Ohio Republicans Oppose Voting

From the The New York Times

Party officials say their effort is necessary to guard against fraud arising from aggressive moves by the Democrats to register tens of thousands of new voters in Ohio, seen as one of the most pivotal battlegrounds in the Nov. 2 elections.

How dare the Democrats be so aggressive as to register thousands of new voters!

And the Republicans say that contesting signatures by Mickey Mouse is repression.

The organized left's efforts to, quote unquote, register voters - I call them ringers - have created these problems," said James P. Trakas, a Republican co-chairman in Cuyahoga County.

The "qoute unquote" is my favorite part.

Look, I'm sure these Republican lawyers will find problems. Since in Ohio thousands of registration forms have been outlawed, surely some now un-registered (perhaps dis-registered is a better word) voters will show up in places where they're (now) not registered (anymore). And yes, I've heard the story about somebody accepting crack for returned registration forms. Tell me, when the information on those forms doesn't check out and is impossible to include on the voter lists, how're you gonna get outlaw voters? If the info checks out, then you've got another regitstered voter-- crack addicts get to vote too. Sounds like it was somebody trying to meet their quota to me. I don't condone the actions, but I still want as many people as possible to participate in our democracy. Just because the voter was bribed to regiester doesn't mean that person shouldn't be able to vote.

The bigger problem is this: These election-checkers will be in primarily Democratic areas, and could possibly cause two tremendous problems:

1. They check so many people, unreasonably, as to slow down the voting. Most of those folks will be voting before or after work, or on thier lunchbreak, and can't spend all their time waiting in line while a Republican checks every voter in line for proof that they've lived in Ohio for more than 30 days.

2. They will tie up the results in these districts, the primarily Democratic ones, in court for days and days. While that happens, the numbers from the primarily Republican districts will come in loud and clear. As the votes in Ohio for Bush mount, and votes for Kerry continue to come into question, there will be a vicious attack, reminiscent of 2000's accusations of people voting two or 10 times, and accusations of the Kerry campaign lining up crack addicts to vote in places where they don't live. There will be continued pressure to accept the vote count as it is, and the country won't care much, since it'd be just those bribed crack addicts who were trying to vote for Kerry, not honest, hardworking folk.

--This just in: a judge in Ohio has just ruled that provisional ballots should not be issued to voters who are in the wrong precinct.

And what if, pray tell me, a voter has been accidentally left off the voter list or has recently moved? A provisional ballot doesn't have to be counted unless it's found the person is really a voter in that precinct, so why not just give one to anyone who wants one?--

People should not be allowed to vote twice, of course. But the Republicans' actions in Ohio won't stop that, it will just eliminate the legitimacy of every vote cast for John Kerry, and disenfranchise those who have the most to lose.