“To date, the Kansas GOP has identified and caged more voters in the last 11 months than the previous two years!” brags Kansas GOP chairman Kris Kobach in his end-of-year letter.
Blue Tide Rising has the scoop, along with details on what “vote caging” is, for those who don’t know by now. We should note, however, it’s not immediately clear from Kobach’s letter what exactly he means by his use of the term, and if he’s referring to the illegal type of caging or not.
In any case, it’s clear that the undemocratic (small “d”) practice of working to keep Democratic (large “D”) voters off the rolls, through any means necessary, in order to keep them from voting, through any means necessary, has been mainlined as perhaps the top strategy for the GOP in 2008. Even Bush’s Dept. of Justice, under the hand of John “Minorities Die First” Tanner, has now been officially mobilized to direct such practices on behalf of the Republican States of America.
For more, see PBS’s long-overdue video report from last summer, on the GOP’s sordid history of vote caging and the corporate American mainstream media’s failure to cover it when it might have mattered.
Plus, Crooks & Liars has details on the piece of work that is this Kris Kobach, a former counsel to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Hey Brad, I’m going to post on a different subject but this seems important. Can you head over to the ACLU and inform them about E-voting problems?! It’s like they are working of the other side. See the article below.
ACLU Says BOE Voting System Switch Would Violate State Law
POSTED: 12:22 pm EST December 27, 2007
UPDATED: 2:15 pm EST December 27, 2007
[NEWSVINE: ACLU Says BOE Voting System Switch Would Violate State Law
CLEVELAND — A voting rights organization Thursday urged the Cuyahoga County elections board not to make a planned switch to a new voting system for the March presidential primary in Ohio, warning that doing so would violate state law.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio hand delivered a letter to the board urging it to reconsider a Dec. 21 decision to abandon electronic touch-screen voting for a system in which voters fill out paper ballots that are tallied at a central location by an optical scan computer.
After Thursday’s board meeting, ACLU staff attorney Carrie Davis said a lawsuit was possible, depending on decisions the board makes in the next few days.
When will Dems learn that the new paradigm is is it’s all
bout being in your face with the truth & no backin down . . .
#2 JOJ
They still don’t get it.
And it’s mostly the media’s fault at this point in time.
Looking forward to 2008 being a total year of insane chaos. Maybe I can actually get myself locked up for punching someone this year?
Excuse me but isn’t Kansas a heavily republican site? Why would republicans need to cheat?
Kansas
U.S. President — Kansas
Updated 11/24/04 1:59 AM ET
Precincts:100% Incumbent* declared winner
Candidates Votes %
George W. Bush * (R) 717,507 62
John F. Kerry (D) 420,846 36
Other 15,726 1
Just looks like another non-issue.
Noesis,
Some clarification: The article is from Clevland, Ohio. The BOE is in Cuyahoga County, OHIO. This state will be in play in 2008.
Thanks,
KB
Noesis: Maybe they won by that much because of caging? Also, isn’t “illegal…illegal”? Just because Kansas seems to be Republican. doesn’t mean cheating is “OK” because of that. And there’s no excuse for ever disenfranchizing voters.
Brought to you by the ONLY party that disenfranchizes voters: the Republican Party!
Why aren’t people in Kansas rioting in the streets, after this guy’s statements?
good post 🙂
As a Kansan, I’d like to point out that yes, this state has historically been overwhelmingly Republican.
Which really only seems to beg the question why they thought it was necessary to resort to presumably illegal tactics.
Simple. They knew there was a point past which not even Republicans could be relied upon to vote the way they wanted… and they had so passed that point by the time the next election day came around….
LOSE THE SNOWFLAKES, very annoying and distracting!
Well, I live in Kansas and I have been sending this story everywhere I can think of, so thank you Brad for having it posted already.
I want to know what to DO about this. Our local republicans are already saying that this is not illegal, the GOP is just identifying republican voters. Well that doesn’t make any sense because you declare a party when you register here and the registered voter lists are public information. So why in the world would the GOP pay to send registered letters to voters? (I know and I think you do too!)
Should we be demanding an investigation? I contacted the state Dem party and they said contact the media and keep posting this on blogs.
Kris Kobach wants to run for state AG. We need to stop him and his illegal caging. Anyone have any ideas?
I would ask those -like myself- that has read the explanations offered and also the Kansas SOS indicating only poll workers can challenge a voter to consider the following: Ft. Riley, Kansas is a MAJOR army post and many soldiers stationed there are really in Iraq.
While the soldiers may have a local Kansas address, registered mail would be returned as ‘undeliverable’ as the occupant is in Iraq and can’t sign for the registered mail.
I would also mention that the Ft. Riley voting district encompasses much more than just the base.
I would also relate the anecdotal story from a Kansas veteran’s wife (husband in Iraq) of how she was made to feel like an outcast in the 2006 election because she was a Democrat Party voter.
Please don’t think that soldiers are all strong Republican Party voters; the research shows that it is mostly older NCO’s and officers in all the different corps that are ‘solid’ Republican voters.
So by ‘caging’ such veteran’s, the ‘betting’ is that those would be Democrat Party voters.
And poll workers can be given such ‘caging lists’ in case such absentee ballots are submitted for counting.
I may seem cynical, but if it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck and has feathers, probabilities are very high that it is a duck.
Big Dan,
“Noesis: Maybe they won by that much because of caging?”
Dan, please put the kool-aide down. I think we would have heard if there was over 300,000 people who went to vote and couldn’t.
Bruce, I’m ex-military and even most newbies are solidly republican.
And for all you other whiners… please provide proof that the caging that is being performed is the illegal type. That’s like saying that there’s illegal campaign contributions and legal contributions. Just because someone gives a contribution, you don’t suspect that it is illegal… unless it’s to a democrat because usually it is.
Great Post!!
You guys might be interested in another blog post about the Kansas vote caging (plus it mentions Brad blog too!). Here’s the link at EverydayCitizen.com –
Click here:
KS GOP Brags about Vote Caging
at
EverydayCitizen.com
…I wouldn’t doubt that was the case around here. Kansas has some of the most ridiculous ass-backwards people (myself included) 😉 but I also wonder just how much it would work. As far as I could remember, we’ve always had a democrat for a governor. I may be wrong on that… I shall go googling now.
DailyKos also has a thread on this very important and serious allegation of electoral fraud perpetrated by the Kansas GOP.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2.../64/478/426680
This is just another reason why blacks should just start to remove themselves from this political farce. Blacks should tell the whole of the white establishment (democrats also) that if they want this political sham to themselves..they can have it and walk away. Blacks should be organizing and focusing on their needs (poverty, education, crime, drugs etc.) and tell the black politician con man and woman to jump off a cliff for they were elevated to keep them dumb and content in the midst of poverty and exploitation.
If the Venzuelan poor communities can start to organize then blacks can start the same process because, collectively, blacks have much in the way of resources. Marcus Garvey had it right all along.
btw… I guess there are two Pats here, I didn’t write that.