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United States Government Politics

Disenfranchised In Nevada 250

An anonymous reader writes "If you are a Democrat and you decided to register to vote in Nevada through non-official channels, you may have gotten disenfranchised by a private voter registration company. In this news article, it appears that employees of 'Voters Outreach of America' have been busy tearing up registration forms, specifically those from Democrats. The article indicates that hundreds to thousands of voter registrations may have been trashed. Unfortunately, the deadline to register to vote in Nevada has already passed."
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Disenfranchised In Nevada

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  • !FP? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by temojen ( 678985 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @12:54PM (#10515050) Journal
    Why is this not on the Front Page?
    • Because this old news. Stuff like this has been happening ever since you had to mark an affiliation on the voter registration form. Because it is so easy to detect, this kind of crime is not common. But if you think it's only supporters of Bush that are doing this, you are naive.

      Putting this story on the front page would be like posting "mafia caught runnning prostitution ring". Yawn.
      • Re:!FP? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by temojen ( 678985 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @01:14PM (#10515267) Journal

        Sorry, I'm from Canada, where we have sane election laws.

        You have to mark your affiliation on your registration??? WTF?!

        Who thought that was a good idea???

        • Re:!FP? (Score:4, Informative)

          by kalidasa ( 577403 ) * on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @01:25PM (#10515384) Journal

          You have to mark your affiliation on your registration??? WTF?! Who thought that was a good idea???

          Historically, it was necessary to determine which primaries you were eligible to vote in: Democrats voted in Democratic primaries, Republicans in Republican primaries. A lot of states (like my own) have since gone to a system where you can register as "unenrolled," then select any (in theory; in practice, either) primary ballot at the primary. Taking a primary ballot effectively registers you in that party. What you then must do is re-register as "unenrolled" to retain your ability to select either primary ballot; but conveniently, there are registration cards at the polling places (only during primaries, and only for those who are already registered and want to change their enrollment). Nevertheless, a lot of people do still put their affiliations on their registrations, and it is possible that many states still require you to list an affiliation on your registration in order to vote in a primary.

      • Re:!FP? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Daetrin ( 576516 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @01:24PM (#10515370)
        What a strawman argument.

        This isn't just a normal filler news report, it contains information that people may be able to take action on and should do so if possible. The deadline to register may have passed in Nevada, but the group has also been active in Oregon and who knows where else, and in some of those locations people still may have time to correct the problem.

        Every year they run short on flu shots and every year there are news stories about where you can go to still get shots. Every year there are new outbreaks of west nile virus and every year there are news stories about what signs to watch for and who you should call if you see dead birds lying about. Every few months or years some area has accidental contamination of their water supply and the news runs stories on what areas are affected and for how long.

        It doesn't matter how often or regularly such events happen, if there is a specific case going on at the moment the news has a responsibility to try and inform those people who might be affected so they can take appropriate action.

        • It doesn't matter how often or regularly such events happen, if there is a specific case going on at the moment the news has a responsibility to try and inform those people who might be affected so they can take appropriate action.

          No, "the news" doesn't have a responsibility to do anything. The only reason media companies do things is because there's a profit in it. Every media outlet wants to gather more eyeballs to their magazine, newspaper, TV station, etc. The more eyeballs they have, the more adve
    • by pudge ( 3605 ) *
      Because it is entirely unsubstantiated.

      All we know is two guys claimed it happened. If it is reasonable to think this group might have been destroying voter registrations, why is it not reasonable to think these two guys were themselves taking those registrations and shredding them to frame this group? It's not like that sort of thing would be unprecedented, in this history of political dirty tricks.
      • Re:!FP? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jamie ( 78724 ) <jamie@slashdot.org> on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @01:24PM (#10515372) Journal
        Because it is entirely unsubstantiated. All we know is two guys claimed it happened.

        That is incorrect. As the article makes clear, the physical evidence that the "two guys" provided backs up their story.

        You may not be convinced, but don't overstate your case. The article may not be proven yet, but it is clearly substantiated.

        • by pudge ( 3605 ) *
          That is incorrect. As the article makes clear, the physical evidence that the "two guys" provided backs up their story.

          No, it does not. It backs up the story that these particular registrations were not entered, NOT that the company in question had anything to do with it.
      • by Sevn ( 12012 )
        pay no attention to the man behind the curtains! [portland.or.us]

        It's starting to pick up steam. For everyone's sake, I hope this is all piss and wind but it's starting to look pretty legitimate.
      • Just like in South Dakota: http://keloland.com/NewsDetail2817.cfm?Id=22,35221 . Where are even any reports of Democrats resorting to these treasonous crimes? Maybe because they're going to win, rather than try to hijack the American election game like the Republicans did in 2000.
        • My paranoia is not naive. Things like this happen every election cycle, and naivite is to think otherwise.

          And the fact that you think the GOP did evil things in 2000 where the Democrats did not is probably why you ignorantly think it is one-sided in 2004, too.
          • Again, let's have some backup on your "fair and balanced" claims. It's interesting that inference of Democrat cheating in 2004 is good enough for you, but you require the physical evidence of Nevada Republican registration cheating to be processed by a US court.
  • Standards? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @12:55PM (#10515056) Homepage Journal
    There has got to be a way to standardize the election process in this country to help prevent this kind of fraud, or all the nonsense coming from the various kinds of voting machines.

    How hard can it be to come up with a simple, standard solution. Why does every jurisdiction have to do things in so many different ways. We have California, who has done everything they can but offer free beer to get illegal immigrants to vote. We have Florida that uses all those weird voting machines (which ironically don't see to be a problem in other states). We have millions being spent on electronic voting that's about as secure as Al Sharpton at a KKK meeting.

    I have no doubt that these things are largely caused by crooked individuals and not some vast conspiracy on the part of the political parties involved (regardless of the shameless fear-mongering to the contrary).

    I would think the richest and most powerful country in the world could do better.

    • Re:Standards? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by HotNeedleOfInquiry ( 598897 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @01:36PM (#10515532)
      Of course there is. Just haul your lazy ass down to the county courthouse, ask for the elections department and register there.

      So would you fill out a credit card application that someone on the street shoved in your face? I'm thinking that it's just silliness that people trusted someone to do the right thing here...
      • So would you fill out a credit card application that someone on the street shoved in your face?

        Like on hundreds of college campuses around the nation?
        Now, I agree -- trusting credit card companies is dumb.
        But it happens a lot.
        • I trust credit card companies to a degree, as does everyone that pays their credit card bill. My point was to be suspicious of the communications channel, not the end destination.

          I was not aware that strangers give strangers credit card applications then take them back to return them to the credit card company. That is, indeed, just as foolish as trusting a stranger to file your voter registeration.
      • So would you fill out a credit card application that someone on the street shoved in your face?

        I get credit card applications in my mailbox placed there by a carrier I don't know and rarely see from companies I have never contacted and have no business relationship with? And most people seem to place a lower value on their voter registration than their credit history.
    • Re:Standards? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hamburger lady ( 218108 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @02:35PM (#10516330)
      I have no doubt that these things are largely caused by crooked individuals and not some vast conspiracy on the part of the political parties involved

      seeing as how the guy who runs the company behind these shenanigans is funded by the RNC (and is the ex-head of a state republican committee), i'd look at the situation a little deeper.

    • How hard can it be to come up with a simple, standard solution?

      Well, it depends on whether you want that simple, single, standard solution to be right!

      How do we know that if we standardized that it would be correct?

      Diversity is both a strength and a weakness. The right methods will, over time, prevail. The wrong methods won't. If we have 50 different methods then we increase the chance that one of those 50 methods will be right; and over time it means we speed up the process of finding the right answer.
    • For one, we are not really one nation, but a collection of 50 independent nations. The federal government has no jurisdiction on election processes, except for a few amendments to the constitution.

      What would be the most fair system? It's quite simple.

      (1) You register by presenting to an official documents that prove that you are a citizen of the United States. This means a passport, a birth certificate, or naturalization papers. These are photocopied and archived.

      (2) You are issued a voter passport with
      • Here in Virginia we use sheets of paper with the different choices very clearly labelled and you fill in the one you want with a black marker. It's extremely simple yet allows for machine counting.

        Your method might be overkill, but I agree with you that it would be more secure than some (or all) of the systems they have now.

        The thing is, the more thorough the system is, the more likely someone who is (or should be) eligible to vote cannot vote, and then all of a sudden you are accused of "disenfranchisin
      • Re:Standards? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by richie2000 ( 159732 ) <rickard.olsson@gmail.com> on Thursday October 14, 2004 @07:31AM (#10522630) Homepage Journal
        In Sweden, all citizens eligible to vote are automatically registered to vote. It's a non-issue. We're all registered. We get voter cards in the mail about a month before the election.

        If you wish to wait until election day like most people do (instead of casting an absentee ballot at the local post office), you go to the designated polling place with your voter card and a photo ID, take a ballot with your candidate's/party's name on it (we normally have around ten different parties of which 5-6 or so make it into the parliament), put it in an envelope behind a screen, seal it and give it to the voting official who puts it in a strongbox while two of his colleagues (these are all local guys from different parties) watch. They then strike your name off the voter list and you're done. It's all very serious and very proper. Counting is done in parallell - again with three officials present at all times. We normally get the first solid results within hours after the last polling place closes with some of the absentee and overseas ballots being counted up to a week later.

        If you want to vote in a different polling place, that's fine. If you want to vote from overseas - no problem. One person, one vote. No problems, no cheating, no confusion and we consistently get turnouts in the 80-90% range for our parliament elections.

        To a Swede, it's inconcievable that the USA, one of the proudest democracies in the world, is unable to hold a general election that stands up to any kind of standard regarding voter integrity... Register for voting? 4711 different voting methods? Insane. You might as well use a pair of crooked dice to select the President.

        There has to be a federal database of every citizen in the US, right? Use it for some good for once. Automatically remove all under-aged and other criteria you may want (taking away the opportunity for Jeb Bush to get rid of a bunch of left-wing hippie voters) and send voter cards to the rest. If you wish you can include ballots for all parties that got more than 1% in the last election in that letter and let the rest of the ballots be available at the polling place. Do not register party affiliation anywhere. Do not pass Go. Do not let anyone except a federally appointed multi-partisan voting commission interfere with this process, at any level at all.

        It's just basic checks and balances, it's not like it's rocket science.

  • by chitownIrish ( 769695 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @12:58PM (#10515086)
    ... is the answer. The requirement that you declare a party affiliation seems only to be a way of locking in the two-party system.
  • I got wind of this watching Channel 8, and I'm not too surprised. It's never a matter of who cheated to win an election, but rather who cheated best. I'm wondering if 3rd-party registrations were also targetted: my party, the IAP, has grown 52% from Jan to Aug, and we nibble away at the Republican's ultra-conservative base.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    The http://www.americavotes.org group is NOT the same organization as is referred to in the story. i've done some digging with whois and google and this much is very clear. The organization in the story is probably just using their name.
  • by dman123 ( 115218 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @01:08PM (#10515199) Journal
    I live in a state where there we do not register for a party affiliation, have open primaries, and can register the same day at the voting site. It is still amazing to me that consituents of states that do not have these three rights (yes, I said rights, not privledges) do not rise up and demand for it to be this way. The only reason I can imagine is that voters in Nevada and others have not had the experience of how easy it is to vote with these artificial burdens removed.
    • Which state is that?
      • I can't speak for all states, but I know that Wisconsin does.

        Heck, I just found out at the last minute that I'm going to be shipped far far away for election day by my employer. And it's too late to order an absentee ballot. No worries, I can just go down to the courthouse and fill out an absentee ballot in person, right there.
      • It's Minnesota I was referring to, but as my cheesehead neighbor Bastian pointed out, it's in Wisconsin too.
  • treason (Score:4, Insightful)

    by girth ( 40643 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @01:21PM (#10515348)
    I don't care which side is involved, this is one of the most unamerican things you can do. This should be treated as treason.

    This is another area where there needs to be a paper trail. These companies should be bonded and some sort of receipt should be issued to the voter that would allow one to either vote or allow them to file a protest and cast a vote after the fact. Any company found in fraud (anything above a normal error level) would loose their bond plus face criminal charges.

  • by joey_knisch ( 804995 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @01:28PM (#10515413)
    http://www2.kval.com/x30530.xml?ParentPageID=x2649 &ContentID=x47627&Layout=kval.xsl&AdGroupID=x30530 [kval.com] Same company. This time in oregon. I hope these people pay for their crimes.
  • Whether or not this is true, couldn't it be avoided by not identifying the party on the registration forms.

    Without that, I recommend that Democrats who believe this is happening claim they are Republicans. Republicans who believe the opposite should claim they are Democrats. That will also completely mess up all the predictions and polls and maybe make the election more interesting, too!
  • by putch ( 469506 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @01:43PM (#10515623) Homepage
    this wouldn't be an issue (or much less of one) if we'd scrap all of the hoops you need to jump through to vote. the time for election day voter registration is here. it's the fucking 21st century already. i can have pretty much any consumer item in the world (except duk nukem forever) shipped to me tommorrow, over the internet, but i have to mail in my form 25 days before the election? and 60! before a primary?

    HAVA is going to require every state to maintain a centralized voter reg database. with such a system on-demand voting could mean:

    1) no more voter reg deadlines. show up give them your name and you vote
    2) vote from any poll site. can't make it back to your home before 9? just vote at the most convenient site. a voting kiosk will display the proper ballot for your election district
    3) no over-voting. everyone gets one vote, no voting in two districts. in ny it is possible, though illegal, to register in many different counties, since they all keep their own records and dont share (at least not well enough).
    • ... it's the fucking 21st century already. i can have pretty much any consumer item in the world (except duk nukem forever) shipped to me tommorrow ...

      The retail sale analogies are foolish. A vote is a one time event, non-repairable, non-replacable. Your stolen credit card can be replaced, you liability for fraudulent purchases is minimal, lost or missing legitimate purchases are almost always easily replacable. The error/fraud rate of online purchases is offset by the convenience. Voting is a completel
    • 1) no more voter reg deadlines. show up give them your name and you vote 2) vote from any poll site. can't make it back to your home before 9? just vote at the most convenient site. a voting kiosk will display the proper ballot for your election district 3) no over-voting. everyone gets one vote, no voting in two districts. in ny it is possible, though illegal, to register in many different counties, since they all keep their own records and dont share (at least not well enough).

      Wow -- that sounds like a

  • See a pattern? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rritterson ( 588983 ) * on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @01:51PM (#10515729)
    (Disclaimer: I lean left)

    -Democratic forms get tossed in the trash, but not Republican forms...
    -It's Texas Republicans who are Gerrymandering in their redistricting efforts...
    -Sinclair wishes to put an obviously anti Kerry Docuganda on TV...
    -Flordia 2000 -- Black voters are disenfranchised by the thousands. Guess which way they lean?

    Try as I might, I can only think of one example of such behavior from Democrats: Micheal Moore. However, Sinclair's decision eclipses Fahrenheit because Sony didn't tell all of it's theaters to pre-empt I,Robot to show Fahrenheit.

    Now, I'm willing to concede I'm biased and that I just don't notice the deciept and trickery the left puts on. Can anyone reply to my post with a corresponding list of things Dems have done?

    (No, rhetoric doesn't count- *every* candidate is full of hyperbolic BS)
    • Re:See a pattern? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Sevn ( 12012 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @02:06PM (#10515906) Homepage Journal
      As a admitted capitalist, there is a MAJOR difference between F/911 and the other shamelessly political movies. F/911 made over 100 million dollars. It's a definite profit maker. There isn't anything that counters it that will generate even 10 percent of that massive haul. I think some people forget that. I know disney never will.
      • I really don't think that Disney are going to be that upset. They probably consider the goodwill they will receive from the GOP to be worth a lot more than they would have gotten from this money. I can't see anyone at Disney hurting that much.

        Of course, that is pretty sad, but it is indicative of how important poilitics is in the real world.
    • What about the breakins at Bush Headquarters? This is a pattern- true- but it's a pattern that coveres both sides relatively equally.
    • There certainly [newsnet5.com] are [cleveland.com] patterns [209.157.64.200] all [jacksonville.com] kinds [cnn.com].
    • I lean left as well but:

      Try as I might, I can only think of one example of such behavior from Democrats

      I do not think that you looked hard enough. Voter fraud is worked on both sides of the aisle. Consider mayor Richard Daley's 'vote early and vote often' campaign that many consider gave JFK the presidency over Richard M. Nixon in 1960.

      Or how about the 1948 Texas Senate race that gave LBJ the victory by a scant 87, yes only 87, votes. Most people believe that thousands of those votes were bought in so

    • Re:See a pattern? (Score:3, Informative)

      Let's see... the Democrats have repeatedly invaded GOP campaign offices, breaking the arm of a campaign worker (October 7), terrorized a worker in Canton, Ohio by burglarizing an occupied building forcing the worker to barricade herself in an office for safety (October 10), burned swastikas into the lawn of a Bush supporter in Wisconsin (September 30), and fired a weapon into Bush campaign offices in Huntington, West Virginia (while campaign staff were watching Bush's acceptance speech), Knoxville, Tennesse
    • Re:See a pattern? (Score:4, Informative)

      by overunderunderdone ( 521462 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @12:41PM (#10526489)
      Can anyone reply to my post with a corresponding list of things Dems have done?

      Sure:
      -Republican forms get tossed in the trash [twincities.com] but not Republican forms [floridatoday.com]...
      - Democratic registration for completely fictional people [enquirer.com]...
      - Fraudulent [enquirer.com], forged Democratic registrations [9news.com] as well dumping a full years worth of paperwork on the registrars lap in the last minute to ensure they weren't looked at [palmbeachpost.com] and INTENTIONALLY putting down false information for Republicans [pottstownmercury.com] or simply not turning them in [floridatoday.com].

      - Texas Democrats who Gerrymandered in their redistricting efforts... (The recent successful Republican effort was tit for tat revenge for the 1990 redistricting that The Almanac for American Politics called "The most partisan redistricting in the '90 cycle in the nation." and "the shrewdest gerrymander" of it's time. A gerrymander that resulted in a house delegation that was 17 to 15 Democratic despite 56% of the voters at the polls voting for a Republican congressman.

      - CBS (as partisan as Sinclair or Fox) doing it's traditional 60 Minutes week-before-the-election hit piece early this year using obvious forgeries and giving the Kerry campaign advanced notice so they could exploit it with their operation "Fortunate Son"

      -Florida 1998 -- Massive voter fraud uncovered that eventually leads to the election being overturned [csmonitor.com]. The efforts during the next cycle (2000) all efforts to prevent fraud demagogued as "disenfranchising black voters" by the EXACT same people who had perpetuated the fraud.
  • As a Canadian, I am getting the impression that in Nevada when you register to vote, you have to declare a party affiliation. Is this true? If so, this is quite alien to me.

    Furthermore the last time I voted (I did not pre-register), all I did was show up to the voting location in my area, provide several pieces of ID confirming my identity and my current address (driver's licence, pay stub, etc) and I get a ballot. I vote. End of story.

    Nowhere, I mean NOWHERE, do I EVER have to declare any party affiliati
  • my mind boggles at the situation where any sort of private organisation (with no accountability to anybody) is allowed to perform tasks such as voter registration..

    • Generally you can register at various government offices, or at least pick up the mail-in form. You can download the pdf for the official mail-in form from various government websites and print it. The private party business is optional and generally a tool for a party to visit large blocks of likely members and sign them up. For example the dems passing out voter registration forms at a union meeting, the repubs passing out forms at a chamber of commerce meeting. Sometimes a party will pay a third party to
  • Failure to turn in a voter registration card is a felony offense. The guilty will do some hard time over this.
  • by RotJ ( 771744 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @04:04PM (#10517487) Journal
    Via name_withheld from SensibleErection:
    Colorado [9news.com]
    Ohio [enquirer.com]
    Pennsylvania [pottstownmercury.com]
    Florida [theledger.com]
    Tennessee [nashvillecitypaper.com]
    Michigan [freep.com]
    West Virginia [wowktv.com]
    Wisconsin [jsonline.com]
    • As far as I can tell from reading those articles, all of those cases are of people being twice-registered or imaginary people being registered. That's the type of fraud that is easy to detect, and hard to exploit. It always seems to be a case of greed on the part of the individuals who are gathering registrations. (Though, this alone is enough to justify getting rid of paid registrators, if you ask me.)

      No, what the case in Nevada is, is a case of tricking people into thinking they are registered, tricking
  • How ironic. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jbn-o ( 555068 ) <mail@digitalcitizen.info> on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @06:11PM (#10518730) Homepage
    In 2000, thousands of would-be Democratic Party voters in Florida were kept from voting by what was called "scrubbing" the voter rolls (Greg Palast's book "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" discusses this in detail). In subsequent years, the Democrats did virtually nothing to help these voters regain their voting rights; the plight of these citizens was not made an issue when Democrat Janet Reno ran in Florida in 2002. Democratic Party senators did not sign a Congressional Black Caucus letter brought to the floor, thus preventing any discussion of the Florida disenfranchisement (this was featured in the movie "Fahrenheit 9/11"). It would have only taken one senator to sign that letter, but not even Democratic Party Sen. Lieberman (who was running for office at the time) would sign the CBC's letter.

    I hope that when people read this story they feel sorry for disenfranchised citizens, not a political party that doesn't work to help all Americans retain their right to vote. This is not a reason to vote Republican nor is it a reason to vote Democrat. It's a reason to question the motivations of both major American political parties.
    • In many states you are removed from the rolls if you skip one Presedential election, or two elections in a row. This is to purge the records and keep up to date lists without dead people still being eligable.
      • This act centered on legitimate voters who were unethically denied the ability to vote. They were not dead people nor were they felons.
  • From an AP article [sfgate.com]:

    Russell, a former Voters Outreach of America employee in Las Vegas, said he witnessed his supervisor shred eight to 10 Democratic registration forms from prospective voters. Russell could not recall his supervisor's name.

    I can name the supervisors I've had for nearly the past 20 years, and this guy can't name his supervisor from a couple of months ago? Color me dubious.

    • Are you kidding? He had a temp job in a temporary operation at a temporary location, that was run by criminals pretending to be someone else. In my late teens I had plenty of jobs where I was never told the name of the guy next to me, or the lady who set my task list. The day this story broke, the office space rented by these sleazeballs was occupied by someone else, and they had skipped out on the rent. That he can't name his boss makes him no less credible.
  • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @11:46AM (#10525798)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by JimMarch(equalccw) ( 710249 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @12:17AM (#10532468)
    ...in California and what I was always told was that if they're registering as something other than Republican, we don't take the form - but we DO give it to 'em either blank or filled out there by them, and show them how to fold it and mail it.

    That way we can't be accused of anything like this.

    Now granted, something less than 100% will drop the thing in a mailbox, even though it's postage paid by the California Secretary of State. But that ain't our fault.

    (I'm a Libertarian-leaning Republican, member of the Republican Liberty Caucus.)

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