Needlenose

…by striking down ridiculous Confederate attempts to suppress the minority vote.  And the Reactionaries in the House are gonna need any vote they can steal, given how pissed off the people are at them right now….

*Update 12-24-11 – Worse than Jim Crow!!!

Film Critic Buddy signed up to work the polls in Hamilton County, Ohio.  In case you’ve forgotten, he’s the guy who got his vote suppressed.  Already getting some bad news from him:

Hey, Greenboy.

it’s happening! Machines are broken here, and being shut down, and also somebody turned away someone illegally. I reminded the poll worker about the law. Grrr! There are scanner machines here but a paper ballot.

It’s going to be rough.

 

*Update* – other sources confirm voting is fucked up in Hamilton County. Again. Details of voting issues in NE Ohio.

The Dems are fighting back the Repug attempt to disenfrachise voters in swing states.  They won a minor battle to restore some registrations in Michigan and surprisingly of new voters in Ohio - surprisingly because the legal fight went up to the SCOTUS which ruled against the Greasy Old Pigs!  Guess Shrubya’s buddies don’t care for McCain.

Looks like the reactionaries are pulling the same ‘trash Democratic registrations‘ scam that worked so effectively for them in 2004.  Seriously, this shit will continue until we change the law to make this activity a felony involving serious prison time, rather than letting these bastards off with petty-cash fines.

But the thuggish actions of shadowy Repug proxy groups pales in comparison to the “official” attempts to disenfranchise potential Democratic voters in swing states on the part of well-placed Repug operatives:

States have been trying to follow the Help America Vote Act of 2002 by removing the names of voters who should no longer be listed. But for every voter added to the rolls in the past two months in some states, election officials have removed two, a review of the records shows.

The newspaper said it identified apparent problems in Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina. It says some states are improperly using Social Security data to verify new voters’ registration applications, and others may have broken rules that govern removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election.

It has proved surpisingly easy for the Repugs to manipulate a few thousand votes in a few counties in a few swing states in the previous two elections without causing riots. The bottom line is that Obama needs to do what Kerry and Gore were unable to do in ’04 and ’00 – win by a margin large enough in the swing states to prevent the Repugs from winning by theft, say 10%.

So keep up the hard work, ignore the pundits already calling an Obama victory – winning the swing states isn’t enough, he needs to win big in those states.