Somehow I got on a GOP mailing list. Here's today's wisdom from Chairman Gillespie:
There are only 8 days left until the election and, if you can, we recommend voting early.
Click here to find your early voting location. Because on Election Day we will need your help getting more people involved and getting voters to the polls. The Democrats have already begun to implement their plans to use lawyers and baseless allegations to skew the results in their favor.
We believe no legitimate voter should be disenfranchised, either by being denied a vote or by having an honest vote cancelled out by a fraudulent vote.
But a little intimidation never hurt anyone?
Democrats appear to be setting the stage to use the new provisional balloting rules to convert registration fraud into vote fraud, with the possibility of Kerry supporters voting in multiple jurisdictions or under multiple names.
In one contested election where provisional ballots have been cast, somewhere between 7-to-23 percent of them were valid. Democrats seem intent on making the case that every provisional ballot cast must be counted, and are deploying a horde of 10,000 lawyers to compel the counting of votes that were not legally cast.
Note that this says nothing about when or where that election was, nor what party cast the provisional ballots! It undoubtedly has nothing to do with Kerry.
They have made their strategy clear: If they lose they will sue, and haul the electoral process into courtrooms across the country so activist liberal judges can undermine the will of the people.
The American people should be confident that legitimate voters casting legitimate votes determine the outcome of this election.
Compare the above FUD-like allegations of fraud to reality.
“Activist liberal judges…” two thirds of whom were appointed by Republican Presidents.
Riiiight.
The truth is quite different. I’m volunteering to be an election monitor in Nevada and, if necessary, act as counsel for election challenges brought by individual voters. I’ll be in Nevada most of next week. The training provided by the Lawyers for Kerry group is impressive and, I might add, solidly nonpartisan; the goal is simply to ensure a fair election, not necessarily one in which Kerry is pronounced the winner.
Bret
The “7-23%” reference is, as you might suspect, dishonest. The election was Chicago’s March 2004 primary, the amount was 23%, and the reason for disqualification was that they were cast in the wrong precinct, not that they were invalid voters.
Newsmax is referring to this today, indicating it is a new Republican talking point. As usual, they can’t win if they tell the truth so they flat-out lie:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/10/8/94804.shtml
The key quote:
Historically, most provisional ballots are bogus. According to The New York Times, in a March 2004 Chicago election where provisional ballots were actually cast in the names of Ben Affleck and Pancho Villa fully 93 percent of the provisional ballots were disqualified.
The level of dishonesty in this paragraph is mind-boggling. The first sentence is totally unsupported. The second provides an example without explaining WHY the ballots were disqualified, or mentioning that this election was an extreme outlier. The references to two obviously bogus ballots, which happens in every election, is intended to give a false impression of widespread abuse.
Here is another link mentioning the 93 percent (which maps to the 7 percent figure in the Republican letter you quote):
http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?ItemId=17535
This, too, is a dishonestly-written article in that is uses similar techniques to the Newsmax one. It brings up the Chicago example without mentioning that it was an outlier, nor explaining why they were thrown out. I bring it up only because I speculate that this is where Newsmax got the 93 percent figure. Other reports were more consistent with the 23% figure from your Republican letter:
http://www.dailysouthtown.com/southtown/dsnews/236nd1.htm
During the March primary in Chicago, 1,294 of the 5,914 provisional ballots cast during weren’t counted because they were cast in the wrong precinct. The city has retrained election judges on how to handle provisional ballots and hopes to avoid problems by having judges guide voters to their proper polling place.
Ah, now we understand. The reason for disqualification is the “wrong precinct” issue, NOT invalid or fraudulent voters.