Election 2012

Food for Sleepless Thought

Maybe all the Republican whiny diaper crying about the polls is cover for the disenfranchisement effort. Maybe I'm paranoid, but this is a chilling thought -- and nothing should be left up to chance.

Nine Republican governors have the power to put Mitt Romney in the White House, even if Barack Obama wins the popular vote.

With their secretaries of state, they control the electronic vote count in nine key swing states: Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Arizona, and New Mexico. Wisconsin elections are under the control of the state’s Government Accountability Board, appointed by the governor.

In tandem with the GOP’s massive nation-wide disenfranchisement campaign, they could—-in the dead of election night—-flip their states’ electronic votes to Romney and give him a victory in the Electoral College.

Thankfully, resistance has arisen to the disenfranchisement strategy, which seems designed to deny millions of suspected Democrats the right to vote. The intent to demand photo ID for voting could result in some ten million Americans being disenfranchised, according to the Brennan Center at New York University. Other methods are being used to strip voter rolls—-as in Ohio, where 1.1 million citizens have been purged from registration lists since 2009. This “New Jim Crow”—-personified by groups like True the Vote (New York Times Article)—-could deny the ballot to a substantial percentage of the electorate in key swing states.

This massive disenfranchisement has evoked a strong reaction from voting rights activists, a number of lawsuits, major internet traffic and front page and editorial coverage in the New York Times.

The proof will be presented on Election Day, either refuting the paranoia or confirming it. Meanwhile, vigilance, activism and GOTV are the only tools we have to fight it.

(via John Cole)