Challenges to Wisconsin Recall Resemble Tea Party "Voter Caging" Scheme

[xchrom]

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/02/11297/challenges-wisconsin-recall-resemble-tea-party-voter-caging-scheme

Questionable challenges to recall petitions for Wisconsin State Senator Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) bear a resemblance to a "voter caging" scheme led by Tea Party groups in the 2010 elections. Those same Tea Party organizations are also involved in the recall "verification" effort.

Fitzgerald is one of four Senators facing recall for supporting Governor Scott Walker's plan to limit public sector collective bargaining and cut education funding, among other issues. Governor Walker is also facing recall.

Postcards to Protect Against Recall

The effort to recall Fitzgerald was led by a mother of two who had not previously been involved with politics, and on January 17 she and her team filed 20,600 signatures. This was 3,700 more than necessary to spark a recall election.

As the Center for Media and Democracy reported, Fitzgerald's campaign has been scrambling to challenge many of those petitions to bring the number of valid signatures below the threshold triggering a recall. Among other challenges, the campaign is asking the state elections board to strike a number of signatures because postcards sent to the signers were returned as undeliverable. But the Capital Times reports that in many cases the campaign sent postcards to addresses different than those written on the recall petitions.

[Angry Dragon]

1. reading is not a strong republican trait

[Scuba]

2. Caging defined, Rinse Penis involvement (excerpt from article)

cordings released by One Wisconsin Now in September 2010 documented a plot by the GOP and Tea Party groups to engage in the practice known as "voter caging," which would allegedly suppress votes from traditionally Democratic populations. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, "voter caging" involves sending mail to a list of voters (usually from Democratic constituencies like students and minorities), compiling a list of the mail that is returned as undeliverable, then using that list to challenge those voters at the polls or to request that their names be purged from registered voter lists. The Brennan Center says voter caging is "notoriously unreliable" and "can lead to the unwarranted purge or challenge of eligible voters," intimidating some voters and leading to long lines that can deter others from casting a ballot.

In the recordings, the leader of the Tea Party group Grandsons of Liberty, Tim Dake, details contact between himself and Reince Priebus, then-chair of the Wisconsin Republican Party (and now chair of the Republican National Committee), and Mark Block, who at the time was state director of Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin (AFP) and went on to manage Herman Cain's failed presidential campaign (among other activities). Dake explains that the GOP would use its state-wide voter file to compile a list of student and minority voters, then AFP would send mail to voters on that list. The Tea Party would place individuals as poll workers and have those workers use the returned postcards to challenge voters and "verify" their eligibility.

One Wisconsin Now says they "made a formal request for investigation with the U.S. Attorney's Office, as well as the Wisconsin Attorney General's Election Integrity Task Force and the Government Accountability Board," but there have been no prosecutions or other enforcement actions.

[HereSince1628]

3. Challenges to signatures resemble deceit...

and consequently can't be trusted.

As with all things republican in the state of Wisconsin, this ploy is simply a mechanism to create an appearance that if not scrutinized is used to strike signatures.

[zbdent]

4. The postcards issue is a deliberate deceit, just like Gingrich's "willingness" to meet with the

NAACP "If I'm invited."

Gingrich had been invited several times as Speaker, when he wasn't running for President ... and he refused to even acknowledge their requests to meet with him. Of course, he denies the invitations ever occurred, and the "liberally-biased media" doesn't bother to check into it.

[msongs]

5. wish we had a federal admistration that cared about ensuring voter rights of US citizens? I do nt