guilty of fraud between 2002 and 2005, a period when hundreds of millions of votes were cast
• Due to absurd penalties on voter registration programs for administrative errors (imposed by the Bush Administration and Republican legislature of the early 2000s), the number of annual low-income voter registrations in Florida dropped to about 10,000 per year. That number was about 120,000 per year during the Clinton administration.
• States were encouraged to deny registration to voters whose information doesn’t perfectly match other government records, and some states obliged. Hyphenated name? Different abbreviation for “Drive” in your street address on some of your records…you guessed it, no registration for you.
• The above policy caused over 15,000 voters to be rejected in Florida in 2006 & 2007 (over 11,000 of which were Black or Hispanic). Estimates show that number could be 50,000 this year
• Prior to the 2000 election, Katherine Harris attempted to purge 57,000 voters (mostly African American) from the Florida registration lists because their names resembled those of persons convicted of a crime. The purge was thrown out, but it took two years.
• Two consecutive secretaries of state in Colorado managed to purge one in six voters from the registration lists during their tenure. The latter was rewarded with a federal job on the Election Assistance Commission buy President Bush.
• One of the most crucial demographics in elections is becoming “Americans who have been denied the right to vote.”

All partisan politics aside, its the 21st century. Seriously, it’s time for a new system that can help eliminate these problems.