True the Vote's 2011 tax returns: The group wouldn't say who made these contributions.
However big its effect becomes on the 2012 election, True the Vote began as a relatively small effort started and supported by a Tea Party chapter in Texas. The group's stated mission is to train enough poll-watchers so a million volunteers are ready for November, enough to have at least one watcher in every precinct in America. A leader in True the Vote says the effect for voters should be "like driving and seeing the police following you." Meanwhile, in the months leading up to the general election, True the Vote has been challenging voter registrations in individual states.
True the Vote describes itself as mainly a grassroots effort. A couple weeks back, organizers of True the Vote sent their 2011 tax returns, from which we learned that the group got a few large contributions, but still took in only $136,957 that year. Though we still don't know what True the Vote has taken in this year, a terrific report by the New York Times gives a glimpse of the outfit works. In swing-state Ohio, for instance, much depends on a True the Vote partner named the Ohio Voter Integrity Project. From the Times:
[V]olunteers, known as the Ohio Voter Integrity Project, submitted challenges of 380 registered voters in Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati. One of the voters, Teresa Sharp, received a notice from her local Board of Elections stating that her family’s right to vote had been challenged and ordering her to attend a hearing on Sept. 10.
"I've always voted," said Ms. Sharp, who had even been a poll worker. "Never had any problem."
At the hearing, she said she asked, "Why are you all harassing me?" She said she believed it was because "either they don’t want Obama in there or the fact that I'm black."
The Times notes that the Ohio Voter Integrity Project ended up taking back its challenge and apologizing to the family. So that was one, but Ohio Voter Integrity Project is challenging many, many registrations. The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that True the Vote claims to have identified 730,000 suspect registrations in Ohio, 68,000 of them in local Hamilton County. As the Cincinnati paper reports it, the success rate on those challenges has not been high. The Ohio Voter Integrity Project filed papers as a "social welfare" nonprofit in April, which means we might be able to see tax returns from the project at some point, but probably not right away.
(See also our colleague Zach Roth's great reporting on voting rights in Ohio.)
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Republicans assaulting the right to vote should not be a surprise, they do not believe in the democratic process to begin with. Republicans are at heart royalist and plutocrats who believe they have a God given right to rule others lives. It really is no more difficult than that.
I don't see why the Board of Elections is allowing the challenging of voters. The burden of proof should be on the Voter Integrity group to present evidence showing why the voter is being challenged. The Board should be able to discard any challenge that has no factual basis for the challenge or appears to be racially motivated since that would violate the voters Constitutional rights, federal and state, as well as a number of discrimination laws.
It's isn't a matter of "allowing" - anyone can challenge... and all of the challenges have to be investigated.... with a reply due in 10 days.
10 Sept article from WVXU (Cincinnati)
http://wvxu.org/post/hamilton-county-voter-challenges-ones-man-filed-are-increasing
You are 100% correct
Here is another explanation on why more of the challenges were tossed out...
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20120910/NEWS0106/309100034/Elections-board-accepts-few-voter-challenges
<snark> But I'm sure trailer parks and college dorms don't target the poor or young transients </snark>
Read my later post on costs for challenges. That could put a big damper on future challenges for trivial reasons.
Agreed... but that isn't the case for this election.
The burden of proof is on the submitter... but the resources of the BOE are sure being stretched on purpose.
At the end of the second article is a mention of a group from Washington DC that submitted registration forms... and that seems troubling in a different direction.
Those people thing they have registered through a 3rd party group... but the county knows nothing about the 3rd party? I would have thought that to collect voter registrations you would have to be "registered" with the county?
oh what a mess our state is :-(
Spot on. This means that the boards are in league with them...whether they mean to be or not.
I don't know how it works except in my state (VA), but here voter registration groups aren't required to register, or even be formal groups at all. In general, that's a good thing; helping people to vote should be encouraged. You're legally required to submit all the forms you collect within a certain period of time (which is the source of the wingnut stories about people registering with phony names; you have to let the registrar's office judge them, even if they're obviously fake), and you also have to give the voter identifying/contact information, though that's actually new in the past few years.
So much for fiscal conservatism.
I'm getting a strong wiff of Koch here.
There should be a penalty for frivolous waste of the Courts' time and resources. Since there is no repercussion, efforts like these will continue to harass and intimidate voters.
They were alleging that if a voter hadn't cast a vote in the last election then that voter must be phony. The head of the board of elections stated that one can be legitimately registered and choose not to vote.
So in other words, I start a group. I then identify a specific geographic area that voted for President Obama in the last election. I then use property tax records for the area to identify everyone in the area. Then I challenge ALL of their voting rights.
So let's say that my "success" rate is small because I'm not challenging based on any real information, I'm just trying to eliminate Obama voters.
There's NO recourse against me for challenging 99% of the voters in the area who are legally entitled to vote?
Sounds as if it's a no lose proposition for people trying to suppress votes.
The remedy is for the Board of Elections to make the group pay for hearing costs to the board and the voter when they are unsuccessful. The costs should be payable to the voter immediately after the hearing and to the board at the end of each business day.
The challenged voters should also be aware that provisional ballots must be given.
What actually needs to happen is for people to dust off their copies of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the 14th Amendment and use it against "True the Vote" and the "Ohio Voter Integrity Project". I don't think it would be that hard, considering the areas those lamebrains are targeting, for whom they are trying to deny the vote and for what reason!
Any sharp lawyers out there? All they need is persons whose voter registration has been challenged to make a class action case!!!
Why is it NOT unconstitusional for these groups to start up in the first place?
The last time there was a problem with impregnated or not "chads" in Florida at elections, WE GOT STUCK WITH BUSH ...for 8 long years!
This is not good. If they can get away with this and President Obama is reelected in November, could they declare the whole election invalid?? Who would decide?
With such large numbers being presented (750,000 seems to qualify as a "superabundance"), you would think that eventually someone would say, "this is frivolous, and a waste of taxpayers' time and money".
True the Vote is simply trying to block these areas' BOEs from normal functions. That's the same thing that frivolous lawsuits do. As TTV is impeding normal business, there's got to be some form of legal recourse against them.
In fact, it would appear that a valid claim might be made that TTV and OVIP are, in fact, guilty of Ohio code (3599.24sec.A3) Interference with Conduct of Election, "Attempt to intimidate an election officer, or prevent an election official from performing the official’s duties;"
It's a first-degree misdemeanor. In Ohio, that carries a penalty of up to 6 months in jail or $1000 for each count.
Some of them may also be guilty of 3599.24 sec A5 "Loiter in or about a registration or polling place during registration or the casting and counting of ballots so as to hinder, delay, or interfere with the conduct of the registration or election;" If they're making voters feel unsafe, they don't get to just hang around taking notes.
It's also a first-degree misdemeanor.
http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/3599
Here's the Ohio code for frivolous civil claims: http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2323.51
As the BOE is not part of the courts, the same code doesn't apply, but there has to be some sort of crossover that protects local government from this sort of action.
Since the Secretary of State (Jon Husted) is in charge of all of Ohio's county BOEs, he's probably the one who decides whether or not to pursue legal action against this sort of claim. Since he's all for this sort of behavior, he won't do it without pressure. People need to start demanding that their BOEs take legal action. He only responds to force.
Voter supression works both ways, and these folks will pay the price. For any poor person that succombs to this nonsense, or allows themselves to be intimidated, many more are motivated to show up and vote. The Ohio fella Husted is getting the vote out, fair minded and honest people get motivated by bigots and liars. This business is going to cost them big, and the polls point to that. It's not 2010 with it's 42% turnout, they have made it personal...
We need the names of the Ohio directors of this farce. Then we should challenge each and every one of them and their family members' right to vote. Lets see how they feel when the shoe is on the other foot.
No we need to challenge them and their family members' right to exist!!! Conservatism is a symptom of a brain abnormality and we must fix it.
The Koch Brothers GOP and the Tea Party are going all in. I have said for months now if not longer, that what the Muslim Extremists, Al Qaeda, the Tea Party, Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, Fox news and the GOP have in common is that they all hate President Obama. I mean, hate him. You see, on the news where these Middles East Countries burn our flag and burn pictures of President Obama makes me wonder if this is somehow tied into the things the Obama haters on this side of the pond say and do 24/7. Just sayin...
And the hate they feel in this country is because a rich white guy sees a black or brown person as not worthy of being President.
The hate by extreme Muslims for Obama is that he represents America, who they view as anti-Muslim, and certainly there are a number of low information folks that hold this view. Unfortunately, they are the ones that get the publicity. If 47% of Americans do not believe Obama was born in America, and is a Muslim not a Christian, and people like Congresswoman Bachman think Muslims are infiltrating Congress to install Sharia law, we have a problem.
kathy
It is not 47% of people in the U.S. who believe President Obama was not born in this country or that he is a Muslim. It's more like less than 20%. The 47% you speak of is what Mitt thinks are Americans who support Obama, live off of government largess, don't pay federal income tax and won't vote for him because of that. Which is a bunch of BS. Please watch your statistics
Step1: point at neighbor. Step2: Scream "WITCH"!
That worked in the 1600's.
In the 1960's it was dogs and fire hoses.
Today it is voter intimidation.
I'm not a witch. I'm you.
Do you weigh as much as a duck?
Hitler started like this ... Jews were not allowed to vote, had to turn in their bikes, had to be indoors before a set hour ... small things, little things ... Jewish kids went to this school now, and Jews no longer shopped in these stores ... small things, just impacting a few, didn't get much press. Few saw it coming, few saw it building.
The public re-education casing Jews in a devil light .... schools started teaching about the evils of Jews ... started small, little things ... no one really noticed, for years, no one paid it much mind. Yah, bad for them, but doesn't really impact MY life ... not really about me.
Think for a moment about who the Republican party targets, who, if they could wave a magic wand, would disappear .... people of color, gays, people with disabilities, women with a brain, Hispanics, people who speak a language other then English .... poor people, women (again) non-Christians, people of color (again)
We need to think
I keep telling people this but they don't seem to believe me even though history tells us all this same information.
I have also been saying this, and also get a blank stare in reply. It is the classic case of "Those who forget the past...". Which is why real history education is so damn important. We can't let the revisionists like Huckabee et al lead people away from the facts of our history.
I can just imagine True The Vote's method for identifying "suspect" voter registrations.
"Let's see, Sheri Jackson?" "OK." "Sherrice Jackson?" "Suspect."
"Tom Johnson?" "OK." "Tyrone Johnson?" "Suspect."
"Michael Jones?" "OK." "Malik Jones?" "Suspect."
"Barbara Williams?" "OK." "LaBarbara Williams?" "Suspect..."
: ) great analogy
No... it's geography... dorms... apartments... trailer parks... empty lots... burned out buildings.
In Memphis, the mayor sided with the libraries to get people picture i.d.s through library cards. They'll only function for provisional ballots, but will at least allow people to vote. GOP members say they won't accept them, but Dems want to allow them.
Here's the one argument that people seem to keep missing: if this is a valid, longterm problem, and not a sudden emergency that no one knew existed (no proof exists of either case) then no cause exists for the type of national emergency implementation we're suddenly seeing. Reasonable times to provide ALL residents with proper i.d. should be written into reasonable laws. There's no problem with asking for a person to comply from March 2012 to November 2014 with getting an i.d. at a cost they can afford or no-cost if it's for voting only and they live in poverty (that would be the real result of a reasonable PA law).
The real problem exists in the immediacy of the laws. They were written to fail, and thus leave some people unable to vote. Here's some math I did (Sept 12) while trying to prove that point to a deliberately obstinate guy, who ignored it anyway. (it was about PA, their final day for registration is Oct.9, and you can't register on Election Day):
So now let's look at some numbers:
•15 work days remain for 750,000+ people to FIRST get i.d. and then register. That excludes weekends and Mondays when DOT offices are closed.
•Registration's easy, so I'm not even going to include it in the workload.
•Each day 50,000 people in total must be able to be processed.
•There are 12 DOT offices in PA, and they're open 8-4:30 every day.
•Each office has to handle 4167 people with new i.d. request forms every day.
•Let's say each office has 5 employees working windows, and each one gets a half hour lunch meaning they all work an 8-hour shift. Each employee STILL has to handle 104 customers EVERY DAY to be able to ensure that all the people who need i.d.s in PA get them. That's 13 people an hour or only 4.6 minutes to supposedly handle each of the claims, and many of them aren't all that simple. Does it still sound like the cakewalk time of year when hardly anyone makes a passport request?
What people keep failing to understand is that these laws MIGHT be reasonable if implemented reasonably. There IS a midline that could be agreed upon. However, it's clear by the way that the GOP has sought to time these laws that they wanted to cause voter disruption - particularly in the lower classes. Why else time this type of change in a major election year?
You should also mention that the republican head of the PA legislature flat out said that the purpose of the law was to guarantee Romney the win in PA. Then there is the fact that the people responsible for seeing to it that voters without ID's get them is a republican organization.
Oh, I know all about that, and had already mentioned it. I even provided a link to video of him saying it. :)
and the first family to be challenged should be the Husteds. Every one of them.
Someone needs to bait these groups into chasing false leads. Have people with unusual or embarrassing-sounding names appear in these voters lists and have these voter-thugs wasting their time chasing down legitimate voters.
"'Harry Boner'? That can't be a real name. This is a fake registration!"
"How dare you, sir! I come from a long, proud family line of Boner's!"
See here our family crest - it reads, "Stantes superbus!"
The Tea Party wraps itself in the Aerican flag and claims to believe every word of the Constitution. Yet, they see no problem with tampering with people's right to vote. Why aren't they being challenged? More puzzling, why do so many people listen to them?
This is one of the ugliest movements since the Strange Fruit days. Billie Holliday sang a song about "Strange Fruit" hanging from southern poplar trees. It used to be the poll tax kept black people from voting. It's just a new Jim Crow move. That the President is black leads to the only possible conclusion. This is ugly racism. We must fight this, tooth and nail.
Nina Simone did the BEST cover of Strange Fruit, and it should be getting some airplay these days. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QRjz6TYmYk
Love how one of the ringleaders of "thin-the-vote" explains how her inner bigot was suddenly awakened:
“Then in 2008, I don’t know, something clicked,” she said. “I saw our country headed in a direction that, for whatever reason — it didn’t hit me until 2008 — this really threatens the future of our children.”
Hmn. "For whatever reason...." :insert eyeroll:
They should have them arrested for breaking the law and obstructing justice.
The law they seem to be breaking is a class A misdemeanor (Ohio code: 3599.34 section A3, I wrote about it above), and it's prolly Husted who'd be the one to call them on it. He's in charge of all the state's BOEs. Since he benefits from what's going on, I doubt he'll lift a finger.
They're not obstructing the courts or any law enforcer, so it's not truly "obstructing justice" and it's also not necessarily "frivolous civil filing" as they're not filing with the court, but directly with the county BOEs. Only a judge could decide to interpret it that way, and as there's already a law designed to protect BOEs from interference, they prolly won't allow crossover.
Without Husted (or counties doing what they want) the courts can only become involved if someone who has their rights infringed complains. For example, the lady in the story felt harassed, had always voted and was even a poll worker. If she, and others like her, joined together to start a civil lawsuit against the groups in question, they might have a case. A class action suit brought by people who are being unjustly harassed may be enough to get the groups to back down. It's either that, or the counties will have to act apart from Husted, and we all know what happens when they do that.
I think it'd be great if every challenged voter sued this group and every individual within the group for defamation. Even if the lawsuits don't succeed, it'll give these jerks a taste of their own medicine. C'mon -- there's got to be a Progressive group out there that's willing to donate some seed money!
Stupid is as stupid does! When will they stop?
Will these people have to start handing out yellow stars before the legal system steps in and stops this nonsense?
Real Americans don't want losers to vote !!!!!
So how about 8 days before the election we submit 20 or 30 million names of registered repugs to the BOAs as "suspect".
The GOP is like a wounded, still very dangerous fighting for its life. Stay focus Democrats, "arrectis auribus!"
If there is a poll watcher in my neighborhood, I will call the sheriff department before I vote.
Call the sheriff and just say that it makes you nervous to have a person loitering, and you feel that the person in the area is interfering with your right to vote unimpeded. You don't want to be watched while voting. If you can see them, you can complain.
The Ohio code for that is 3599.24 sec A5 "Loiter in or about a registration or polling place during registration or the casting and counting of ballots so as to hinder, delay, or interfere with the conduct of the registration or election;"
If they're making voters feel unsafe, they don't get to just hang around taking notes. If you're not in Ohio, go to Google and search: [your state] elections offenses laws
3599.24 sec A5 is a class A first-degree misdemeanor with penalties of up to six months in jail or up to $1000 in fines.
http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/3599
I can remember that the "Obama"justice department had absolutely no problem at all with voter intimidation when it was done by Black Panthers. You all seem to forget that. I personally don't beleive that felons and dead people have the right to vote. I realize that most of the people on this post get all their info from msnbc.
inspector
Those so called "New Black Panthers" were outside of the polling place. They should have been arrested or would have been if they were in California were there are the following laws regarding voting and elections.
Intimidation Prohibition
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=elec&group=18001-19000&file=18540-18548
Interference with Voters
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=elec&group=18001-19000&file=18500-18502
Actions Prohibited 100 feet from a polling place
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=elec&group=18001-19000&file=18540-18548
Persons allowed in Voting Booth Area
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=elec&group=14001-15000&file=14210-14227
As you can see it's very hard for either voting fraud or voter intimidation in California. Why someone didn't call the police and have the "New Black Panthers" arrested for harassment or even loitering is beyond me. It sounds more like you and the Republican Party are crying wolf.
I tried to edited the first paragraph but for some reason my changes weren't accepted. The first paragraph should have read"
The "New Black Panthers" were standing outside the polling place. OTOH the "True to the Vote" people are or will be inside the polling place actively and verbally challenging people's right to vote. Some standing behind a people as they vote. That's a big difference.