GOP Voter Registration Firm Turns in Thousands of 'Invalid' Registration Forms in California

[gratuitous]

26. No, you're not going to get more votes for your side

But you stand a good chance of getting fewer votes for the other side. Folks fill out a voter registration card, turn it in to one of these less-than-reputable groups, and come election day find out they're not registered at all.

It's been a little cat-and-mouse game for the last couple of decades. Most people who are going to vote Republican are already registered, so the registration drives that target underserved communities sign up a lot more Democrats than Republicans. When the Republicans couldn't keep up with Democrats when it came to registering new voters, so Republican groups resorted to shit-canning cards that didn't meet their standards (that is, the voter registered as a Democrat). People were going to the polls, and finding out that their voter registrations had never been sent in.

So, legislatures passed laws that required all voter registration cards collected by groups to be turned in. The Republicans were getting their butts beat again, so they started a concerted program of signing up with bogus names and addresses. Then they went to county elections officials and screamed about how ACORN and other groups were trying to register Mickey Mouse or someone living at 123 Sesame Street. And they knew these registration cards existed because they'd filled them out themselves.

So registration groups started sequestering questionable cards and when they turned in bunch of registrations, they'd recommend to the county registrar that they take a close look at this card allegedly filled out by Buzz Lightyear, living at Infinity and Beyond Place.

Now, it sounds like Republicans have come full circle, distributing and collecting voter registration cards, but altering or spoiling ones they don't like. Republicans don't like it when too many people vote, because the higher the turnout, the worse they do.