With a week to go, more than a million ballots have been cast in each of three swing states--Georgia, North Carolina and Florida--foreshadowing a record early turnout across the country.
The Solid South, which, in pre-civil rights days was a segregationist stronghold for Democrats, is showing signs of breaking out of the Republican redoubt it has been ever since.
Polls are showing Obama's lead in Virginia widening, and the Institute for Southern Studies reports that in North Carolina "a perfect storm of factors have come together for Democrats in 2008, including: a widespread sentiment for change, frustration over the tough hit on NC's economy, Obama's ability to mobilize a sizable number of core voters in NC, lack of excitement among religious conservatives for McCain--even same-day voter registration, which tends to boost youth and African-American turnout."
With all this going on below the Mason-Dixon line, next week's voting promises to shake up the electoral map in a way that goes beyond the obvious contest between new voters and old biases.
Showing posts with label Georgia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Georgia. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
Kafka at the Polls
With only a week to go, Republicans have been busy trying to use computer errors to make voters disappear in swing states such as Georgia, Ohio, Florida and Wisconsin.
"What most people don't know is that every year, elections officials strike millions of names from the voter rolls using processes that are secret, prone to error and vulnerable to manipulation," says Wendy Weiser, an elections expert with New York University's Brennan Center for Justice.
In Georgia, the regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, is a plaintiff in a lawsuit claiming, "people are being told they are non-citizens, including both naturalized citizens and U.S-born citizens. They're being told they're not eligible to vote, based on information in a database that hasn't been checked and approved by the Department of Justice, and that we know has flaws in it."
In Ohio, the state Republican Party sued to make the Democratic secretary of state generate a list of people who had mismatched information, but Jennifer Brunner refused on the grounds that it might disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters. The Supreme Court last week ruled in her favor.
While criticizing ACORN for inaccuracies in registering new voters, Republican elves have been very busy trying to block the existing who might vote the wrong way.
"What most people don't know is that every year, elections officials strike millions of names from the voter rolls using processes that are secret, prone to error and vulnerable to manipulation," says Wendy Weiser, an elections expert with New York University's Brennan Center for Justice.
In Georgia, the regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, is a plaintiff in a lawsuit claiming, "people are being told they are non-citizens, including both naturalized citizens and U.S-born citizens. They're being told they're not eligible to vote, based on information in a database that hasn't been checked and approved by the Department of Justice, and that we know has flaws in it."
In Ohio, the state Republican Party sued to make the Democratic secretary of state generate a list of people who had mismatched information, but Jennifer Brunner refused on the grounds that it might disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters. The Supreme Court last week ruled in her favor.
While criticizing ACORN for inaccuracies in registering new voters, Republican elves have been very busy trying to block the existing who might vote the wrong way.
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