Thursday, October 09, 2008

Voter Suppression Efforts in Montana

Update: The Montana state GOP withdrew its efforts to challenge 6,000 Montana voters in mostly Democratic districts on Tuesday. In a federal suit filed Monday by the Democratic Party seeking a restraining order, Judge Donald Malloy (the same judge that granted a TRO against the wolf slaughter in the northern Rockies) scolded the state party for attempting to challenge voters who filed a change of address form with the USPS writing in his order,"The timing of these challenges is so transparent that it defies common sense to believe the purpose is anything but political chicanery." Judge Malloy also said that state GOP director Jacob Eaton "ingnored" the law that answered his challenges. (Help America Vote Act of 2002). The Judge ruled that a TRO was not necessary since the Secretary of State, Brad Johnson (a Republican) had directed election offices to ignore the challenges. Ouch!

{10/02/08}The Democratic Party is making a concerted effort to win western states to offset the solid (now Republican) south. Montana has traditionally been a red state, but demographic trends are turning it blue. Democratic activists are engaged in a massive registration effort there and it is bringing results. The Billings Gazette reports 36,000 new voters on the roles this year and most of those are Democratic. But the GOP is attempting to counter the get-out-the-vote campaign with something it does best: vote suppression. The state Republican party challenged the eligibility of 6,000 voters who filed a change of address form at the US Postal Service in the last 18 months. All of the challenged voters are in heavily Democratic districts. More than half live or lived in Missoula County. The party cross-referenced the relatively new statewide voter database with the National Change of Address database, a commercial software system for direct marketers, in order to identify electors who aren't living where they are registered to vote. The targeted counties had the highest number of discrepancies. In Missoula County that means 3,422 voters have to prove they are still living where their voter registration says they are living or be prepared to vote a provisional ballot on November 4th. Only twice before in the last 15 years has the Missoula elections office had any voters' eligibility challenged. Its a brave new world in big sky country.