Election irregularities hint at possible 2000 repeat

The extreme right wing is working overtime to suppress the vote and deny the first major-party African-American candidate the opportunity to become president. Election specialists and news reports have identified more than a dozen states where accusations of voter suppression and election rigging may determine the outcome of the presidential race. The battleground states of Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, Florida and West Virginia are among those states where Republican Party operatives have attempted to override the choices of voters and secure a McCain victory on Election Day.

The activity in many states is restricted to technically legal, although constitutionally questionable, voter suppression tactics. In some states, however, it appears that the right wing is attempting outright vote theft.

Six voters in two West Virginia counties have reported that electronic voting machines visibly changed their vote to John McCain when they tried to cast their vote for Barack Obama. Retired factory worker Calvin Thomas claims that “When I went in, I pushed Obama and Biden. It immediately went up to McCain on the Republican ticket.” According to Thomas, his daughter had the same problem and it required complaining to an election worker in order to get the vote to register for Obama. (cnn.com)

Shelba Ketchum, a 69-year-old retired nurse, reported similar problems when she attempted to vote. According to Ketchum, “I pushed buttons and they all came up Republican. I hit Obama and it switched to McCain. I am really concerned about that. If McCain wins, there was something wrong with the machines.” Ketchum says that she requested a printout verification of her votes and that the election workers said it was not possible to obtain one. (Charleston Gazette, Oct. 18)

Thousands of voters in Georgia and Florida have been declared ineligible to vote. In Georgia more than 50,000 voters were improperly purged from the voting rolls. Approximately 4,500 of them have been wrongly identified as noncitizens.

The state of Georgia is being sued for violating federal laws that prohibit massive purging within 90 days of an election. “People are being targeted, and people are being told they are noncitizens, including both naturalized citizens and U.S.-born citizens,” said Elise Shore, regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. “They’re being told they’re not eligible to vote, based on information in a database that hasn’t been checked and approved by the Department of Justice, and that we know has flaws in it.” (cnn.com)

The Ohio Republican Party attempted to force election officials in that state to engage in a similar purge of voting lists. In a lawsuit that made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, Ohio Republicans requested that the courts make the state’s secretary of state generate a list of mismatched names and purge those voters from the rolls. The Supreme Court sided with the secretary of state who claimed that such a list would possibly disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters.

In Indiana the fight has centered on access to early voting sites. Republican officials filed a lawsuit to close down early voting sites in three key Indiana cities—Hammond, Gary and East Chicago. Indiana’s population is only eight percent Black, but Black voters are heavily concentrated in the three cities targeted by the lawsuit.

Recent polls demonstrate that Obama has built up a considerable lead in enough states to secure the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the election. The voter suppression efforts in key states appear designed to install a McCain presidency despite the preferences of voters.