PURGES: Democratic Party must check registration status

[mod mom]

I just received this in an election reform e-mail:

We have noticed that Reform Ohio Now (RON) initiatives had more than 532,000 signatures. But Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell only cleared 353,094 signatures as qualifying. 178,906 signatures (approximately one-third) were disqualified because "not registered or other reasons".http://www.ohiocitizen.org/moneypolitics/ron/ron.htm 500,000 signatures would not have been enough! It is not known what the specific causes of so many signatures being disqualified are, but Ohio SOS Blackwell eliminated many registered voters in Ohio in 2004 primarily for the statutory reason that they had not voted in the last two federal elections. Another problem with disqualification of signatures is that they have to match the signatures on the initiative with the signatures on the registration cards. Depending on how stringent they are about this, they could drop 178,906 signatures.

Republican SOSs (don't assume this is limited to Blackwell in Ohio-he went down to Florida for training in 2000) are using purges to eliminate democratic voters. The democratic party must make a concerted effort to check the status of their base, especially in low income neighborhoods where voters may not have access to web sites for checking. THIS IS A SERIOUS PROBLEM!

In Ohio we had break-ins to the Lucas county Dem HQ as well as the Ohio Democratic Party HQ and although it has been suggested that it was punks, valuable items were left behind while sensitvie data was not. Even if they don't break-in, however, historic democratic precincts can be targeted.