Re: [DMCForum] Re: Tampa tech session

[Bob Brandys <BobB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

  I found the following article very interesting because my son was 
personally involved.   2 year ago we were at a shopping center in 
Orlando Park Illinois which is a republican area of Illinois.   Well, 
there was a voter registration table, so we decided that since my son 
was 18, this would be a great opportunity to get him registered.  So he 
filled out the registration from and then started to talked politics 
with the registration person.

Illinois requires you to register you political affiliation.   When he 
read my sons form, he said "Oh, I see you are a democrat?"  So my sons 
explained he reasoning based on some book he has read by Daniel Quinn.   
We thought the question was unusual, but thought nothing of it at the time.

2 month later when it came time to vote, Guess who was not 
registered??????  
Did the repugnican voter registrar  throw away my sons Democratic 
registration?   Well, it certainly just did not disappear into another 
dimension.  

This summer we registered him again.  Only this time over the interent 
-directly with the election commissioner's website.   He will finally be 
able to vote this time - because he now has his voter card.  

When reading the article below the only question I walked away with is 
"Are all these people lying or is something going on here?"  Clearly, 
the US is not a "free" democracy or this stuff would never happen.   
 Unfortunately, this litigation will not go through the legal system 
until after the election.  Too bad for those democrats who wanted to vote.

One last story for today.   How many of you saw the story in the WSJ 
about 2 months ago about the Repugnican campaign operative  in a Detroit 
suburb that PLEADED GUILTY to election tampering in the last election.   
This repugnican party official  had all of his campaign workers 
constantly calling the phones at the democratic local office to prevent 
the democrats from calling people and reminding them to go vote.  Gee, 
No Democrat was ever investigated or pleaded to guilty for doing such a 
thing.  

Was this a prelude to one of the games going to played in this election. 
 One of my Republican friends told me that they learned from this 
experience not to use US phones.  They will do the calling from off 
shore where it is not illegal!!!!  (Thanks for the update Mike!)

"You are only as free, as they let you be."

BOB



GOP Voter Drive Accused of Tossing Cards


AP Photo NY385

By DEBORAH HASTINGS

AP National Writer

In several battleground states across the country, a consulting firm 
funded by the Republican National Committee has been accused of 
deceiving would-be voters and destroying Democratic voter registration 
cards.

Arizona-based Sproul & Associates is under investigation in Oregon and 
Nevada over claims that canvassers hired by the company were instructed 
to register only Republicans and to get rid of registration forms 
completed by Democrats.

``We treat these complaints very seriously,'' said Oregon Secretary of 
State Bill Bradbury. The Democratic office-holder said three complaints 
were filed with election officials throughout the state. He declined to 
provide details, citing the continuing investigation.

Substitute teacher Adam Banse wanted a summer job with flexible hours, 
so he signed up to knock on doors in suburban Minneapolis and register 
people to vote.

He quit after two hours. ``They said if you bring back a bunch of 
Democratic cards, you'll be fired,'' Banse contends. ``At that point, I 
said, `Whoa. Something's wrong here.'''

Nathan Sproul, a former head of Arizona's Republican Party and the 
state's Christian Coalition branch, denies any wrongdoing and accuses 
Democrats of making things up.

``This is all about making accusations,'' Sproul said Thursday. ``They 
allege fraud where none exists and get the media to cover it.''

Republican National Committee spokeswoman Heather Layman responded that 
her party accepts all voters, and she accused the Democratic Party of 
operating under this mandate: ``If no sign of voter fraud exists, make 
it up, manipulate the media into covering baseless charges and spread 
fear.''

Sproul declined to name the states in which his company conducted 
registration drives. His political consulting firm was founded last year 
and has received nearly $500,000 from the RNC since July, according to 
federal election records.

Former canvassers such as Banse have come forward in West Virginia, 
Pennsylvania, Nevada and Oregon in the past two weeks alleging they were 
told to register only Republicans and to ``walk away'' from people who 
said they intended to vote for Democrat John Kerry.

Some said Democratic registration forms had been thrown out or ripped up.

It is illegal to tamper with voter registration cards, which are 
numbered and issued by local election officials. In some states, 
including Oregon, such acts are felonies.

Eric Russell of Las Vegas told The Associated Press that he watched a 
Sproul supervisor tear up eight to 10 registration forms completed by 
Democrats and managed to grab some of the shredded documents as 
evidence. State officials are investigating his claim.

Russell said that Voters Outreach of America, the name under which 
Sproul employees operated in Nevada and other states, owes him hundreds 
of dollars for registering residents but refuses to pay him.

Sproul called Russell simply a disgruntled employee.

Prompted by Russell's accusations, Clark County Democrats unsuccessfully 
went to court last week to try to persuade a state judge to reopen voter 
registration in their county, which encompasses Las Vegas.

In West Virginia, Lisa Bragg said she refused a sorely needed $9-an-hour 
job to register voters after attending an orientation session conducted 
by Sproul employees.

Like Banse in Minnesota, she said canvassers were discouraged from 
registering Democrats and were told to misrepresent themselves as poll 
takers.

Bragg, who filed a complaint earlier this week with the West Virginia 
secretary of state's office, said Friday that canvassers were given a 
script that read at the bottom, ``Our goal is to register Republicans.''

She called the registration drive dishonest, adding, ``I believe 
everyone has the right to vote. Even though I'm a Democrat, I would have 
registered Republicans to vote.''

In Pennsylvania, Democrats in the state House of Representatives have 
asked the attorney general to investigate complaints from former Sproul 
canvassers who said they had been instructed to not register Democrats. 
About 40 to 50 also complained they had not been promptly paid.

In Pittsburgh, library patrons protested that Sproul employees were 
pressuring people to register as Republicans at tables set up outside a 
Carnegie Library branch.

A similar incident was reported in Oregon in September, when the manager 
of Medford library headquarters refused a Sproul request to register 
voters after learning the firm was affiliated with Republicans.


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