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By Aviva Shen
Conservative poll observers are gearing up for Election Day, when they will watch for possible instances of voter fraud and challenge voters they find suspicious. As ThinkProgress reported, many of these volunteers have been fed false or misleading information about voting rights by the Romney campaign and independent Tea Party groups like True the Vote. True the Vote encourages its poll watchers to build relationships with election administrators because they control the access to the vote.
But one True the Vote affiliate, the Ohio Voter Integrity Project, is taking their election interference one step further. Ohio VIP has recruited and dispatched poll workers who will not be merely observing, but directly involved in the voting process in a crucial swing state.
While in-person voter fraud is exceedingly rare, overzealous poll workers could jeopardize legitimate votes by forcing them to use provisional ballots, which cannot be counted until November 17. Ohios provisional ballot mess is already threatening to disenfranchise thousands of legitimate voters the bulk of whom live in urban, minority-heavy areas like Hamilton County, which contains Cincinnati. In 2004, Ohio tossed out thousands of provisional ballots, concentrated in Hamilton and the states four other urban counties. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) lost Ohio by a narrow margin in 2004, allowing George W. Bush to win a second term.
Ohios Ballot Woes Could Delay Election Results For Weeks
By Aviva Shen
Pollsters and pundits have trained their eyes on Ohio, where President Obama maintains a narrow lead over Mitt Romney just days before the election. According to exit polls, Obamas lead is even stronger among early voters. But several recent developments threaten to disenfranchise many of these voters and plunge Ohio into a bureaucratic nightmare on election night.
The Columbus Dispatch reported on Thursday that a data-sharing glitch and mistakes by election officials have caused thousands of absentee ballot requests to be rejected. While Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted maintains that this was a computer error, the Northeast Ohio Voter Advocates found an abnormally high rate of rejected absentee ballot requests in Cuyahoga County, a Democratic stronghold that includes Cleveland. The Cuyahoga Board of Elections determined that 865 ballot requests had been erroneously thrown out.
If these voters try to cast their vote in person, they will likely be forced to use a provisional ballot, as the absentee ballot error has thrown their registration status into question. At least 4,500 registered voters across the state will be left waiting for their absentee ballots, while as many as 6,000 provisional ballots cast by registered voters could be tossed out. The provisional ballots that do not get thrown out wont be counted until November 17, according to state law, further dragging out the confusion.
This absentee ballot fiasco is just the latest in Ohios dysfunctional election saga. On Wednesday, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals allowed Husted to discount ballots cast by people directed to the wrong polling station by a pollworker one of the most common errors that led to thousands of votes getting thrown out in Ohios dysfunctional 2004 presidential election.
Husted became a national symbol of voter suppression after he banned early voting on nights and weekends, and attempted to defy a court order that restored early voting on the last three days before the election.
And you think that Black Panthers with billy clubs is better than observers? Or are you happy with the UN observers who will be breaking our election laws on election day.... You know, the foreigners who were invited to disrupt the election by the Democratic Party.......
And you think that Black Panthers with billy clubs is better than observers? Or are you happy with the UN observers who will be breaking our election laws on election day.... You know, the foreigners who were invited to disrupt the election by the Democratic Party.......
Heavy black district, How many white people did you see in the background? how many Blacks.
You can give up making excuses for them, they were wrong and you know it. Just as others have been caught doing things wrong. On both sides.
But why don't you address these foreigners that the left has invited? I thought we were the leaders of the free world........ Looks more like we must be some backward 3rd world country to need the UN..........
Or is that the new liberal dream?
Cheating is Never okay, either way. When the Process is corrupted, Everyone loses. One Rightful Voter, one vote, nothing outside of that should fly, with any of us. We are supposed to be a Nation of Laws. The Law, by the consent of the governed, are supposed to serve Justice.
