Friday, October 17, 2008

Tell Me It Ain't So, Joe!

Joe the Plumber may not even get to vote for John W. McBush because the Ohio state GOP got a favorable ruling from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affecting 200,000 or more Ohio voters. Partisan poll watchers will be able to challenge voters whose mailing address does not match their voter registration. So Joe you may have to vote a crummy provisional ballot because your name is spelled wrong on your registration. That's right Joe, your vote may not be counted! In Ohio s last primary election in March, 20% of provisional ballots were not counted statewide according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The Lucas County board of Elections says the name matching your age and address is Samuel Joseph Worzelbacher, not Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher. Not having your vote counted is just one of the hazards of having an ethnic last name, or maybe the hazard is being a registered Republican. You might want to tap dance on over to the elections office and get that spelling corrected.
Update: The US Supreme Court has today overturned a lower court ruling allowing Ohio state GOP to challenge voters with address discrepancies. It is fairly clear at this point that the GOP is conducting a scorched earth campaign to suppress voter turnout as it did in 2000 and 2004. Such efforts have publicly surfaced in Montana, Michigan, and Ohio so far. Proactively the Obama campaign has today asked Special Prosecutor Nora Dannehy, who is investigating the firings of US Attorneys for refusing to act on alleged "vote fraud", to expand her investigation to include a review of whether the National Republican Committee is using the apparatus of government to spread unfounded and spurious charges of vote fraud in an effort to suppress voter turnout. The Ohio Secretary of State discussed the Supreme Court ruling on the Rachel Maddow Show, and said the state is determined to conduct a fair election in 2008. She has wisely offered Ohio voters the option of not using touch screen computers to record their vote. US Person's advice: do not use touch screens if there are alternative means of voting available at your polling place because the technology is simply not 100% reliable.