Tell College Students: YOU CAN VOTE

September 8, 2008 10:44 AM

Late last month local Virginia Republican officials began to worry about the thousands of students at Virginia Tech who were being registered by the Obama Campaign. So they put out a series of press releases incorrectly asserting dire consequences for the students.
posted by parmanparman (5 comments total)

This happened in Arizona in '04. In fact, a local news anchor went on the air falsely claiming that it was illegal for students to register, which was, not to be redundant, totally false.

It shouldn't be a suprise that republicans will do everything they can to prevent people from voting. Another fun story from 2004: Ken Blackwell, the Secretary of State anounced a couple of weeks before the election that he was going to discard the majority of voter registration forms collected by canvassers (mostly for liberal groups like America Coming Together). Why? Because he claimed the forms hadn't been printed on thick enough paper.

And, since it was so close to the election, there wouldn't be time for people to re-register. After a couple of days, he relented, mainly because its totally illegal to refuse a voter registration for technical errors.

Ken Blackwell ran for governor in '06 and lost, and the current SoS of Ohio is a democrat, who actually ordered audits of the electronic voting machines -- at which point they discovered that all the machines were totally insecure and there would be no chance to replace them before the election.

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One major difference this year is that the Obama campaign is actually being pro-active in trying to stomp out these suppression tactics before the election, rather then trying to litigate afterword like Gore in 2000. They are aware and are taking measures to prevent the GOP from chipping away at the margins by questionable means.
posted by delmoi at 10:52 AM on September 8, 2008

I would like to think that, despite the millions of religious loony tunes that are going to bless Sarah Palin with their votes from Jesus, there are millions more college students/young adults for Obama.

I dearly would like to think.
posted by plexi at 10:55 AM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

Rock Rig The Vote!
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:00 AM on September 8, 2008

And I'd like to think that this country learns from its past mistakes, but recent history tells me otherwise.
posted by mosk at 11:02 AM on September 8, 2008

Already mentioned a few threads down.
posted by burnmp3s at 11:07 AM on September 8, 2008