A second instance of a Republican effort to obtain student voter registration information -- and to change the registration to Republican and to change the students' addresses -- has been revealed by Dennis Roddy at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Once again, students were approached this summer with a petition supporting medical marijuana and asked for signatures and voter information.
The students received new voter information in the mail.
What is the objective? The students are already registered. A political party is not trying to build participation in its activities by tricking people to register as members. The party isn't trying to get people to vote in its primary by trickery -- what candidate could it help in a primary?
The most reasonable explanation is that the GOP operatives are trying to sow chaos on Election Day in precincts where they expect large numbers of students to vote. In other words, they are trying to suppress the likely Kerry vote.
Think about your reaction. You show up at your polling place and are told that you aren't registered there. You say, Wwwhaaattt? Yes I am. No, you're not. Okay, who can I appeal to? Go over there. Where-You mean that long line???? Oh no....
Voters, hurrying in to vote before work or before dinner will see long lines, and say ohmigod, how long is this going to take -- and some of them are going to leave without voting.
Maybe someone will get really indignant and raise their voice, and the police will be called. The radio will report that Kerry voters are causing trouble at the polls and the police had to be called. Great for influencing last minute voters.
This is pretty dastardly.
Here's the second story
Students' Polling Places Switched in Scam
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n1505/a01.html
Sat, 23 Oct 2004
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Dennis Roddy
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