Lose Your Home, Lose Your Vote

[filkertom]

In my own state.

They're going to use foreclosure records to challenge peoples' voting eligibility.

They want to win. They want power. That's all. Nothing else matters. Certainly not basic human decency.

Will these bastards get it through their heads that we are all Americans, we are all in this together, and doing this to people screws up the entire country? Even on the basis of the nouveau feudal system some of them want to institute.

Hateful motherfuckers.

Comments

[maiac.livejournal.com]

I have the misfortune to live in the state Senate district "represented" by John Pappageorge, who said a few years ago that for the Republicans to take back the state, they'd have to suppress "the Detroit vote".

It appalls me that a political party's strategy for winning elections is to prevent people from voting. It appalls me more that so few people seem to realize the implications.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

While this is nothing new in history (USA and almost everywhere else), I am ashamed that people are *still* stooping to such tactics. Unsurprised, perhaps -- I live near DC after all, where the local pols do it a lot -- but ashamed nonetheless.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a foreclosure survivor, I find this reprehensible.

I think they are over-thinking this, as far as "the race card" is concerned. Anybody who was forced out of their home due to the sub-prime mortgage affair is concerned is less likely to vote Republican in my opinion. You don't have to be African-American to be affected in this way. I should know.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

The newspaper is playing the race card because it suits their purpose to do so.

On the face of it, the tactic appears aimed at a group of people who would vote against the Republicans *regardless* of skin color. Which doesn't mitigate the sliminess of it.

(BTW -- hello again! It was good to meet you a few weeks ago while I was out on that side of the continent.)

[capplor.livejournal.com]

It took a few decades but the poll tax & the "Citizenship test" which they used to use against the blacks in the South got repealed. I just hope to hell that this one can be fought in the courts a whole lot quicker.

& furthermore

[capplor.livejournal.com]

Even my Republican MiL, who is visiting us, finds this reprehensible & underhanded. She's heard your story Tom & agrees that this is just plain wrong.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... that is a pretty low tactic. I'm not familiar enough with the procedures for Michigan poll workers to have a good sense of how effective this is going to be. I know that if these yahoos turned up at my precinct in Maryland where I'm the chief election judge I'd let them play their silly games (because I have to) and then I'd give every person who *had* been foreclosed a provisional ballot so they could vote in the statewide and national elections anyway. The only things they'd be prohibited from voting in would be the county elections, provided they had actually moved out of the county. As long as they're still residents of the state, they have a right to vote in the state and national elections on our ballot.

That'd still cause a fairly major PITA, since I have exactly one Provisional Ballot judge who can oversee one provisional voter at a time, but at least I'd get them all voted eventually.

If you have a chance, try calling the county voting registrar's office and asking how Michigan's election officials are planning to deal with this.

[maiac.livejournal.com]

Michigan's secretary of state was George W. Bush's state campaign chair in 2004. Does that tell you how the process will be overseen? She's issued rules that prevent elections workers from asking the reason why a challenger issues a challenge. So the challengers can basically challenge anybody they want to, claiming that they have reasonable grounds to do so, and the elections workers will have no basis to say, "No you don't, get out of the way so this person can vote."

As the article points out, the challenges don't just disenfranchise the people directly challenged. They slow down the voting process so that many people will have to leave the precinct before they get a chance to vote. They create an atmosphere of intimidation, too. The last couple of elections, Republican operatives went through the lines of voters, telling them it was illegal to vote if they were behind in their child-support payments or other debts and similar lies.

What especially angers me is that some people dismiss these tactics with a cynical "both sides do it, in Republican precincts you'll find Democrats trying to stop people from voting." No. It's not "both sides" doing it. The Democrats don't send challengers to precincts. They don't send out registered letters to new voters and then challenge the registration of anyone who wasn't home to sign for the letter or who refused it because they didn't know who sent it. They don't send people out to intimidate voters standing in line. They don't make bogus claims of fraudulent voting under false identities or voting by noncitizens. Majority-Republican neighborhoods don't get targeted with flyers announcing incorrect dates for Election Day or warning that it's illegal to vote if you're not a native-born American. People in majority-Republican neighborhoods don't go to their usual polling place to find out it's no longer a polling place and there's no information on the new location. Democrats don't propose laws specifically intended to make it more difficult for people to register and vote.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

They're trying their best to steal this election. Perhaps it's time to resort to some variety of civil disobedience... they're not playing by the rules. I don't propose to harm anyone permanently.... but I'd sure like to f--- up those bastards' plans, by whatever means are needful.

[zellion.livejournal.com]

If you think of something good let us know because I am in the same boat, and have had it up to here, and am terrified for my future life and that of my children.

[delazan.livejournal.com]

In my home state of Wisconsin, where we still have paper ballots, our own attorney general is trying to challenge the voter registration lists. Of course, he's a republican.
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/304339
-L.

[capplor.livejournal.com]

So find cause & sue him in court, noisily & publicly. Hitting their wallets tends to stop them like nothing else will.

[phillip2637.livejournal.com]

Ignorance of U.S.A. law and procedure at work over here: are 'challenge' and 'stop' the same thing in this context? ...or are they mostly the same for *practical* purposes because of delay and confusion? (IOW, can a 'challenge' be successfully answered?)

[crwilley.livejournal.com]

Yes - the voter will have to prove that he or she is, despite the challenge, a legal resident of the precinct. In 2004, there was a coalition of activist groups that made lawyers available, either on the phone or in person at some precincts, to help people whose registration was challenged, and I think the Kerry campaign also had a hotline and a team of lawyers for people to get help voting. I volunteered at a targeted precinct (just handing out flyers), and I got the impression that the vast majority people who went into the precinct intending to vote actually did so; I remember a small number who left in frustration and one guy who was just screwed because of a badly-timed move.

There's also the option for a "provisional" ballot (I believe you cast a specially-marked ballot, and then come back to the clerk's office later with your proof of residency), but in many precincts those are never counted.

[herminia.livejournal.com]

This is so sick and wrong.

[markbernstein.livejournal.com]

The only lighter thought I can get out of this is conflating it with this week's Doonesbury strips, and envisioning McCain being disenfranchised as a result of his fake foreclosure. :)

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Well, we know he's got multiple houses...wonder if any of 'em have ever been foreclosed on?

[ladyskada.livejournal.com]

Seriously? That's not legal, is it? I mean, the "white male property owner" requirement went off the books a good century ago, right?
What about people like me, who rent? Are we next?

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

The key isn't "property owner" so much as "proof of residency". What with the recent spate of foreclosures, the intention is to "prove" that a large number of folks don't live in the state where they do, so that they have no right to vote.

If you rent, and have proof of residence (usually a utility bill in your name works), you're okay. Until the next set of dirty tricks gets imagined.

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

Wow. "Beyond the pale" doesn't begin to describe this.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

I see that "We the People" has reverted to "We, the Landowners".

As others have pointed out, "We, the White Landowners" has largely been dealt with, and the Jim Crow laws that enabled it struck down. Largely.

Doesn't mean nobody ever tries to resurrect it.

But let's be honest, here. Let's call a spade a spade. This is but one step of many, taken in this election and others, to render it as "We, the Republicans".

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Add this to the many efforts being put forth by the Republicans to disenfranchise college students (challenging their right to vote at their school addresses, for example), and this election is going to be a serious mess.

I still have faith that it can be won, but boy, do these sleazebags need to have the rocks they're hiding under turned over, and the press is still largely failing its responsibility to do that.

[wildcard9.livejournal.com]

Gee, I could have sworn that you did NOT need to be a land owner to have the right to vote here. That would mean anyone who lives in an apartment or rents a condo/house is not a resident and can not vote. What utter rubbish!!

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Addendum:

These bastards are deathly afraid of losing their power. They're afraid of the opposing party inheriting the greatly-expanded Executive Branch. Every time that branch grew in power, it was with the assumption that the party occupying it would continue to do so.

Now there's a possibility McCain -- or as I like to call him, "W 2.0" -- won't ascend the throne. There's a chance that all the power they've vested in the Oval Office might fall into the opposition's hands.

And that. Scares. Them. Shitless.

So we should be apalled, but not surprised, at what they're willing to do to hold on to that power. Not surprised in the least.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

W 2.0

"King" George III

[madmanotl.livejournal.com]

You said it best. They want power. Michigan is an important state to win for the presidency and everyone knows that and people are willing to pick on those with the most difficult situations who need help most to try to get their way.

In our society where voters need to be registered, it has been common practice for years and will probably be for years to come to try to declare certain voters inelgible.

Though I understand why some people are trying to declare others inelgible since their residency has changed, it makes me sick.

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

That is SO bogus. I can't believe that this kind of this really happens. It's a really sorry state of affairs. Leaves me mostly speechless, or at least inarticulate.

[darrenzieger.livejournal.com]

To answer your question: no.

These people are sociopaths; in many cases violent sociopaths with the same fundamental psychological makeup as the average serial killer (google George W. Bush + frogs + firecrackers), only, in true American corporo-fascist tradition, they choose to outsource the mass murder to the U.S. armed forces and Blackwater.

They don't if what they're doing damages or even destroys the nation. And I mean they literally don't care one way or the other.

If it were their goal, they'd already be celebrating, because for all intents and purposes they have achieved it. They've eviscerated the Constitution, weakened our standing and influence and competitiveness on the world stage to the point where we're a superpower in name only, and they've done such profound and extensive damage to the U.S. economy (the mortgage crisis is the tip of the iceberg) that even if the next administration was given unchecked power to enact changes in economic policy, and did everything right, we'd still be fucked.

No, American democracy -- to the extent that it truly exists, is of no concern to these people. The disenfranchisement of the general populace and our slide toward a feudal economy is just a side-benefit of the process, making it ever easier to massively transfer wealth upward into the hands of -- I'm guessing at the number -- a few hundred multi-multi-multi billionaires.

This is why we are in Iraq. It is why we were in Vietnam. It is why we shunned Castro. It is why we put Pinochet in power, and funded the Contras. This is in fact all the "red scare" was ever really about. Leftist governments don't exploit their workers enough to satisfy the major corporations.

No, I don't think I've wandered off-topic here ... ;)

Paddy Chayefsky had it right in his stunningly prescient 1976 screenplay for "Network." At a pivotal moment in the film, network executive Arthur Jensen (played by Ned Beatty in what may be finest moment of his distinguished career), explains to the mentally deteriorating anchorman turned TV prophet Howard Beale, just how the world really works.

You can watch the clip on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AI8mC8XucY. If you don't have access to YouTube at the moment, here's the text:

--------------------

Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear?! You think you've merely stopped a business deal -- that is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. It is ecological balance.

You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples.

There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, Reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet.

That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU WILL ATONE!

Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen, and howl about America and democracy.

There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state -- Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do.

We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business.

The world is a business, Mr. Beale! It has been since man crawled out of the slime.

=================================

Sorry for the overlong post. Too much free time on my hands.

[darrenzieger.livejournal.com]

...here's a better link to the scene. The other one has a screwed up aspect ratio.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeCMSLP3Wy8

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

"Democracy is not for the people."

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

What did you expect?

In majority-black precincts in Cleveland, Jacksonville and St. Louis, they already hired people in 2004 and 2006 to go and challenge every vote whatsoever, for the sole purpose of causing delays and making the line long enough that people will be discouraged and leave without voting. Because this happened in such widely divergent locations, it seems likely this was part of a nationally coordinated campaign in swing states.

In majority latino-precincts in Arizona in 2006, some men in trenchcoats and dark glasses were hired to stand near the entrances of polling places and just take pictures of all latinos. That one might have been local.

In Chicago and Baltimore, fliers were put up reminding people to vote on a date that was two to seven days AFTER the actual election date.

In 2002, Republicans purposely jammed the phone lines of Democratic Headquarters personnel who were trying to call and remind people to vote. They got fined a few thousand for this, but John Sunununu was declared the winner of a close election for US Senate.

Greg Palast's book "Armed Madhouse" is a good start for info on Republican vote-suppression efforts.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

This makes no sense to me. Even if people's houses are foreclosed, they're still residents of the area, aren't they?

And why would anyone vote for politicians who behave so cruelly, like the evil landlords of a Victorian melodrama?

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

The idea is to intimidate them into not casting a ballot. If you're registered to vote, you legally can, period, not one shred of an exception. But if you don't know that, and people start talking to you about jail time or other nastiness if you attempt to vote, you're more likely to stay home.

[pjhandley.livejournal.com]

ok, not to beat a dead horse here, but if you received your pre-foreclosure notice in July of 2008, you have 6 months to "redeem or sell", meaning most of those folks are still residents of the city/township/county/state until January of 2009. We received our pre-foreclosure notice (from Trott & Trott) in May of 08, and have "land ownership rights" until November 29, 2008. Well past the election deadline. Meaning that we can still vote in Scio Township, where we have been registered to vote for the last 6 years.

[kilbia.livejournal.com]

But you see, the GOP isn't going to tell people *that* little detail. And given how many people honestly believe that a landlord can tell you to be out of a property in 48 hours or be arrested, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of foreclosure victims will believe this newest line of crap if it is stated with sufficient conviction in the voice.

[saganth.livejournal.com]

OK... I am truly and genuinely scared now. If the Republican Party is really going to be so openly brazen to bully people, bully the media that might expose them on a national level, and use the most un-American of tactics to continue to rule America... Jesus. George Carlin once said on Keith Olbermann's show that this country is finished. I'm starting to think Carlin was right. Unless the Democrats somehow manage to win (and that's not helped any by liberals, like some of my friends, who claim that "Obama scares the shit out of them" - like McCain and the RNC doesn't???), the future of this nation and its people may be very bleak indeed. I said it before and I'll say it again: How's Canada looking these days?

Keep in the vote

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's not just Michigan (http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/two-ground-games-by-dday-ive-written.html). I still say that we'd be better off if voting was both an obligation and a right of citizenship and any attempts to interfere with the process were severely punished.

Re: Keep in the vote

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear.

[birder2.livejournal.com]

It ain't gonna happen in MY precinct--I'M the election judge!

[robin-june.livejournal.com]

Good!

Go for it!

And Thank you.