Volunteers For Voter Suppression Group Installed As Election Officials In Ohio

By Aviva Shen/Think Progress

Conservative poll observers are gearing up for Election Day, when they will watch for possible instances of voter fraud and challenge voters they find suspicious. As ThinkProgress reported, many of these volunteers have been fed false or misleading information about voting rights by the Romney campaign and independent Tea Party groups like True the Vote. True the Vote encourages its poll watchers to “build relationships with election administrators” because “they control the access to the vote.”
But one True the Vote affiliate, the Ohio Voter Integrity Project, is taking their election interference one step further. Ohio VIP has recruited and dispatched poll workers who will not be merely observing, but directly involved in the voting process in a crucial swing state. Hamilton County elections director Tim Burke told the Columbus Dispatch that VIP poll workers will represent the Republican Party:

We know that the Voter Integrity Project has recruited and through the (Hamilton) County Republican Party has placed some poll workers. I have discussed this with my Republican counterpart.
I accept the fact that he understands that the VIP pollworkers are working for the Board of Elections on Election Day and are subject to the board’s instructions, not the VIP instruction. Obviously both sides are going to have observers as well as poll workers. I, and others will spend the day responding to trouble calls.

Ohio VIP provides a 3 hour training for their poll workers, as required by the Board of Elections. The group is advertising these sessions, according to the Dispatch, “as going beyond what the secretary of state tells them.” Ohio VIP is one of the more zealous branches of the already extreme True the Vote national organization; Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) opened a criminal investigation into True the Vote due to the Ohio group’s attempts to purge thousands of students, trailer park residents, homeless people and African Americans from the voting rolls.
While in-person voter fraud is exceedingly rare, overzealous poll workers could jeopardize legitimate votes by forcing them to use provisional ballots, which cannot be counted until November 17. Ohio’s provisional ballot mess is already threatening to disenfranchise thousands of legitimate voters — the bulk of whom live in urban, minority-heavy areas like Hamilton County, which contains Cincinnati. In 2004, Ohio tossed out thousands of provisional ballots, concentrated in Hamilton and the state’s four other urban counties. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) lost Ohio by a narrow margin in 2004, allowing George W. Bush to win a second term.

Ohio County Mailer Sends Wrong Voting Location And Date To 2300 People

By Aviva Shen/Think Progress

The Ohio Democratic Party is calling for corrections to an Ottawa County Board of Elections mailer riddled with errors. 2,300 voters in the northern Ohio county received the notice informing them the election was November 8 and that their precinct was relocated to a different building. The Deputy Director called it a “costly mistake,” and said they were reissuing the mailer with the correct information. President Obama won Ottawa County in 2008 with 52 percent of the vote.

90% of Delusional Fox News Viewers Think Romney Will Beat Obama in Ohio

By: Jason Easley/politicususa

Fox News viewers are so out of touch with reality that 90% of them actually think that Mitt Romney is going to win Ohio.

Special Report with Bret Baier asked Fox News viewers who they thought was going to win Ohio. Contrary to all of the polling that has Obama leading, 90% of Fox News viewers expect Romney to win.

Here are the current, at the time of publication, results of the poll:

As it states at the bottom of the graphic, this was not a scientific poll. However, it does tell us a lot about Fox News viewers. Like, the fact that 90% of them appear to be completely out of touch with reality. They think Romney will win Ohio, even though new polling suggests that Obama has opened up a double digit lead in the state. Fox News viewers think Romney will win despite the fact that his rallies in the state are drawing hundreds of supporters, while Obama is drawing thousands.

Perhaps they have forgotten that Ohio is the state where Republicans joined with Democrats to repeal John Kasich’s union busting SB 5 by a margin of 61%-39%. This is a state where the auto bailout is supported, 62%-30%. This is a state that Obama carried in 2008, and where his message is playing well again in 2012.

It is easy for non-Republicans to shake their heads and chuckle as Republicans start claiming that all the polls are really against Romney, and they bring up anything for a buck guy Dick Morris’ latest concoction that shows Mitt Romney really winning the election, but the truth is that these people really believe what is coming out of their mouths.

They truly can’t fathom why we all aren’t joining with them to throw Obama out of office. Their minds and communications have been so saturated with the right wing view that it is the only world that they see. It isn’t just that Fox News viewers are deluded and living in their own fantasy land where Obama is a secret Muslim socialist who is coming to steal your guns, but that this is their reality.

Of course, 90% of Fox News viewers think Romney will win Ohio. I mean, isn’t it obvious? Obama has ruined America, except in the minds of majority of the country that thinks Bush and the GOP ruined our economy, and the president is making things better.

Republicans aren’t in a different reality. They are living in an alternate universe. On Election Day, a portal will open, and for one day we will all be living in the same place.

Poll gives Obama 10 point lead in Ohio

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Ohio Verdict Another Blow to GOP Attempts to Restrict Voting

 By Evil Sax/Diary of a Republican Hater

 They've suffered some big losses this week, in Texas, in Florida, and now South Carolina is worried about their voter id law. 

       Now, a federal judge as restored early voting on the last 3 days before the election. 

      "A federal judge in Ohio on Friday restored early voting rights in the three days before the election, ruling in favor of the Obama campaign."

      "U.S. District judge Peter C. Economus ruled that "restoring in-person early voting to all Ohio voters through the Monday before Election Day does not deprive UOCAVA voters from early voting."

      "Instead, and more importantly, it places all Ohio voters on equal standing," Economus ruled. He said the state "fails to articulate a precise, compelling interest in establishing the 6 p.m. Friday deadline as applied to non-UOCAVA voters and has failed to evidence any commitment to the 'exception' it rhetorically extended to UOCAVA voters."

     "The Romney campaign had falsely accused Obama of trying to curtail military voting when the suit simply sought to force the state to make early voting available to all Ohio voters."

     http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/federal-judge-restores-early-voting-in-ohio-after?ref=fpa

     When you actually write down the Romney complaint in words it's hard to see how this even was considered a respectable law suit. How could letting others vote somehow restrict military voters? Anyway, though the GOP got a victory in Pennsylvania recently, they have lost a lot of important contests this week.

Ohio GOP Admits Early Voting Cutbacks Are Racially Motivated

Ari Berman/The Nation:

Earlier this month I reported how Ohio Republicans were limiting early voting hours in Democratic counties, while expanding them on nights and weekends in Republican counties.

In response to the public outcry, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, who intervened in favor of limiting early voting hours in Democratic counties, issued a statewide directive mandating uniform early voting hours in all eighty-eight Ohio counties. Husted kept early voting hours from 8 am to 5 pm on weekdays from October 2 to 19 and broadened hours from 8 am to 7 pm from October 22 to November 2. But he refused to expand early voting hours beyond 7 pm during the week, on weekends or three days prior to the election (which is beingchallenged in court by the Obama campaign)—when it is most convenient for many working Ohioans to vote. Rather than expanding early voting hours across the state, Husted limited them for everybody. Voter suppression for all!

Montgomery County, Ohio—which includes Dayton—is now at the center of the early voting fight. (Obama won Montgomery County by 6 percent in 2008). On two separate occasions, December 28, 2011, and August 6, 2012, the four-member county board of elections unanimously approved expanded weekday and weekend early voting hours. But in a meeting on August 17, the two Republicans on the board reversed their position and opposed expanding early voting hours. With the committee deadlocked between Democratic and Republican members, Husted broke the tie in favor of the GOP, like he’s done in Cleveland, Columbus, Akron and Toledo.

Yet before breaking the tie, Husted ordered Democratic board members Tom Ritchie Sr. and Dennis Lieberman to hold a new meeting and rescind their votes in favor of early voting. When they refused, arguing that Husted’s directive did not apply to weekend voting, Husted suspended them from the county board of elections. (A third of the 28,000 in-person early voters in Montgomery County in 2008 voted on the weekend.)

“There’s no reason in the world for him to do what he’s doing to us other than to suppress the vote,” Ritchie, who’s served on the board of elections since 1995, told me. At a hearing in Columbus today, Husted’s office will decide whether Ritchie and Lieberman will be permanently suspended. “I fully expect that me and my fellow board member will be removed,” says Ritchie. (UPDATE: a ruling is expected later this week.) If that’s the case, Ritchie and Lieberman plan to appeal their suspension to the Ohio Supreme Court. (He also believes that Husted’s order that the board hold a second meeting on August 17 violated Ohio’s Sunshine Laws, which requires that a government body give twenty-four-hour notice to the media and general public in advance of a public meeting.)

Llyn McCoy, president of the Ohio Association of Election Officials, says she was not consulted about Husted’s directive—despite his claim that he sought the input of local election officials before making his decision—and was “surprised” by the suspension of Ritchie and Lieberman. “I don’t see why Husted got into this ‘you voted, now you’re suspended’ kind of thing,” McCoy says. “The secretary of state was trying to send a message that he wasn’t going to tolerate any extended hours.”

Husted’s drastic action marks a dark day for democracy in Ohio. “Historically, the Montgomery County Board of Elections has been very well-run and is widely viewed as one of the best board of elections in the state,” says Ellis Jacobs, an attorney with the nonpartisan Miami Valley Voter Protection Coalition. “The board of elections planned ahead to maximize voters’ access to the polls and now they’re being punished by the secretary of state for doing their job so well.”

Why do Ohio Republicans suddenly feel so strongly about limiting early voting hours in Democratic counties? Franklin County (Columbus) GOP Chair Doug Preisse gave a surprisingly blunt answer to theColumbus Dispatch on Sunday: “I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban—read African-American—voter-turnout machine.” Preisse is not some rogue operative but the chairman of the Republican Party in Ohio’s second-largest county and a close adviser to Ohio Governor John Kasich.

Like Pennsylvania House majority leader Mike Turzai, who said his state’s voter ID law “is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania,” Preisse said publicly what many Republicans believe privately—keeping turnout down among Obama supporters is the best way for the GOP to win the 2012 election. That’s why, since the 2010 election, Republicans have devoted so much energy to voter-suppression efforts like limiting early voting hours, restricting voter registration drives, passing voter ID laws, disenfranchising ex-felons and purging the voter rolls.

Cutbacks to early voting disproportionately disenfranchise African-American voters in Ohio. African-Americans comprise 21 percent of the population in Franklin and Montgomery counties and 28 percent in Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County but accounted for 31 percent, 52 percent and 56 percent of early voters in the respective counties in 2008. (Nearly half of early voting in Franklin County in 2008 did so on nights or weekends.)

Now it’ll be harder for voters across Ohio, particularly in the most populous, heavily Democratic cities, to find a convenient time to vote before Election Day in order to avoid the long lines that plagued the state in 2004 and may have cost John Kerry the election. “In the hours and days now eliminated by legislative and Sec. of State restrictions, an estimated 197,000 Early In-Person votes were cast, constituting about 3.4% of all votes cast statewide in 2008,” according to a new report by Norman Robbins, research director for Northeast Ohio Voter Advocates. “This is very significant in Ohio where major elections have often been decided by a 2% margin of victory.”

Republicans were for reforms like early voting until Democrats started using them. “It just so happened that [2008] was the first time that early voting had been used in large numbers to mobilize African American and Latino voters," Wendy Weiser, director of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told theHuffington Post. A federal court ruled on Thursday that early voting cutbacks in Florida—where blacks outnumbered whites by two to one among early voters in 2008—violated the Voting Rights Act. As Doug Preisse admitted on Sunday, Republicans are doing everything in their power to make sure 2012 isn’t a repeat of 2008.

Why Does Mitt Romney Want To Restrict Voting Rights For More Than 900,000 Ohio Veterans?

Jon Soltz/Guest Blogger Think Progress

When I read stories this weekend that said the Obama campaign was suing to restrict the voting rights of military in Ohio, my blood got boiling. Of course, Think Progress has already documented that story, inflamed by the Romney campaign, ispatently false. In fact, the Obama campaign was suing to block an Ohio law which restricts a very successful early voting program in the state. The President’s campaign was trying to keep expanded voting rights in place for everyone, military included. So, why am I still so disturbed?

Because Mitt Romney, by supporting the Ohio law that would do away with three days of early voting for all but those covered under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voter Act(‘UOCAVA’), is supporting the restriction of voting rights for as many as 913,000 Ohio veterans. This includes military retirees with over 20 years of service and multiple deployments. In short, Mitt Romney supports efforts to make voting more difficult for the very people who have put their lives on the line after swearing an oath to uphold our Constitution and democracy.

Once you leave the military, you are no longer covered by UOCAVA. Your voting rights are the same as any civilian. That means the early voting law which Mitt Romney wants to undo, provided hundreds of thousands of Ohio veterans with more of an opportunity to vote. By all accounts, Ohio voters liked and used the early voting law. In 2008, nearly one-third of all ballotswas cast under the early voting measures, surely many of them veterans.

Interestingly, the press reported that 15 military and veterans’ groups supported Romney’s position. Yet on Friday, the Obama Campaign actually signed a brief to the court that backed the petition of those groups – welcoming them into the case, because the Obama campaign says it wants to ensure that military voters aren’t kept from early voting. Now that we know the truth, I hope those groups will come out and fully support the President’s campaign, in court. Because if they don’t, the change in law will hurt so many who have served in uniform.

So, how is the law about to change? Under the previous statute, Ohioans were allowed to vote early, all the way up to election day. Under the new law that the Obama campaign is seeking to block, almost all Ohioans will not be able to vote early starting three days before the election – doing away with weekend voting, which was the easiest for those with a full time job, or multiple jobs.

For veterans, most of whom have full-time work, often in jobs they can’t leave during the day, that lessens their ability to vote.

We’ve already seen what a non-early-voting Ohio looks like. We saw it in 2004, when in many polling places had extremely long lines (especially in urban areas), and polling places were shut down before everyone in line had a chance to vote. Non-early voting, quite literally, resulted in the disenfranchisement of voters. That’s what Mitt Romney wants to go back to. That’s what he wants to subject nearly a million Ohio veterans to, after they wore the uniform, and swore their lives to uphold our Constitution, including the right to vote.

My question for Mitt Romney is simple: “Why won’t you join the Obama lawsuit in Ohio, and protect our veterans’ right to vote?”

UPDATE

This post has been updated to more precisely reflect the views of the 15 military groups seeking to intervene in the case.

Ohio’s Anti-Union Law Jeopardizes Public Safety With Depleted Staff, Slower Response Times

By Marie Diamond/Think Progress

In March, Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) signed anoverwhelmingly unpopular anti-union bill into law that stripped the state’s employees of almost all of their collective bargaining rights. While Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) more infamous union-busting law in Wisconsin actually let police officers and firefighters off the hook, the Washington Independent notes that Kasich’s law forces these public safety workers to beg for the resources they need to do their jobs.

Jay McDonald, president of the Fraternal Order of Police in Ohio, says that if SB 5 is not repealed, about 51,000 public employees across the state could lose their jobs — two-thirds of them public safety workers:

The inability to bargain in any meaningful way could affect public safety in Ohio in a myriad of ways, McDonald said.

“It prohibits police officers and firefighters from talking to their employers about staffing,” he said. “It’ll be politicians that are making the decision on how many people are on a fire truck or how many police officers are working through a shift as opposed to the experts that know the needs of their community.”[...]

Less police on the beat could mean increased crime rates while fewer firefighters in stations across the state could add to response times in emergencies.

“Without the ability to negotiate for staffing levels, we lose firefighters. When a call comes in, there’s less firefighters available,” said Carney. “When you reduce staffing you reduce the availability of people to be able to respond to emergencies.”

Under the new law, cops and firefighters can only bargain for (i.e. request) the personal safety equipment they need to protect themselves and others, but management — which often focuses on cost-cutting — could ultimately have the final say. McDonald calls the reduced position of public safety works “collective begging” that makes them completely dependent on the benevolence of bureaucrats — an unacceptable situation when lives are at stake.

It’s far from a given that management will automatically approve requests for safety equipment. In fact, in the past, state troopers had to go through a bitter arbitration process to force the state to install shields that would keep patrol vehicles from exploding — a defect that killed three officers.

Chris Weaver, vice president of the Youngstown Professional Fire Fighters Local 312, puts it bluntly: “If Senate Bill 5 becomes law, safety is going to be limited. We won’t be able to sit down and negotiate proper safety equipment that will protect us and protect the community.” Ohio voters will have the ability to repeal Kasich’s anti-union law through a statewide referendum on November 8.

Thousands rally in Ohio against ‘union busting’ bill

By Eric W. Dolan

Thousands of demonstrators converged on the state Capitol in Columbus, Ohio, on Tuesday as the state legislature began hearings on a bill that targets public sector unions.

The Reuters new agency estimated over 8,000 attended the protest and the AFL-CIO claimed a whopping 20,000 people were present.

The bill would strip about 350,000 public employees of most collective bargaining rights. It would also prohibit state and local public employees from striking.

The Senate is expected to vote on the bill this week, possibly as soon as Wednesday.

Republican lawmakers in Ohio said limiting public employees union rights was necessary to help reduce the state's two-year budget deficit of nearly $8 billion.

"We have an $8 billion budget deficit and we have a massive reform plan, that also includes the ability to control our costs as it relates to public employees versus, at times, the taxpayers," Ohio Gov. John Kasich told Fox News' Bill O’Reilly last week. "I also want to give the flexibility to mayors, to school districts, to be able to control their costs, because there is going to be fewer dollars flowing from the state to those folks and those entities."

"This is not about diminishing, or attacking, or being against unions," Kasich said. "The unions are still going to be able to represent the public employees. All we are doing is creating a balance."

Protests that began in Wisconsin three weeks ago have sparked workers' rights rallies across the United States. Millions of Americans were out in the streets this past Saturday, participating in the largest flare-up of labor protests the nation has seen in decades.

Like Wisconsin, Ohio has a recently-elected Republican governor and a Republican-led legislature.

"We know this is not a state-by-state fight," Mikey Sgro, a director for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, told NBC4. "This is a national fight and we know if they are not successful in Ohio and in Wisconsin, then it's coming to Pennsylvania [and] New Jersey. So we are here to show support of workers of Ohio."

In First Month Of Legislative Session, GOP Lawmakers In Five States Seek To Eliminate, Criminalize Abortion

By Tanya Somanader

Last week, House Republicans launched an indefensible effort to redefine rape to exclude certain rape victims from abortion coverage. Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) then followed up with the Protect Life Act, a bill that would “give doctors the green light to let pregnant women die if they have a life-threatening condition and need an emergency abortion.”

Not to be outpaced by their federal, anti-women counterparts, GOP lawmakers in states across the country are ginning up woefully ignorant abortion measures to mandate their anti-choice views on doctors and women. Whether through forcing a woman to hear heartbeats or see sonograms, making up imaginary data on race and gender, nullifying the Supreme Court, or redefining the state constitution, lawmakers in Ohio, Texas, Arizona, Florida, and Iowa intend to make this year the year they win their war against reproductive rights by any means necessary:

– OHIO: State GOP Rep. Lynn Wachtmann will unveil the so-called “Heartbeat Bill” today, the “first proposal of its kind” that “would prohibit women from ending pregnancies at the first detectable fetal heartbeat,” which can be heard “within 18 to 24 days of conception” and “in almost all cases by six weeks.” As NARAL Ohio pointed out, this bill targets “a point when many women don’t even know they’re pregnant.” Crafted by the right-wing group Faith2Action, the bill is being advertised via “heart-shaped balloons” and “a music video” with “a few fetuses appearing to keep the beat from inside the womb.”

– TEXAS: This week, the Texas Senate will consider state Sen. Dan Patrick’s (R) anti-abortion measure mandating that “pregnant women be shown an ultrasound of the fetus at least two hours before an abortion.” Physicians would be required to show the fetus’ dimensions, presence of limbs or internal organs if applicable, and –if audible – the fetal heartbeat. Similar provisions failed in 2007 and 2009 but two weeks ago, Gov. Rick Perry (R-OH) “fast-tracked the sonogram bill by declaring it an emergency item” to allow early consideration. The bill’s author, state Sen. Dan Patrick (R) says the emergency designation is legitimate because “we have 80,000 abortions in Texas every year” and the emotional pain caused by this bill will inevitably compel “one out of five women” to bring the baby to term.

– ARIZONA: State GOP Rep. Steve Montenegro introduced two bills tocriminalize abortions if they’re sought because of race or sex. The bill would slam doctors who “knowingly perform abortions for these reasons” with Class 3 felony charges. While neither Montenegro norindependent searches of state records provide support for his claims, Montenegro insists “that there are targeted communities that the abortion industry targets.” He even believes that “an abortion based on race would include situations where the parents are the same race as the fetus.” Arizona Department of Health Services does not collect information on fetus gender and only recently began asking about racial statistics. As of last week, Montenegro has yet to provide the “promised” statistics to support of his bills.

– FLORIDA: Ordained minister State Rep. Charles Van Zant (R-FL) recently introduced the Florida for Life Act, a bill that mimics Florida’s recent “fetal personhood” amendment which defines all human beings as persons “regardless of age, race, health function, condition of physical and/or mental dependency and/or disability.” The Florida for Life Act is “more overtly religious,” stating that “all life comes from the Creator and begins at conception.” The bill also states that the Supreme Court is unqualified to “determine, establish, or define the moral values” of Floridians and that the Constitution expresses no qualifications for states to “protect life in a manner consistent with the moral consensus of the people, and reflecting the peoples’ belief in a Creator.” The bill would not only prohibit induced abortions but would “punish abortion doctors as felons, should they violate the measures” of the bill.

– IOWA: Two Iowa Republican representatives are opposing a bill seeking to prohibit abortions after 20 weeks because “it doesn’t go far enough.” Because she feels the bill “would codify deaths of babies from zero to 19 weeks,” State Rep. Kim Pearson is “not willing” to support this legislation and will instead introduce her own bill “that would define life as beginning at conception” and effectively “end all abortions in Iowa.” GOP state Sen. Randy Feenstra is trying to push the marker with a bill to restrict abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy. If all else fails, a resolution to amend the Iowa Constitution to “define a person as starting from a single-cell human embryo” is now pending in the Iowa House.

These measures are certainly not the first efforts by pro-life lawmakers to change state law. Last year, a Kansas GOP lawmaker proposed levying a sales tax on abortions. Perhaps inspiring Texas, Oklahoma overrode a veto last year to enforce an ultrasound mandate with “no exceptions for rape or incest.” And a fetal personhood amendment like the one in Florida appeared on the Colorado ballot in 2008 and 2010 but was “decisively defeated.”

But the state-level efforts right out of the gate in 2011 implies a renewed motivation to blindly pre-determine what is already a difficult and deeply personal choice. A recent NARAL report counts a total of 15 states with anti-choice governments. Arizona has already introduced a “heartbeat” bill similar to Ohio and Texas, Georgia, and Oklahoma are watching its progress “closely.” With concerted attack on reproductive health coming both from the federal and state level, the GOP may just walk women’s rights all the way back before the Supreme Court protected them in 1973.

M.C.L Comment: The funny thing about the pro-life movement yeah they want these women to have these babies yet they want to gut programs that were intended to help them raise their children. Again folks if you have a pro-life friend or relative ask them how they feel about welfare and be prepare to hear the most vile things. They might as well say we want to protect more cops by taking away their bullet proof vest.