Oct 9, 2008

NYT: Voter Suppression Illegal and Widespread

Update: Montana GOP drops registration challenges
via mal contends - Today's NYT has a piece by Ian Urbina with the not reassuring news that Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has plenty of company in using the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to try to suppress voters.

On Monday, the Ohio Republican Party filed a motion in federal court against the secretary of state to get the list of all names that have been flagged by the Social Security database since Jan. 1. The motion seeks to require that any voter who does not clear up a discrepancy be required to vote using a provisional ballot.

As the brief filed by Milwaukee Branch of NAACP and the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association reads in Von Hollen's suppression scheme:


A provisional ballot is a second-class vote. The voter leaves the polling place not knowing whether his or her vote will count. He or she will only find out by calling a toll-free number or checking a website. If the answer is that the vote was not counted, the voter will be given a reason, but by then it will be too late to correct. That voter will have been directly and absolutely deprived of the right to vote without a meaningful remedy.

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