There now appears to be some serious problems and patterns emerging in key states like Virginia and Pennsylvania. Heavy democratic areas have been polling places shutdown and thousands of voters turned away. Provisional ballots have been given inappropriately to many voters.
Over the weekend, I described my own observations of election officials failing to properly staff or equip early voting sites. Now a wider number of such problems are emerging. This includes a large number of site where voters are given the choice of waiting for hours in the rain or not voting.
In Virginia, there are widespread machine failures and closure of offices. Of greatest concern is the decision of election officials to close the voting place for Virginia Tech students at the last moment. The location was moved six miles away to a location with little parking. This is considered a key area of Obama and was previously targeted by voter suppression efforts.
At George Mason University, an official looking email from the Provost went to all students and faculty members telling them that voting day had been changed to November 5th. It is consistent with other vote suppression efforts seen in the state.
Richmond is reporting lines where people are being forced to wait over three hours in the rain. Various sites in North Carolina and Virginia are reporting soaked paper ballots.
In Pennsylvania, voting malfunctions and closures are being reported across Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. In Philadelphia, McCain supporters have objected to black panthers blocking the door of one polling place.
In Indiana, a court order the McCain campaign to follow election rules and two McCain workers were removed from a polling place for using improper means for challenging workers.
In many states, provisional ballots are being improperly handed out to voters. There have already been lawsuits filed by the McCain and the Obama camps. A judge ordered military ballots to be preserved. The situation appears to be worsening and looks much like what we saw in 2004 when I was covering legal issues for CBS News.
Obviously, if this is a landslide for Obama, such problems will not matter and provisional ballots will not be counted. However, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and other swing states already appear to be trouble areas.
For one report, click here.
I posted this on another thread but was curious to hear some input. Has anyone heard of any reports of a Republican voter’s electronically cast selection switching to Democrat? Going back to 2004 all the reports that I have read (and there are many)are about Democratic votes mysteriously switching to Republican. Can this be some strange coincidence or does it point toward something seriously shifty going on over at Diebold? If this is so, why hasn’t it been seriously investigated? Could this fall under the RICO Act?
Sally,
I’m glad!
rafflaw,
I agree. These illegalities should be investigated and legal action taken.
No harm done Jill. I knew what you were trying to say. I was not offended at all!
Jill,
You are right that there is a pattern to these gross violations of the the law. The good news is that it is not doing the McCain camp any good. He is in the process of going down in a big way. These obvious infractions should still be investigated after the election in order to find the culprits and hold them legally accountable.
Sally,
I want to apologize. I wrote in haste and what I wrote implied you don’t care about voter fraud as a whole. I’m certain that is not true. Again, I would like to apologize, and I’m very sorry if I hurt your feelings.
Jill
Here we go again…I smell a Red Rat
Sally,
This post by JT is one reason why I can’t agree that the flyer is silly. There are real patterns to this abuse of voters. Sometimes things may seem completely clear to one person but they just aren’t to many others. This is true of many things in life. These voting “problems” are systemic attempts to disenfranchise our citizens. They should be opposed forcefully by any person of conscience, no matter what their party.