Ohio Secretary of State Brunner 1 -- GOP 0

By Pistol Tanker Palin

Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner (Dem)
receiving Profile in Courage Award
June 11, 2008

It looks as if the defensive offensive tactic of getting a Democrat in the Ohio Secretary of State's Office in the person of the Profile in Courage Award winner Jennifer Brunner will be key for helping to turn around voter disenfranchisement in her state.

Today, the Supreme Court sided with Ohio's top elections official in a dispute with the state Republican Party over voter registrations.

The justices overruled a federal appeals court that had ordered Ohio's top elections official to do more to help counties verify voter eligibility.

-- The Huffington Post, Supreme Court's Ohio Decision Rejects GOP Voting Dispute

According to Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Bennett "They didn't deal with the merits of the case, What they dealt with was a technicality on whether we had standing or not to bring the action."

Decided on a technicality or not, unreasonable measures ostensibly designed to prevent voter fraud under the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which lays out requirements for verifying voter eligibility, but which are far more likely to punish unsuspecting voters, and likely changed the fate of the 2004 presidential election, will not be allowed to expunge voters from the state's rolls before the November 4 election.

According to the story as reported in various news sources, including The Huffington Post and MSNBC, about "200,000 of 666,000 voters who have registered in Ohio since Jan. 1 have records that don't match. Brunner has said the discrepancies most likely stem from innocent clerical errors rather than fraud but has set up a verification plan."

McCain campaign chief strategist Rick Davis was hopping mad that the verifications haven't been done before now, but he wouldn't want to lose Joe the Plumber's, I mean Mr. Worzelbacher's -- excuse me, -- Mr. Wurzelbacher's vote from Lucas County, Ohio now would they?

After all, he knows as well as anyone that the accidental misspelling of Joe the Plumber's name on the voter rolls can happen to anyone.

....

John McCain,
Republican Presidential Nominee

R.I.P.

October 16, 2008

THE HUFFINGTON POST
By Mike Barnicle

Now, with less than three weeks to the end, he comes to the country staggering toward defeat, his pride and honor certainly diminished by the incoherence of his campaign and the absurdity of the choice he agreed to when it came to picking someone who would share a national ticket charged with talking, coaxing, massaging the country through a tough and turbulent time. And as the clock winds toward the conclusion, America looks and listens to a different John McCain than the man who captured so many hearts when he first ran for president, only eight years ago.

That guy is MIA, missing in action, held captive by ideologues who dominate his strategy sessions and what is left of the Republican party. So John McCain sat there on the stage at Hofstra Wednesday night, looking and sounding like an angry old man, bitter at the lack of traction -- or belief -- in his candidacy, uncomfortable with what he has allowed himself to become: a cranky senior citizen seething with resentment over how his glory days are lost in the long shadow cast by youth and change.

It is a sad story: a proud and independent man permits a handful of advisers to take his hard-earned reputation and alter it to such an extent that the original is now hard to recognize, nearly invisible behind a curtain of cynical ads and the preposterous pronouncements of a woman whose candidacy is an insult to intelligence.

John McCain used to know that the country was larger than any crowd he could ever draw; that it was filled with ordinary people who live their lives in the middle of a political spectrum, too busy making ends meet, to be driven to extremes by the fevers and fears that consume so many of the talk-radio set. He used to be aware that in order to win, a candidate could not simply preach to the converted, snarl and run with a resentment aimed at the fringe, the mixed mobs of the curious and angry that turn out for Palin.

Now, with time running out, he has only a few days left to try and reclaim himself, to find the man he once was, the whole man who could charm a crowd with his version of the truth. He criss-crosses a country filling up with fear and debt, a land fighting two wars as it fights for a weekly paycheck, a nation where more people worry about General Motors than think about General Petraeus. Political campaigns, like much of life itself, often revolve around one universal issue: the absence of money.

So, when John McCain tosses out a name from yesterday, William Ayers, it means nothing to people who want only to be told about tomorrow. These are the people who vote, the people who have seen the distant dream of retirement crushed by the collapse of so many 401K's in -- what? -- less than a month. They have no time for spite or a candidate's smirk or snarl. They are consumed with concern for the value of their home, the stability of their job, the immediate future of their family.

Unfortunately for McCain, he did little to stop the thieves who took his honor and reputation and tossed it out like so many discarded items for a yard sale, figuring that Americans could once again -- one more time -- be fooled into voting their fears. But what they really did was take the one Republican who may have had a legitimate shot at surviving the disaster that has been the Bush administration and strip him of the basic appeal he once had for people looking for someone who could lead.

The dreary dialogue of the past few weeks has finally managed to make the man look his age, look old and tired and embarrassed to be defending Palin while awkwardly injecting the absurd -- Ayers -- into the national dialogue when nearly everyone is riveted on the obvious: the family budget.

Soon, the 'Straight Talk Express' will bank west and head for the Arizona desert and election eve. And John McCain will sit up front, staring out the window, exhausted, as the plane crosses the land he loves and the people -- millions of them -- he failed to connect with because while he was once indeed a prisoner of war, he has spent the last ten weeks letting himself become a prisoner of the past.

....

While nodding to Hillary and walking the walk, did he want Obama to win? Is that his parting gift to the Republican party, to force their failure and renewal?

....

Conservatives Endorsing Obama

We are witnessing nothing less than the historic beginning of the Republican reclamation of their party from the neocons -- by voting Democrat in 2008.

Philadelphia talk radio host Michael Smerconish:

"I've decided," he said. "My conclusion comes after reading the candidates' memoirs and campaign platforms, attending both party conventions, interviewing both men multiple times, and watching all primary and general election debates.

"John McCain is an honorable man who has served his country well. But he will not get my vote. For the first time since registering as a Republican 28 years ago, I'm voting for a Democrat for president.

"I may have been an appointee in the George H.W. Bush administration, and master of ceremonies for George W. Bush in 2004, but last Saturday I stood amidst the crowd at an Obama event in North Philadelphia."

-- The Huffington Post, October 17, 2008, "Conservative Talk Radio Host Endorses Obama"

And, from the same article, the report that The Chicago Tribune offers comfort, solace and reassurance for Republicans concerning the man who will be their next president, Democratic Senator Barack Obama, endorsing a Democrat for the office of president of the United States of America for the first time since their founding in 1847:

Many Americans say they're uneasy about Obama. He's pretty new to them.

We can provide some assurance. We have known Obama since he entered politics a dozen years ago. We have watched him, worked with him, argued with him as he rose from an effective state senator to an inspiring U.S. senator to the Democratic Party's nominee for president.

We have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready.

...

It may have seemed audacious for Obama to start his campaign in Springfield, invoking Lincoln. We think, given the opportunity to hold this nation's most powerful office, he will prove it wasn't so audacious after all. We are proud to add Barack Obama's name to Lincoln's in the list of people the Tribune has endorsed for president of the United States.

That deserves a second reading. It deserves framing.

I know I am proud, and I could only be prouder and happier were I Michelle Obama this day, or their daughters. You did good, Ann Dunham.

Who knew, back then at Columbia? Look what can happen when you follow your intelligence, your heart and your inner compass. You say it isn't about you, Barack, that it is about us, but we needed a focal point, the voice and the means, you have given us these, and we have used them to help you build a movement to help our country renew herself and fulfill her promise, for our generation and to make sure we can pass along a stronger and better America to our children.

Thank you.

....

On the Cover of the Rolling Stone -- Stealing back your vote

By Pistol Tanker Palin

"If Democrats are to win the 2008 election, they must not simply beat McCain at the polls - they must beat him by a margin that exceeds the level of GOP vote tampering."
-- By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Greg Palast

From the current newstand issues of the Rolling Stone Magazine, "Can the Republicans Steal the Election?: The GOP is at it again, deterring new voters and discarding democratic votes"

Illustration, Rolling Stone June 2008 article
"Was the 2004 Election Stolen", by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

"Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted - enough to have put John Kerry in the White House."

-- Rolling Stone Magazine, "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?"

I will keep this brief this morning. The articles are long enough to read already, and important enough to bother. I have already written about this here (summary of caging efforts from Obama's Rapid Response Team) and here (Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s Sept. 24 warning of 30 Republican scams to get Democratic voters off the rolls, particularly in swing states).

In the cover story of this month's issue of RS, "Obama's Moment", Eric Bates asks Senator Obama about the Republicans efforts to suppress the Democratic vote in Ohio, whether he is worried about that this time out, and what he's doing about it.

In the last two elections, the Republicans worked to suppress the vote, especially in Democratic precincts. Reporting by Bobby Kennedy in Rolling Stone has raised questions about whether the Republicans stole the 2004 election in Ohio. Are you worried about those kinds of tactics this time? And what are you doing in advance to keep that from happening?
Without leveling any accusations about past misdeeds, I can tell you that we're paying a lot of attention to how the election a month from now is going to take place. We've got an extraordinary team of lawyers in every battleground state — hundreds of them — fanning out across these states. A lot of the work is actually being done now: We have organized such a surge in voter registration that there were clerks having difficulty processing the registration, and there was some question as to legal requirements for them to hire more clerks. So there's already been a lot of work done, and I feel pretty confident that if there are any shenanigans out there that we'll be on top of them.

But John Kerry said the same thing in 2004. Lawyers are mainly useful after the fact, when it's too late. Is there anything you can do before the fact to keep the vote from being tampered with?
Well, in Ohio the thing we did was make sure there was a Democratic secretary of state.

Replacing Kenneth Blackwell, the Republican who was in charge in 2004.
Right.

....

An email from contributing investigative
reporter, Greg Palast

Don't worry about Mickey Mouse or ACORN stealing the election. According to an investigative report out today in Rolling Stone magazine, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast, after a year-long investigation, reveal a systematic program of "GOP vote tampering" on a massive scale.

- Republican Secretaries of State of swing-state Colorado have quietly purged one in six names from their voter rolls.

Over several months, the GOP politicos in Colorado stonewalled every attempt by Rolling Stone to get an answer to the massive purge - ten times the average state's rate of removal.

- While Obama dreams of riding to the White House on a wave of new voters, more then 2.7 million have had their registrations REJECTED under new procedures signed into law by George Bush.

Kennedy, a voting rights lawyer, charges this is a resurgence of 'Jim Crow' tactics to wrongly block Black and Hispanic voters.

- A fired US prosecutor levels new charges - accusing leaders of his own party, Republicans, with criminal acts in an attempt to block legal voters as "fraudulent."

- Digging through government records, the Kennedy-Palast team discovered that, in 2004, a GOP scheme called "caging" ultimately took away the rights of 1.1 million voters. The Rolling Stone duo predict that, this November 4, it will be far worse.

There's more:

- Since the last presidential race, "States used dubious 'list management' rules to scrub at least 10 million voters from their rolls."

Among those was Paul Maez of Las Vegas, New Mexico - a victim of an unreported but devastating purge of voters in that state that left as many as one in nine Democrats without a vote. For Maez, the state's purging his registration was particularly shocking - he's the county elections supervisor.

The Kennedy-Palast revelations go far beyond the sum of questionably purged voters recently reported by the New York Times.

"Republican operatives - the party's elite commandos of bare-knuckle politics," report Kennedy and Palast, under the cover of fighting fraudulent voting, are "systematically disenfranchis[ing] Democrats."

The investigators level a deadly serious charge:

"If Democrats are to win the 2008 election, they must not simply beat McCain at the polls - they must beat him by a margin that exceeds the level of GOP vote tampering."

Block the Vote by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. & Greg Palast in the current issue (#1064) of Rolling Stone. [Media enquiries - Dave Falkenstein, Sunshine Sachs & Assoc, via interviews@gregpalast.com.]

Note - Kennedy and Palast are releasing, simultaneously with the Rolling Stone investigative report what they call, the vote-theft 'antidote': a 24-page full-color comic book, Steal Back Your Vote org> , which can be downloaded or obtained in print from their non-partisan website, StealBackYourVote.org org>

....

Stealing back your vote

I have voted. That's part of a happy story. After a more than gracious exchange of emails with the Republican Assistant Registrar of the Town of Greenwich, Ms. Ruby Durant -- there is also a Democratic Registrar of voters for the town --, and a phone call to the Town Clerk's Office, I received my Connecticut Absentee Ballot, mailed to all requesting it as they promised on October 3, during the next week, and after a moment spent appreciatively with it, I filled it out, scanned it for posterity and sent it back to Carmella Budkins, the Clerk of the Town of Greenwich, with no shortage of fanfare at the post office in Bonnières sur Seine.

I was almost embarrassed by the attention and care my ballot and I received in a crowed post office in France, filled with small children, some guys and a few elderly persons.

On the phone with the the Town Clerk's Office, I had asked the woman on the other end of the phone if they really do count the absentee ballot, her tone just a little weary and bemused.

"That's why we are sending them all out October 3, so we can count them all." She sounded like they get a lot of them, and like the whole thing isn't much of a picnic, but sworn to do they duty, they'll do it. I felt somewhat comforted and thanked her, telling her that my vote is very important to me and appreciate the respect it receives from them.

I didn't have to say that -- it's their job -- but I thought she might like to know what their job means to one citizen, multiplied by millions away from home, or living outside of the United States. She took it in a sort of "Is this caller cracked? Think nothing of it" fashion.

That's Connecticut, though, friends. I have never lived in a Swing State, unless my family's residence in Maryland can be in any way thought to qualilfy. New York and Connecticut (that's all?), with summers spent in California (a blood red part, Orange County) and Massachusetts (no red part whatsoever).

Check your Voter Registration
It cannot hurt anyone to check your voter registration and make sure you are on the voter rolls. You can also check with your secretary of state or board of elections website (I called the local Registrar of Voters).

Make a habit of it if you live in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Obama's bi-racial heritage, coupled with the current political landscape ("Off with their Republican heads!") putting States like Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, and Virginia in play, with reports of West Virginia begining to feel just a little blue -- acording to Electoral-Votes.com, Insider Advantage has Obama just 2 points under McCain on October 13, and West Virginia Blue's West Virginia Lover reported on ARG's poll putting Obama 8 points up at 50% to McCain's 42% on October 9 --, you might want to check regularly, check often there, too.


Vote early
Check to see if your state permits early voting. This will give you time to act if you find that you are not on the voter rolls before November 4, and it will help ease congestion at the polls on Election Day, Tuesday, November 4, when record numbers are expected to cast their ballots.


Volunteer to help steal the vote back (legally of course)
Whether you are a lawyer, a law student, a paralegal or merely a concerned citizen, there are ways to help. You can use the following links to sign up with:

• The Obama Voter Protection Program, and
• Election Protection with the National Campaign for Fair Elections site. You can still sign up here to volunteer even if you don't have a legal background!

If you are a student, registering to vote for the first time and are planning to vote away from home by absentee ballot
Make absolutely certain to read this Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. piece, if you want you vote to be counted and not end up in the trash bin. His advice for you:

"If you're a newly registered voter... you MUST include your license or some other state I.D. when you come to vote. What that means is that if you're a college kid... if [you] send in the absentee ballot, and [you] don't include a copy of [your driver's] license, [you] vote is going to be thrown into a trash can. And none of these people know this, because you had to have to read the law in order to know it. There is no notification [of this requirement] when you fill out your registration form, so all of those 12 million people that the Democrats have regstered -- those ballot are going to be just thrown out."

If you are an United States Citizen living outside the United States
It is not to late to request a Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot from Vote from Abroad, http://VotefromAbroad.org.

They walk you through it. It couldn't be easier.

And for those of you unfamiliar with how the language is applied in the case of US citizens living outside the United States, when we register to vote, it is only valid for that particular Federal Election.

When I left the country in 2002, I was registered in the State of Connecticut in my last town of residence, Greenwich. I voted in the 2004 election, but do not remember how I received my ballot. I had thought that it had been automatically sent to me because of my registration, but I am starting to think that I have forgotten something because I panicked when I used the check your voter registration tool provided by the Obama campaign, and it didn't find my registration.

After making some phone calls, I learned that a card I received and returned to the Registrar of Voters in Greenwich, confirming that my current address is outside the United States caused my name to be legitimately removed from the state's voter rolls. You can only be on them if you are living in your state and paying property taxes. This may vary in some states.

We all know already that we cannot vote in state and local elections.

In order to vote in the federal elections in which we are entitled to cast our vote, you must request a Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot (FWAB) using a Federal Post Card Application (FPCA). If you haven't done this already (the deadline was October 4), go to VotefromAbroad.org, use the wizard, and mail in your FWAB along with your FPCA.

"Every voter who sublits a valid ballot request 30 days before the election is legally entitled to use the FWAB. In addition, some states have later deadlines. You may send the FPCA and FWAB right up until Election Day, but it will depend on your state whether your ballot is deemed valid.

NOTE: The FWAB instructions refer to a 'Security Envelope', which goes inside your mailing envelope. YOu may use any black encelope to serve as the Security Envelope."

Have questions? Vote from Abroad also helpfully encourages you to email them with any questions at VoterCentral@democratsabroad.org, and if you have specific questions about your registration, to do what I did -- pick up your phone and call your Registrar of Voters office directly, "nothing can replace speaking to your local election officials... if you do not agree with the answer they give you, please contact [VoterCentral@democratsabroad.org] -- we may be able to help you."

I Googled "registrar of voters Greenwich CT" to get the phone numbers.

My French husband still cannot get over that this is even an issue in the United States of America and wonders, along with the rest of Europe, what is wrong with our country that we can't insure the most basic of democratic rights. It is a wrong that must be righted and protected indelibly.

Please do your part and make sure you are registered, continue to show as registered on your state's voter rolls, and that your vote is accepted on November 4 and cast by showing up to vote with all possible forms of ID anyone can ask from you.

And then, demand that it is counted and counts by demanding legislation for fairness in voting and ballot receipts.

If you suspect foul play with your voter registration
Contact the office of your Secretary of State and file your complaint. If you have difficulties doing so, contact your Democratic elected officials and state Democratic Committee officials. Consider writing a letter to the editor of your local paper, and contacting the media if your complaint goes without action.

Heck, do it anyway.

You betcha'.
....

Protect your right to vote, NOW! Pass this on

Update: Further emailing with the Registrar's office of the Town of Greenwich and Christine Houben, Regional Field Director, Americans Abroad for Obama, and a telephone call to the Town Clerk's Office provided the following clarifications of language. I knew that in the case of those US citizens living abroad, you can register to vote in the Federal Election, but not in the local or state election because one no longer owns property or physically lives in CT, for example, but your registration is on an election by election basis. We are not on the voter rolls in all states. "This applies," according to Ms. Houben, "in some states, not in others." To ensure that my ballot is counted, I need to send in the FPCA, which registers you for this election and requests a ballot, and "just vote in the Federal (Presidential) election, not any state or local elections (Dog Catcher, Sheriff, etc.)."

This does not change the substance or diminish the importance of the rest of the post for hundreds of thousands of others!

PS: If you make it through to the bottom of this, there's a disillusioned, sad, tired, yet daring to hope American treat!

ttp://my.barackobama.com/page/content/vrachome/

Votes are being stolen, now, by the hundreds of thousands -- and the Democrats aren't doing anything about it. RFK, Jr.

"There are about 30 scams the Republicans are deliberately using, particularly in the swing states to get Democratic voters off the rolls. These scams originate in the so-called Help America Vote Act, which was passed after the Florida debacle in the year 2000."
-- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., September 24, 2008

ARE YOU LISTENING EVERYONE?

Sorry to shout. I am a little upset about this bit of news, even in the midst of the joy FiveThirtyEight.com creates in this Obama supporter. You see, even if we support Obama and intend to vote for him, we can't if we think we are registered, but aren't actually, anymore.

'The perfect match'

"One of these requirements under HAVA is called 'the perfect match,' and what that does is little known but it is devastating. A quarter of the voters in Colorado have just been removed from the rolls because of this... they use a computer system to compare your registration application to all [your] other government records in the state... your Social Security records, your Motor Vehicle records, and any time you've had any interaction with the government, and if there is any information on your voter registration that is different than the information on another government record that they found, they remove you from the voting rolls."

Are you a student? First time voter?

Make absolutely certain to read the Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. piece, if you want you vote to be counted and not end up in the trash bin:

"If you're a newly registered voter... you MUST include your license or some other state I.D. when you come to vote. What that means is that if you're a college kid... if [you] send in the absentee ballot, and [you] don't include a copy of [your driver's] license, [you] vote is going to be thrown into a trash can. And none of these people know this, because you had to have to read the law in order to know it. There is no notification [of this requirement] when you fill out your registration form, so all of those 12 million people that the Democrats have regstered -- those ballot are going to be just thrown out."

What happened to me,
a veteran voter

About three weeks ago, I tried the tool to check your voter registration that the Obama campaign sent out. The tool was unable to find my voter registration. It tried several times, with different information, and it could not find me listed where I have been registered to vote since at least 1992: Greenwich, Connecticut.

I voted in all state, local and presidential elections in Greenwich, cast my last presidential ballot in 2000 for Gore before moving to France in 2002. In 2002, I received an absentee ballot and cast my vote for Kerry, sending it off certified receipt requested. I recall receiving the signed card, and feeling relief. It worked, now if it would only be certain to be counted.

This year, I assumed all was well, until the Obama campaign voter registration check tool failed to find me in the Connecticut state voter rolls.

I was wrong to assume anything, since Republican Assistant Registrar of Voters, Ruby J. Durant, of the Town of Greenwich replied to my telephone call, in which I left my email address, with the following email:

According to our records you are not registered to vote here in Greenwich, Connecticut. If you voted in the 2004 Presidential election by Absentee Ballot, you probably voted on a Federal Ballot, which you are entitled to do as an American Citizen living out of the country. This office (Registrars of Voters) does not handle absentee ballots, so if you have any other questions please contact our Town Clerks Office (who handles Absentee ballot questions) @ 203-622-7897. I hope that this helps.

I am in no way suggesting that Ms. Durant is responsible for any wrong-doing. There is also a Democratic Assistant Registrar of Voters in the Town of Greenwich. I find this comforting, nonetheless.

I will say in all truthfulness that I do not recall how I received my absentee ballot in 2004, but I do not remember requesting it. I could not swear by that. It was not, to the best of my knowledge, a Federal Ballot.

I was, however, absolutely and positively registered to vote and have voted in the Town of Greenwich.

So, where is my registration?

They do not require renewal, to the best of my knowledge.

I contacted www.votefromabroad.org immediately, and received the forms needed to register and obtain my absentee ballot. I have returned the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA). These are the critical dates and actions to take to vote absentee from abroad:

• October 4: If I do not receive my state ballot by October 4, I mail in my vote by Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot. This a back-up in case one does not receive one's state ballot. If the state ballot arrives subsequently, I fill it in and mail it, too. It does not count as a double vote. The local election official only counts one.
• Between September 20 and Election Day (November 4): if I have not sent the FPCA (I have), then I should send it together with the FWAB. From Vote From Abroad, "Every voter who submits a valid ballot request 30 days before the election is legally entitled to use the FWAB. In addition, some states have later deadlines. You may send in the FPCA + FWAB right up until Election Day, but it will depend upon your state whether your ballot is deemed valid."
  

Dissuasion and exhaustion from the Registrars' offices

An Obama campaign volunteer in Virginia sent me the following copy of an email she received from the Registrar's Office in Martinsville, VA:

We are working twelve hours a day here in the office, and coming in on Saturday and Sunday, and we can't do anymore. Please leave our telephone number off of your letter. A voter does not get a new voter card if he is already in the system and most of them are. I wish you wouldn't send this letter to the bulletin [local newspaper]. We are trying to put this election together, and it must be done on time or we go to jail. This election is getting enough advertisement!!!

The rest of Melody's email to fellow Obama volunteers reads as follows:

Is this voter fraud or voter repression - either way something stinks. She claimed that she is overwhelmed, working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week and can not keep up with demand. This is GREAT NEWS for Obama!!! People who have not voted for decades or never are coming out to register, in droves!

The bad news and question of the hour is, is there an emergency plan to get extra people in to help with registration efforts NOW? Apparently, this registrar is ill prepared to handle the amount of people coming forward. Will we loose registrations this way? Will she not be able to lift up the phone to answer crucial questions? Can any of you guys call or write to your registrars and see how its going in your area? ALERT the media, call out the troops. We need attention called to this right NOW!!! The deadline to register is fast approaching. And it looks like it will be a fight to the finish.

I am telling you guys, the people who are not registered are not being counted in the polls. This could be the real difference in winning or loosing. No kidding!

Worried? You ought to be

Now, here's what you can and must do: It's important to spread the word of what Melody experienced and of my "disappeared" voter registration to see if these problems are widespread.

Consider taking the following steps:

• Call or visit your local Registrar's or Town Clerk's office to see if there is anything that private citizens can do to help them answer the demand and get voters registered officially. Try to volunteer to help process paperwork.
  
• Is there a watchdog organization for voter registration activity? Just Google watchdog voter registration organization to get going. Try your state.
  
• Call your Democratic US congressional representative's office to discuss this and report any problems you have.
  
• Contact your state DNC office to do the same.
  
• Send a letter to the editor of your local paper and call your media outlets to talk to reporters.
  
• Finally, contact friends and family in other areas who could do what you did to test the waters elsewhere.
• Finally (for now), read the the Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. article Votes being stolen, now, by hundreds of thousands; Dems doing nothing that appears in its entirety below. It is shocking.
• Feel free to add your own.
  

Election volunteering for lawyers, law students, paralegals
and you

There are two sites for lawyers, law students and paralegals to which to go to sign up to volunteer:

• The Obama Voter Protection Program, and
• Election Protection on the National Campaign for Fair Elections site. You can still sign up here to volunteer even if you don't have a legal background!
  

Some things need to change big time before America gets so tripped up in her own knickers that she falls down. How can these things happen in a great and free nation?

Guys, Democracy ain't free and easy anymore. We already are fighting for it at home in The USA now. Forget Iraq. You can't just make up your mind which candidate you prefer and head over to vote on election day because thousands or millions like you will be in for a nasty surprise come November 4.

Thanks for reading, now, watch the video of Barack in Charlotte on Sunday, make a donation (please... pretty please... all you need is a credit card and a couple bucks, and you get the credit), a call and send this on to everyone you know.

Barack Obama
Charlotte, North Carolina - September 21

....

Here's the RFK, Jr. article:

Votes are being stolen, now, by hundreds of thousands--and the Democrats aren't doing anything about it. RFK, Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: There are about 30 scams the Republicans are deliberately using, particularly in the swing states to get Democratic voters off the rolls. These scams originate in the so-called Help America Vote Act, which was passed after the Florida debacle in the year 2000. It was originally suggested by Democrats and Republicans, but it was passed by a Republican Congress with a Republican senate and a Republican president. And instead of reforming what happened in Florida it basically institutionalized all the problems that happened in Florida. And institutionalized a series of impediments that make it very difficult for Democrats to register, for Democrats to vote and then for Democrats to have their votes counted.

One of these requirements under HAVA is called 'the perfect match,' and what that does is little known but it is devastating. A quarter of the voters in Colorado have just been removed from the rolls because of this--[and] just this one scam. And what it does is, they use a computer system to compare your registration application to all [your] other government records in the state. So they'll look at your Social Security records, your Motor Vehicle records, and any time you've had any interaction with the government, and if there is any information on your voter registration that is different than the information on another government record that they find, they remove you from the voting rolls.

For example, if I registered as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and yet my motor vehicle license said Robert Frances Kennedy Jr., I'd be removed from the rolls. If your initial is different, if you leave an initial out, if you leave a "Jr." out, if you leave a hyphen out in your name. And what they've done is a study in New York that said 80% of the errors are errors by state clerks taking down this information. And particularly [in] immigrant communities, [where] people tend to vote Democratic, people have namesŠspell Muhammad with an "o" instead of a "u"

(Crosstalk)

Papantonio: Are the Democrats suing to stop this?

RFK, Jr.: No, the Democrats are doing nothing to stop it. In New Jersey, which is a swing state, 300,000 voters in New Jersey were just sent letters saying that they are now ineligible to vote. New Jersey is nice enough to actually notify them--most states will not even notify them. And New Jersey intends to send out 870,000 letters so that is three quarters of a million people off the voting rolls in a state that could decide this vote by 50,000 votes. And these are Democrats that are being pushed off the rolls.

Let me tell you about one of other scams people should know about. If you're a newly registered voter--and of course the Democrats have done these gigantic registration drives--12 million people on registration--if you're a new voter, you MUST include your license or some other state I.D. when you come to vote. What that means is that if you're a college kid--and college kids now, they're sending in absentee ballots, they're not going to the voting place, they do everything online or they do everything remotely. They don't dream of going to the precinct house voting on election day and waiting in a long line. So if they send in the absentee ballot, and they don't include a color copy of their [driver's] license, their vote is going to be thrown into a trash can. And none of these people know this, because you had to have to read the law in order to know it. There is no notification [of this requirement] when you fill out your registration form, so all of those 12 million people that the Democrats have registered--those ballots are going to be just thrown out.

Papantonio: And if Democrats won't talk about this, how the hell's anybody gonna know about it? I'm involved with this kind of thing every day--I didn't know that until you just told me. The media is not talking about it. How in the hell is somebody gonna find this out? It's just incredible.

RFK, Jr.: Hopefully--Obama is getting $66 million a month--hopefully somebody in the Democratic organization is going to pay some attention to this before Election Day.

more at:

http://airamerica.com/ringoffire/blog/2008/sep/22/rfk-j...

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is an environmental lawyer and activist in New York. He is one of the few who has also covered election fraud and voter suppression.

I opened my email to find this

Birthday smooch.

It made me laugh and delighted me. I think I'll go kiss Baccarat and Rapide.

Happy Birthday to me!
Happy Biththday to me!
Happy Birthday, dear Sisyphe!
Happy Birthday, to me!

And ma-ny more.

Today, it is Sisyphe who receives flowers.

I'll come back to rant about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s piece in OpEdNews.com later.
....