This is already on Kos and Eschaton, but it's important enough to reiterate. After all, one of the virtues of blogs is that they, unlike the corporate news media, can emphasize what should be emphasized.
So here's the story, if you don't know it already. Back in the days before voter registration information was electronically stored, Ohio required that voter registrations be on 80 lb paper. Of course the statute hasn't been enforced for decades, but all of a sudden Thuglican Blackwell has decided to implement it, in a transparent attempt to block at least some of the many new Democratic registrees from voting. See the details here.
Too bad Blackwell didn't notice that his gross attempt to subvert democracy violates the 1971 voting rights act:
No person acting under color of law shall - [...]deny the right of any individual to vote in any election because of an error or omission on any record or paper relating to any application, registration, or other act requisite to voting, if such error or omission is not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under State law to vote in such election
This is the sort of thing that is making my blood boil. What's required here is a deluge of Blackwell's office via email and phone calls. Please take the time to let Blackwell know he can't get away with this sort of thing:
J. Kenneth Blackwell-R
180 E. Broad St., 15th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
614-466-3910
E-Mail: blackwell@sos.state.oh.us
UPDATE: ACT is on the job with a petition to Blackwell that you can sign.
It may be more effective to contact the various board of elections supervisers. Sample letters and other contact info for the local boards can be found in the comment thread for the aforelinked MyDD post.
UPDATE: More Thuglican attempts to disenfranchise voters are occurring in Arizona, via Chris Roads, a Republican and a Pima County election official, with the help of the local T.V. station Fox 11, a Fox affiliate. Unbelievable!
The story here is that on August 31, Fox 11 ran a broadcast citing Roads as indicating that students attending college in AZ might be committing a felony (!) by registering to vote. (The transcript from the August 31 broadcast, is mysteriously missing from the Fox 11 site -- who's surprised?) Roads now claims that his remarks were "misrepresented" by the station, though he never offered a clarification, and Fox 11 says that they spoke with him several days after their original broadcast, and he stood by his (correctly interpreted?) remarks.
That's fishy enough. Fox 11 broadcast a repeat of the story (scroll down to see Natalie Tejeda's "Registering to Vote Could be a Felony for Some" here) on September 9, weirdly (or conveniently?) enough the same day that Ann Rodriguez, Chris Roads' boss, released her statement to the effect that any student residing in AZ for 29 days prior to the election can register to vote.
In any case no correction to the information that had been falsely transmitted was made, until Sept 24 (see "Student Voters at UA" here) when they finally noted Rodriguez's clarification.
Please contact Fox 11 to complain about how long it took them to correct their broadcast misinformation after Rodriguez released her statement.
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