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Lose Your Home, Lose Your Vote: Republicans Move To Deny Homeless Votes, Democrats Claim
Democrats in Michigan are trying to block what they call a Republican effort to deny voting rights to people who have lost their homes in the mortgage crisis.
WASHINGTON - The reported effort has been denounced as "lose your home, lose your vote". "It is part of a broader scheme to harass voters and suppress the vote in the state of Michigan," said a spokesman for the Barack Obama campaign.
More than half of the foreclosed homes are owned by blacks, who as a group lean to Mr Obama and Democrats. (Photo: GETTY)
The campaign has joined the Democratic National Committee and several voters
in Macomb County to file an injunction to prohibit the Republican Party from
challenging Michigan voters whose homes are on foreclosure lists.
The state has one of the worst foreclosure rates in the country, receiving 11,000 notices in July alone. Figures show more than half of the foreclosed homes are owned by blacks, who as a group lean to Obama and Democrats.
Macomb County, north of Detroit, is a swing area in presidential elections and capable of tipping the battleground state either way. Both Mr Obama and Republican rival Senator John McCain have campaigned in the county.
Macomb County Republican Party Chairman James Carabelli was quoted as saying last week by the Michigan Messenger web paper that "We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren't voting from those addresses."
He later denied making the remark. Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer said Republicans have tried in the past to discourage Democratic voters at polling stations and, "I simply do not believe his denial. This fits the pattern we've seen here in Michigan."
Bob Bauer, a senior lawyer with the Obama campaign said any such tactic creates an atmosphere of intimidation that could drive voters from the polls. The campaign says Republicans are trying to compile a list of foreclosed owners and their addresses which they plan to use to challenge voters at polling stations.
The Republicans are likely to argue they are merely keeping a watch over voter fraud, though non-partisan groups have said the number of cases where false addresses and similar ruses are used is minimal.
The row will revive memories of past cases when Republicans have been accused of removing preventing likely Democrat voters from voting, as in the decisive Florida recount of 2000 and again in 2004.
9 Comments so far
Show AllOoooh - scary voter fraud! That does sound dangerous! Never mind that there are about two cases a year, the Republicans will try and scare you into believing this anti-American drivel.
I have a question for all of the trolls posing as 3rd-party supporters.
If Obama is no different from McCain then why are the republicans trying so hard to rig this election?
If it doesn't matter which of the two major party candidates is elected then the republicans shouldn't care, right?
q
From one of the "trolls"
>If Obama is no different from McCain then why are the republicans trying so hard to rig this election?
Sorry, but that argument doesn't hold water..
1) It's not that Obama's no different from McCain - Obama's a centrist, corporatist Democrat, and Mc Cain is showing increasingly neo-con leanings, so yes there is a difference between them. They're like two wings of a corporatist party. I think Arundhati Roy sort of put it best when she said it's sort of like walking down a supermarket aisle and having to chose a brand of detergent, whether you pick Tide or Ivory Snow they're both owned by Procter and Gamble. The point is that political differences between their positions while not negligible is nothing compared to the difference between the both of them and Nader / McKinney..
2) It doesn't matter so much to us, the people which of the two elite parties is elected - to the Republican party it matters a heck of a lot. Winning the election brings power and wealth, of course they don't want to share.
I'm not surprised, after all those who are losing their homes are not likely to vote repuke.
quickstepper, that's a very good question.
No, it's a crappy question because it was framed dishonestly.
Tell me more about how heroic Democrats rushed to the side of disenfranchised voters in 2000 and 2004.
The American Revolution gave us the vote rather than monarchy. Since then women and, in my lifetime, African-Americans have fought and died for the right to vote. Not because they were deluded, but because they saw the importance of that little bit of bottom line power that each of us has, if we use it wisely.
Voter fraud is serious and requires organized vigilance to keep it down. I want to hear from all the candidates that they will stand up for a fair vote and not "Kerry", a verb which means "to concede without a challenge in the face of obvious massive fraud".
What ever happened to "The League of Women Voters"? They were cool in a nerdy sort of way. We need something like that now.
Joe
The League of Women Voters is still around, but they were muscled out of the way of much public view by a bipartisan debate commission.
The Democrats are just concerned with the votes, they could care less about the plight of the people, although they pay lip service.
Just because the home is foreclosed does not mean that the former owners are not still living there.
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats