Voter Fraud: The GOP Witch Hunt

Recently, two large frauds within the Republican voter suppression effort this year have surfaced, which are proving far more serious than any of the alleged shenanigans which have been used to justify these measures. To cover the entirety of the vigorous voter suppression effort on the Right would require a far longer article than this, however, I will be focusing in on two very ugly details: Strategic Allied Consulting and voter suppression vigilantes like True the Vote.

Republicans have ended the voter drives in Nevada, Florida, Colorado, Virginia and North Carolina. Why would they do such a thing? Because the firm they hired, Strategic Allied Consulting, the only company the Republican Party had running registration campaigns in these states, has been rocked by scandal after scandal. This election year, voter suppression law after voter suppression law rolled out, many of which have been struck down as unconstitutional by the courts, all to catch fraud; so far the only fraud that has been proven has been on their side.

Strategic Allied Consulting was accused of fraud during the 2008 campaign. They allegedly paid bonuses for non-Democratic registrations and destroyed hundreds if not thousands of Democratic registrations in Oregon. This leads voters who believed they registered to go to the polls only to find that their registration wasn't completed.

Strategic Allied Consulting was known to be dirty to the Republican National Convention, rocked by scandals long before the RNC recommended them to consult for various state Republican Parties. The firm is headed by the former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party and was the sole company hired for the "Get Out The Vote" effort in many important swing states, leaving the Republican voter drive in dire straights.

Aside from the official voter fight that the Republican Party has poured money into, there's an unofficial disenfranchisement effort underway by organizations such as True the Vote. True the Vote is a Tea Party organization, and pushing for Mitt Romney while claiming to be a nonpartisan organization. For example, they aggressively targeted hundred of college students, claiming that they cannot vote because they failed to specify a dorm room number. The names they choose to challenge are disproportionately from trailer parks, dorms and other likely-Democratic voters. Their claims have been debunked wherever they've been filed, however, chasing down these names takes time and energy away from other duties election officials have this close to the election.

True the Vote, which has its roots in a Tea Party group (the King Street Patriots), has an obvious political agenda: block Obama from a second term by disenfranchising his support. It's become obvious enough that Congress is stepping in with an investigation, however, any changes won't take affect until after the election.

The unofficial efforts by Republicans dovetail nicely with the voter suppression effort pushed in swing states across the country, from the voter purges of Florida to the ID laws proposed in Pennsylvania. When all of the various efforts to make voting more complicated, difficult, costly, inconvenient or confusing are listed, there is no doubt that there has been a concerted effort on the Right to attack the voting rights of any demographic that is likely to vote for Obama under the guise of preventing voter fraud. When the GOP is implicated in funding fraudulent registrations and has voter fraud committed on it's behalf, it undermines the already transparently-fraudulent witch hunt that it's been on for the past year to find the voter fraud to justify it's voter suppression policies.

 

 

 

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Comments

[samnorris]

12:11 AM on 10/22/2012

This is why I fully support that the entire country go to a mail only voter ballot. It's done in the state where I live and has been done for years. I feel safe as I can fill it out in the privacy of my home & I can either take it to the post office, drop it in a drop box (though I personally don't trust this method as it could be tampered with), or dropped it off at the election's office. It's very convienent. It would eliminate all the problems with chads and equipment failures, etc. I also thing it would greatly decrease the chances of voter fraud or intimidation. This article greatly disturbs me. SERIOUSLY THE REPUBLICANS SEEM H___ BENT ON STEALING THIS ELECTION IF THEY CAN'T WIN IT FAIR AND SQUARE, JUST LIKE THEY DID IN 2000. Do they have no shame? How do they sleep at night?

[509Rat]

08:07 PM on 10/22/2012

absentee mail in ballots aren't bulletproof. Here's another example of the voter fraud that supposedly doesn't exist...voter fraud in Arkansas using mail in ballots:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/09/05/Arkansas-Democrats-Plead-Guilty-To-Voter-Fraud

[samnorris]

12:18 AM on 10/23/2012

Absentee mail voting is different that all mail voting, which Arkansas does not so. Oregon & Washington, and I think New Hampshere are the only states who do all mail ballot voting. Other states do some partial for local elections and that sort of thing. But yeah, if someone if H___ bent of committing voter fraud they'll find a way to get it done - sad though.

[carolo]

01:50 AM on 10/21/2012

The RNC has hired this company knowing full well what they do. They change their name when they get the heat and are hired again by the RNC to work in the next election. They worked for Bush, Cain and now Romney. Only known is the voter fraud in this election.

[mediamancolo]

01:02 PM on 10/11/2012

In Colorado, the registration deadline for the upcoming election was Midnight, Oct 10th (in other words, the 9th for those of you who are "AM/PM" challenged). That's why!

[rafaelkafka]

06:01 PM on 10/10/2012

Okeefe proved voter fraud again, with new videos of dnc workers helping 2 reporters to vote twice.

[Irishinbahston]

08:17 PM on 10/11/2012

This would still only be two incidents, not enough to validate disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of people in a way that probably may not even prevent this type of fraud