I am currently pissed off. Let me tell you why.
Today, around lunchtime, I went with my parents
to the polls to vote in our primary election.
When I got there, I found that I had somehow
been removed from the books, and hence could not vote.
Frustrated, I took the day off work and my mom
took me down to the Election Board at 18th and Walnut.
When we got there, we found that the reason I
was not on the books is that SOMEONE had sent in an address
change card for me. I live near 76th and Troost,
but the voting database now had me down as living at 52nd and
Locust - I've NEVER lived there, and have in
fact lived at this address all of my life (well, except for the year in
England,
and even then this was my "permanent address").
It took about two hours, but the elections commission director
straightened it out and I was finally able to
vote. However, she told me why this has been happening, and it's very worrisome.
Apparently there are groups out there who buy
copies of the voter registration rolls, then send in new registrations
for
registered voters giving them a new address.
It's really a more sophisticated version of the whole thing with the felony
lists
in Florida in the last election - however, people
aren't being REMOVED from the voting rolls, and hence there's no red flag
being raised. After all, people DO move and send
in change of address, so there's no reason for them to suspect voter fraud.
And there's really no way to trace this, so there's
really no way to detect this. But in effect what it means is voters are
removed
from the rolls - after all, if you're unknowingly
registered in another precinct, how can you vote at yours? I was lucky...I
have the
job flexibility and transportation to go down
to the election board and find out the problems, but I'm betting a lot
of the other
people with the same problems don't. And there
are a lot - at my precinct, during the period we were at the polls, which
was
pretty slow, there were only about five or six
people in and out, including us. And of those, me and one other guy found
ourselves
off the rolls, and one woman said she'd had the
same thing happen to her during the 2000 presidential election and had
to spend
the entire day down at the election board.
By the way, I'll just say that I think it's significant
that I happen to live in a largely minority, heavily Democratic district
in a
swing state. You can draw your own conclusions
from that. But I'll add that I've recently been reading Bush's Brain, a
book
about the INCREDIBLY F-ING SCARY Karl Rove, and
this scheme has a distinct Rovian stench to it.
(Three guesses who masterminded the similar scheme
in Florida for Bush?)
Anyway, I have a feeling that this problem is
only going to get worse as the November election approaches.
So I'm urging everyone, especially if you live
in a swing state - either check with your election board a few days
before the election to make sure you're on the
rolls at your current address, or vote absentee early (which will
also let you know whether you're on the rolls
or not).
The author's name wasn't clear, but it can't hurt to double check, especially in swing states.