Appeals court OKs challengers at Ohio polls

Quote:

U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott in Cincinnati said plaintiffs in a lawsuit likely would be able to prove that Ohio's law allowing polling place challengers was unconstitutional. The GOP appealed her ruling to the 6th Circuit.

Dlott said the presence of challengers inexperienced in the electoral process questioning voters about their eligibility would impede voting. She ruled in a lawsuit by a black couple who said GOP plans to deploy challengers to largely black precincts in heavily Republican Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati, was meant to intimidate and block black voters.

Quote:

"Republicans have said they plan to check names of voters against lists of absentee ballots and of people who have died recently."

So exactly who is ensuring that these "lists" are accurate? Echoes of Florida and the bogus lists of felons? Does the word "disenfranchisement" ring any bells here?

Oh, yes, I'll bet it DOES ring a bell, and the Republican bastards are just salivating like dogs. Motherfuckers.

I'm sure Repubs everywhere are smugly saying, "So what's the problem with making certain people are eligible before you let them vote? It only makes sense to be careful."

The problem is that if "mistakes," whether deliberate or honest, are made by the challengers, there is no time for the disenfranchised voter to appeal in time for his/her vote to be counted. And it doesn't seem as if there is any accountability to motivate the challengers NOT to make mistakes.

Dems took (and are still taking) a lot of shit for not sitting back and shutting up when the Florida clusterfuck cost our candidate the election. Whether or not he would have won the election if all votes were counted is irrelevent. The bogus felon lists constituted election fraud, and yet no one was punished. What the fuck?

Yet the Repubs are gearing up to do it to us again in almost the same underhanded way. Lesson not learned? Or lesson learned too well?

No matter the outcome of the election, any Repubs screaming about the ensuing lawsuits over this can eat my fucking ass. There has to be some recourse against election fraud, ineffectual though it has turned out to be. It is, unfortunately, as much a part of the democratic process as the vote itself. I say "unfortunately" because there is not much incentive for judges to look out for voter interests either. Federal judges are appointed, not elected.

Now, I'm off to the polls. May the BEST man win.

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