Totally off topic: I love this site and commentary, but I have to admit the splattered pigs in the sidebar are making me less enthusiastic about visiting. Not that I don't feel bad for pigs, not that PETA doesn't have the right to paste splattery pigs wherever it so desires ... it's just really not an image I want to look at too much, and I would suspect that both meat-eaters and vegetarians agree with me on this. Sheesh.

Yeah....the FBI is just goofin' when they allege systemic fraud by ACORN. Really glad now that they suckle at the public teat.

Get away from me, kid, you bother me.

Idiot.

ACORN employees who submit fictitious registration forms aren't committing "voter fraud" -- they're ripping off their employer, no different than a cashier with his hand in the boss' till. That's why ACORN cans 'em and turns 'em in.

Nothing new under the sun? That's putting it mildly. Remember the election-night scene in CITIZEN KANE? When Kane loses, his flunkies at the newspaper automatically declare, "We got no choice--run this headline," and they hold up the scare head FRAUD AT POLLS! It was an old gag even in 1941--when Citizen McKane was five years old.

So tell me, when Obama got his opposition off the ballot by challenging the signatures on their petitions as fraudulent..did he do that because they were black?

I say he assumed, because Alice Palmer was black and her constituents were urban, that there must be fraud on her petition. He is so racist, that Obama.

I must be the only person on here with a memory. Voter fraud is "less likely to occur than a lightening strike" but in 2004 a vast yet insidious conspiracy of Karl Rove and republican hackers stole the election in Ohio according to the CBC, John Conyers and various Kossacks. Is Ezra willing to go on the record now that the 2004 crap pulled by the lefty wackoes was just a "voter fraud fraud" meant to deligitimize Bush or is he just a partisan hack?

My father voted Republcan until the day he died.

Now he votes Democrat

Kaybeel and Scott, you are either deliberately or accidentally conflating totally different things.

Kaybeel, it's obviously very possible for petitions to contain flawed or false information, including fake signatures. (This is not unlike the problem Acorn has with bad voter registration forms.) Petitions with bad info should be rejected, just as voter registrations with bad info should be--no one is arguing that. The problem with the Republicans' argument now is that they are making a big leap from flawed registrations to illegal voting--a leap that is, in practice, extremely difficult to make and, by every account, very rare.

And Scott, what (may have) happened in Ohio in 2004 is not "voter fraud" in the sense that John Fund is ranting about now--that is, thousands of phony votes being cast by illegal voters--but rather the suppression of legitimate votes through manipulation of the system, either by the hacking of electronic machines or cruder methods such as failing to provide enough voting stations in Democratic districts so that voters gave up after waiting in line for hours.

These are all very different things. Some of them have been known to happen rather frequently. Others not. Lumping them all together and pretending they all have the same characteristics may be a fun way to score debating points, but it confuses the issues rather than clarifying them.

The problem with the Republicans' argument now is that they are making a big leap from flawed registrations to illegal voting--a leap that is, in practice, extremely difficult to make and, by every account, very rare.

You may think it is very rare. The Republicans are arguing it is a possibility.
Both sides have an argument to make.
What I am bristling at is the notion that it is racist to question and be suspicious of Acorn's tactics. That's the allegation Ezra is making in 3 posts today.

Anonymous,

When I say that actual illegal voting is very rare, I am not "making an argument"--I am citing facts. Read up on this issue and you'll find that the numbers of prosecutable cases of illegal voting are incredibly small. Between 2004 and 2006, when the Bush White House ordered federal prosecutors to make illegal voting a top priority, they scoured the country looking for examples and managed to come up with something like 24 cases--most caused by voters' misunderstanding the voting rules. Several of the federal attorneys fired by the Bush White House were fired because they were unable to come up with cases of voter fraud to prosecute, despite the orders to do so instigated, evidently, by Karl Rove.

Yesterday I heard John Fund on NPR talking about how terrible the voter fraud problem is. When another guest on the show pointed out that almost no cases have been uncovered, Fund immediately shifted gears, saying, "Well, even if that's so, bad registration forms are a problem because sorting them out puts a terrible workload burden on local election boards."

That's quite a retreat! If there was actually any factual argument to be made for the notion that voter fraud is occurring on a significant scale, you can be sure Fund would have offered it. But he didn't even try.

The problem with the Republicans' argument now is that they are making a big leap from flawed registrations to illegal voting...

Validating registration rolls is the last check. After that, what check is there to catch anyone? After they pass that, who's to know? There is a reason why fradulent registration is unlawful.

How can anyone argue that this ACORN fraud is not a serious matter if one cares about the integrity of the election?

Oh, tha's right. Liberals wanna WIN, BABY, WIN....at any cost. Well, they didn't think like this in 2000 and 2004. *THEN*, they were all about the integity of the vote!!!

Man, troll central on this thread. And not one with a lick of evidence or a coherent argument.

Worst is probably Scott. Poor pathetic Scott. Too fucking stupid to know the difference between voter fraud and election fraud. Which actually still makes him smarter than most republicans.

ElV: ACORN is not committing fraud. Certain people may be fraudulently submitting fake registrations, which ACORN is required by law to submit. ACORN is not, by any means, engaged in any kind of systemic, purposeful drive to stack the voter rolls with fraudulent registrations.

The argument has recently devolved into the claim that ACORN is causing trouble because it's too much work for the election staff to sift through the registration forms.

Now, one could ask ACORN to refuse to submit bad registrations to the election boards, but then people would claim that ACORN is systemically discarding registrations it doesn't like. Basically, right-wingers reserve the right to complain about ACORN regardless of what they do.

It is, one should note, an organization that most right-wingers had never heard of until they were specifically instructed to be outraged about ACORN. It's come down to this: Obama and the Democrats are going to win, and win big. Obama will win in substantial margins in many swing states. The only hope for right-wingers to maintain their psychological stability will be to convince themselves that somehow Obama won by mass fraud of millions of ballots which, somehow, was unable to be detected.

Sorry, that anonymous was me.

Read up on this issue and you'll find that the numbers of prosecutable cases of illegal voting are incredibly small.

Prosecutable cases of illegal voting being small is much different than saying actual illegal voting is rare.
Once someone votes under a registered name, it becomes tremendously difficult to determine if it was an illegally cast ballot.

Why would we have registration at all if people don't want to vote illegally?

Regardless, as I said, it is the charge that it is racist to be suspicious of ACORN's suspicious activities is what I find reprehensible.

Kaybeel,

Think about it. If you wanted to affect an election using voter fraud through an organization like ACORN, you would have to (1) arrange for thousands of phony registrations, (2) find thousands of people willing to perjure themselves on election day to cast illegal votes, and (3) keep all of these thousands of people from talking to media or law enforcement about the scheme.

Does this seem plausible to you? Not to me. I think it would be a lot easier and mroe effective to devote the same energy to regular canvassing efforts.

I think that believing in a silly conspiracy theory like this one is not necessarily racist, but it is pretty gullible. And it does play into known patterns of Republican efforts in the past to discourage and suppress voting by minorities--which, yes, is racist.

golly, it is very upsetting that this can cast voter registration in a bad light.
we are all out here....registering, registering, registering...checking, making sure all of the t's are crossed and i's are dotted....smiling and being helpful to our fellow democrats, decline to staters, republicans, libertarians...everyone that crosses our path.
every volunteer that has crossed my path has taken the whole process of voter registration as an awesome, patriotic task.

this should not reflect on all of the foot soldiers with our clipboards, working our hearts out to register people with smiles and absolute honesty.

People do want to, and sometimes actually do, vote illegally. However, this never changes the final outcome of the election. It would be logistically impossible for any organization to submit enough false registrations and get enough fraudulent votes on election day to overturn and election without being caught in the process.

If you wanted to fraudulently affect the outcome of an election, you wouldn't want to do it by trying to hope that a conspiracy of tens of thousands of fraudulent voters remained silent about what they were doing. You'd want one or two people to stuff the ballot boxes.

Republicans, ultimately, know this. They don't actually believe that there is massive voter fraud which will elect Barack Obama. However, they are engaged in a campaign to falsely claim that this is happening in order to cast doubt on the public's trust of the election process.

Part of it, of course, has an aspect of class resentment: people would be a bit more accepting of Obama convincing a bunch of curmudgeonly voters to support him, but the idea that he would bypass them and instead get a bunch of new people to the polls to vote for him is considered "cheating," by getting people involved in politics who don't "deserve" to... in a sense, the ACORN outrage is just an extension of the outrage that Obama is a "popular celebrity."

Karl and Seitz,

You are both lame deluded HACKS. Karl, you write ponderously about how there have been only 24 prosecutions of actual voting fraud ergo there is no or at least no significant voting fraud. You then write that election fraud AND HACKING are entirely different things . . . because well because.

So pray tell, how many cases of voter hacking have been prosecuted? How many have been credibly alleged? I think the answer is none and none. But for many crazy-ass lefties it is an article of faith that the 2000 and 2004 elections were "stolen". Those allegations were simply to deligitimize Bush; your differentiation of the two things is simple partisan hackery. There is simply no evidence whatsoever of voter hacking period. As for the amount of evidence of voter fraud, I really don't know, but I do know the standards of proof should be the same for anyone who wants a shred of credibility on the issue. If you can allege vast unproven Rovian conspiracies in Ohio, certainly we can do the same about vast proven voter registration fraud by ACORN

Republicans, ultimately, know this. They don't actually believe that there is massive voter fraud which will elect Barack Obama. However, they are engaged in a campaign to falsely claim that this is happening in order to cast doubt on the public's trust of the election process.

This is rich. We just spent 8 years with Democrats proclaiming Bush stole the election of 2000 and questioning the election process. In 2004, some Congressional Democrats wouldn't certify the election results because they were sure something hinky went on in Ohio.

There are reasons to be vigilant about the validity of the vote. Democrats want to blame Diebold or Butterfly ballots or chads that are too difficult to punch.
Republicans look suspiciously on voting totals that come in late from certain precincts, or some precincts being held open late, or provisional ballots not being properly separated from the real totals, or same day registration & voting in border cities.

I don't think voter fraud will elect Barack Obama. I don't think it's ridiculous to suspect there are plenty of groups would love to give it a go.
Acorn is poorly run, it is pro-Obama, it receives taxpayer funds, and it is perfectly valid to criticize them. I have no doubt if McCain were ahead in the polls right now we'd be hearing about Diebold and memory chips and paper trails from the Dems. It's politics.

Having worked a Census, I can say that it is not the responsibilty of the foot soldier to guarantee the accuracy of the information on the form and is generally illegal for them to do so. The person presenting the form is supposed to make sure that all the boxes are filled in and then return the forms (including all damaged, badly filled in and otherwise illegible)to the people with the authority to decide their validity.

ACORN provides footsoldiers who may write information in for the functionally illiterate or physically disabled but not sign the final acceptance. If they are not doing their jobs in a competent manner then they shouldn't be hired next time but they are not responsible for the content of a form but they are responsible for returning them all.

If people think voter fraud is the reason for jackasses to fill in forms with assumed names then they should monitor the polls and nab them in the act. It does not become boter fraud until someone tries to vote fraudulently.

So pray tell, how many cases of voter hacking have been prosecuted?

Umm, who brought up hacking? You need to step away from the keyboard and maybe pop a valium or two, dude. Look, I know it's gonna be tough to see your side get absolutely blitzed on election day, but the sooner you come to terms with it, the less likely you are to pop a blood vessel.

This is rich. We just spent 8 years with Democrats proclaiming Bush stole the election of 2000 and questioning the election process. In 2004, some Congressional Democrats wouldn't certify the election results because they were sure something hinky went on in Ohio.

Oh, YEAH, baybe. It was important then. Now that it's ACORN registering the homeless, the poor and the non-existent, it's somehow not an important issue.

That *is* rich, indeed.

Republicans, ultimately, know this.

Absolutely. That's why they underallocate resources to precincts, jam phones, use caging schemes, distribute 'the cops will be taking names' flyers, etc. They also know that the consequences, even if they get caught, are slight.

Acorn is poorly run, it is pro-Obama, it receives taxpayer funds, and it is perfectly valid to criticize them.

Absolutely. How about that money goes to the states to ensure that the electoral roll is maintained in a way appropriate for the democratic process -- say, like in Canada, where they're voting right now.

Oh, yeah, I forgot: the fig-leaf of 'local democracy' that places the handling of county and state elections in the hands of inept and sometimes malevolent partisans.

See, it was that -- rather than Scott's chaff-blowing 'hacking' claims -- that had people lining up for hours in Ohio, or had voters dealing with precinct location changes, and had the doors locked on the count in Warren County, Ohio, claiming a terrorist threat rated at '10' that the Feds and state law enforcement denied issuing.

Wow, so Fred thinks poor and homeless people shouldn't be allowed to vote? Maybe he'd like to take us back to the time when only those who owned property were allowed to vote. What a dick. Not that we all didn't already know he was a dick, but still.

Oh, and the non-existent? They rarely show up at polling places. Part of the drawbacks of not actually existing.

I don't think it's ridiculous to suspect there are plenty of groups would love to give it a go.

It's an extremely poor strategy, given the logistical impossibility of winning and the almost guarantee that a large-scale attempt at getting 10s of thousands of people to fraudulently vote (and somehow buy off their silence) would rack up enough prosecutions to send you away for life. Praytell where is the evidence that ACORN is attempting to "give it a go" at creating a mass, organized voter fraud? Please, do tell.

Want actual arrests, indictments, criminal behavior, and sentencing?

Look no further than the Republicans in New Hampshire 2002, and that shit went all the way up to the White House. In fact people are still getting justice served over this real life voter scheme.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/ex-gop_operative_in_new_hampsh.php

El V: I beg your pardon, are the homeless and the poor not allowed to vote? In a perfect world, right?

"Voter fraud is "less likely to occur than a lightening strike" but in 2004 a vast yet insidious conspiracy of Karl Rove and republican hackers stole the election in Ohio according to the CBC, John Conyers and various Kossacks."

That's not voter fraud - that's vote tampering - a far worse crime because the government did it...

This is indeed true - voter fraud from illegal voting by individuals is very rare.

However, the kind of election fraud that occurred in Ohio in 2004 was completely different. It was fraud in counting votes - perpetrated by illegally modifying software in the computers used. We can only pray that this never happens again.

"Validating registration rolls is the last check. After that, what check is there to catch anyone? After they pass that, who's to know? There is a reason why fradulent registration is unlawful. "

yeah - I'm sure when donald duck or Superman show up to vote, not an eyebrow will be raised. I don't know whwere YOU vote - but where I vote, they have my signature on file - I sign in a book - which is verified by a poll worker - before I cast a vote. The right knows they're dead - and this is the body flopping about. Scream all you want - go to court on Nov. 5 - challenge away - but you'll never prove it because it's a lie!

As an American, I want everyone who is eligible to vote to do so.

I would, however, prefer that people who vote have some clue about what and whom they are voting for (or against) rather than just voting someone because their neighbor is or someone told them to do so.

Will someone please explain to me why it is "voter suppression" to require a voter to show a picture ID at the time they vote that matches their registration ID and signature.

"The ONE" and his supporters including the main stream media seem to have a 2 pronged strategy going into the final weeks of the campaign. 1. Try and freeze their current advantage in the polls by screaming racism every time anyone criticizes or questions Obama about anything...it kept Hillary off balance long enough to carry the day, and 2. Insure if the race tightens that no state will be lost by a few thousand votes when you can get ACORN to turn 10,000 poor and homeless people in a state like Ohio into a couple of hundred thousand votes. It's too bad that Illinois really isn't in play or we'd see "The ONE" raise the dead from the graveyards of his Chicago home to get to the polls for him. Yeah Ezra...those damned Republicans...insisting that citizens only register and vote once. What kind of democracy is that?

I said, regarding conservative outrage about ACORN:

Part of it, of course, has an aspect of class resentment...

Valwayne said, expressing his outrage at what the Obama campaign and ACORN are doing is to...

Insure if the race tightens that no state will be lost by a few thousand votes when you can get ACORN to turn 10,000 poor and homeless people in a state like Ohio into a couple of hundred thousand votes.

Hmmm... It's all about outrage about the poor and homeless voting for you, isn't it?

One might note, from a mathematical perspective, getting 10,000 people (poor, homeless, or otherwise) to replicate their votes 20 times is neither practical nor able to go on undetected. To date, we have only ever seen a few dozen people convicted of voting fraudulently. The reason for this is that fraudulent voting has a stiff penalty and can get easily detected when attempted on a large scale.

"Will someone please explain to me why it is "voter suppression" to require a voter to show a picture ID at the time they vote that matches their registration ID and signature."

It's an excellent question, especially since photo ID requirements don't seem to have 'suppressed' folks from buying liquor or cashing checks.

It's an excellent question, especially since--

apples are oranges? Fuckwit.

The people pushing Voter ID laws just happen to be vote suppressors like Hans van Spakovsky, whose blueprint for Georgia was thrown out by the courts, in part because there just happened to be no DMV offices in Atlanta, something von Spakovsky knew as Fulton County DA.

Ummm...2000? Oh that's right, it's only not fraud when a republican is complaining. Can you guys be any more obvious?

No, it's actually "fraud" when it is verified. I know that you regressives hate facts, but they do seem to account for something when it comes to discerning the truth. Fact: Bush lost in 2000. He lost Florida by several thousand votes, so therefore he lost the popular vote AND the EV. Fact: There were verifiable instances of voter disenfranchisement in Ohio in 04, and strong circumstantial evidence that votes were tossed out in that state that may well have given Kerry the state AND the presidency in 04. No matter though. That's the past, and I actually believed that Kerry being robbed would lead to something even better in 08'. Understand, Obama could not be on the verge of the presidency without the shrub.

"Ummm...2000? Oh that's right, it's only not fraud when a republican is complaining. Can you guys be any more obvious?"

I see you've come in late. The allegations made by Democrats in 2000 had *nothing* to do with voter fraud. No one ever alleged that Bush inflated his numbers in Florida with illegal votes.

We're breezily throwing these notions around, equating voter suppression with voter fraud, but it is important to note how ridiculous it is to think that you can actually steal an election through voter fraud. We're talking about a massive, costly conspiracy to commmit thousands upon thousands of felonies on a single day, and that's just to win a single state. And this massive, secret conspiracy is supposedly afoot, right now, and it involves registering Tony Romo and Terrell Owens to vote in Ohio.

Voter suppression and intimidation, however, is very easy and it happens quite a bit. Just about anyone who has canvassed in black neighborhoods in any close election has seen the flyers, spreading fear and misinformation about voting rights. There are elected officials that, every four years, try to purge voting rolls of black voters, often in violation of federal law. But beause this goes on on the conservative side, we're supposed to believe that some other, totally different problem must also go on on the liberal side!

No, I don't believe Ohio was stolen in 2004. There were shady things going on, but not enough to steal it from Kerry and give it to Bush. Many liberals have admitted as much--which will be more than I can say for the sad conservatives who on Nov. 5 will actually believe that ACORN gave Obama a 4-8 point nationwide victory.

There were shady things going on, but not enough to steal it from Kerry and give it to Bush.

I'll agree with you here, while noting that in Ohio, there was at very least the appearance of a Republican establishment -- I'll say it again, right down to the inept and the malevolent in the county election management -- that was primed to serve the party right down to claiming a 10-out-of-10 terrorist threat on election night.

The step-back-and-take-stock judgement is this: Republicans have consistently, and actively, shown a desire to keep eligible voters from voting, whether through dirty tricks or legislative trickery. Voter suppression is the easiest way to shape the outcome of American elections. If these tactics were being deployed in a country that the Republicans regarded as hostile to US interests, they would be cited as anti-democratic. There is a difference in degree between GOP voter suppression and Mugabe's goon squads and their certified beatings of opposition supporters, but not a difference in kind.

pseudonymous in nc, I see your still an idiot. FYI elections are done at county level, so if you don’t like the way resources are allocated to precincts your qualm is with County Governance. Oddly most Counties that seem to have problems are highly liberal and ran by Democrats. See Cuyahoga County OH circa 2004. Election was a complete mess….because dumb ass Democrats can’t run an honest efficient election.

And all the claims that voter roll fraud has no effect are BS. Almost every poll bases it’s weighting on the number of registered voters. By packing the voter rolls with phony Democrats ACORN manipulates the polls to make it appear Democrats have a lead or margin that doesn’t exist. Phony polls give the press cover to tell everyone Obama is winning huge and talk about him endlessly. There are millions of idiots in the country that vote and are stupid enough to be swayed by polls and MSM coverage.

I think it is important to remember that all of this is voter registration fraud NOT voter fraud

I think it is disingenuous to say that this is a situation of no harm no foul. There is a propaganda effect of being able to say that 10,000 or 500,000 new Democratic voters have been registered and that people are so excited about Obama that they are coming out of the woodwork to vote, the Voice of America. There is a great deal of spin that can be generated leading to a perception of a groundswell which serves to demoralize the opposing party supporters and get leaners on the bandwagon. No one notices that 95% of those are ineligible or fraudulent voters because by then the marching band is playing so loud. We need a Voter ID card with a picture for those that don't have picture Driver's licenses and a waiting time sufficient that registrations can be confirmed before voting. It is shameful to have such egregious or flagrant disregard for honesty in voter registrations. The ACORN organization should not be able to hide behind blaming a few bad apples. They are responsible for the actions of their employees and should have supervision. They need to ensure that the job is being done in accordance with the law or they should stop doing it.

To prevent it," Blackwell urged, "we must act now." Many Republicans, including operatives from the McCain campaign, have indeed been raising the specter of voter fraud across battleground states, from Nevada to Michigan to Pennsylvania, and pushing for action by government authorities.

But according to Lori Minnite, a professor of political science at Barnard College, who has spent the last eight years studying the role of fraud in U.S. elections, the Republican crusade against voter fraud is a strategic ruse. Rather than protecting the election process from voter fraud -- a problem that barely exists -- Minnite says the true aim of Republican efforts appears to be voter suppression across the partisan divide. According to Minnite, investigating voter fraud has become a Republican cottage industry over the last 20 years because it justifies questioning the eligibility of thousands of would-be voters -- often targeting poor and minority citizens in urban areas that lean Democratic. Playing the role of vigilant watchdog gives GOP bureaucrats a pretext for obstructing the path of marginalized and first-time voters headed for the polls.

One could take this more seriously ( the editorial) if the hypocrisy wasn't so blatant. Clear evidence of attempted (and of course not yet successful voter fraud since the election hasn't occurred - except where early voting is allowed) is rejected out of hand yet every time an R wins a election it was "stolen." If there is no voter fraud then there is none at all. One cannot have it both ways. Florida was an example of both sides trying anything to win - post election - why cant people think both sides act that way before. Zealots (on both sides) are always convinced that they are right and the end justifies the means. I put nothing by them but you should denounce both sides equally, except you cant -because that would make your side wrong too. Try being above it all instead of an advocate

The ACORN Scandal has just made the case for positive picuture ID when voting.......that is, if you really want fair elections.

pseudonymous in nc, I see your still an idiot.

That was a 'given'.

The illiterate Vegas parasite gets props from the redneck Texan bigot? It's like the freaks' parade at the county fair.

You either think that the process of voting should be the same regardless of age, income, race or location, or you don't. Vajima certainly doesn't, because he's a bigot; the illiterate parasite apparently just doesn't know what 'partisan' means, or how partisans in state government can reward or stiff partisans in county government when organizing elections.

If Democrats could make up the election rules prior to voting and stick to them most of these issues wouldn't happen. Do MI and FL delegates count or not? Lets hold an election, see who wins, then make the decision to match.

Only a Democrat could claim to know voter intent when analyising dimpled chads. Well this dimple is 1/10 of a mm deep so they meant to vote where as this dimple is 1/20 of a mm so it was an accident.

Liberals have own corrput elections since the 1900s. Tamney Hall Chicago Politics, corruption is your strong suit. If you add up all the prosecuted voter fraud since this country started 99% of it is Democrats.

You can't even run a clean primary

Shorter nate: "I got nothing."

You still don't fucking understand what I said about partisans, do you?

I wouldn't trust a county supervisor to run a lemonade stand, because county supervisor is the line on the ballot that 0.13% of the county electorate gives a shit about. Teresa LaPore was a fuckwit. The GOP supervisor making fake terrorist threat claims in Ohio was a fuckwit.

Put some non-partisan professionals in charge of overseeing elections on the local level, have them report to a non-partisan professional on the state level, and have some federal guidelines in place that provide assistance to implement standardised procedures if it's such a huge fucking burden on the state taxpayers, oh woe is me.

Yeah, it's "big" government. But you know what? You can be a small-government conservative and still like the idea of having bureaucrats run elections, in which you earn your keep by having a consistent, well-run registration and electoral system. What's the fucking alternative? Have Halliburton do it?

Here's the deal: if you're rich, you can live in a big house, drive a fancy car, see the best doctors, hire the best lapdancers to grind in your crotch while drinking Dom Perignon from a bottle. Fair play to you.

But if you live in a democracy, voting while rich and voting while poor should not be different. Voting in the city, voting in the burbs, and voting in the country should not be different. Voting while black and voting while white should not be different.

It's as simple as that, and if you're going to argue that some people have earned a right to cast their ballot with greater ease than others, you should fuck off back to another century.

Your call, nate: voting's not like Vegas, where you can fly into McCarran, grab that license downtown in the middle of the night and get married in a drive-thru a few blocks up from the Stratosphere with a guy dressed like Elvis singing along. You can't pick and choose the state where you cast your ballot based upon which state makes it easiest.

Ezra,

I assume it was it inadvertent, but did you know that Ashkenazic Jews read Ecclesiastes this Saturday in synagogue?

Yep, agreed, it's never fraud when the dems do it.........it's repub intimidation. F%^$^%ing hypocrite partisan hack!! Who is this idiot!!!