Driving Votes: Yarrow's Blog - Archived Entry

Again and again, this campaign season has brought home for me a central difference between the left and the right: The right is willing to go to any lengths, even to directly contradict their explicit principles, to win elections.
Look: Both sides are engaged in constant spin, there is little denying that. But how many Democrat election officials are trying to reduce the number of votes counted?
Again and again?
Secretary of State Ken Blackwell in Ohio is trying to eliminate ballots not on the right paperstock, including tens of thousands of voters who registered online or with registration forms in newspapers--why? What could possibly justify this attempt? You can sign a petition to stop him:
http://www.act04.org/paperstock

Down in Florida, we ran into Kathy Dent, county election official for the region that includes Sarasota. Her plans? Sending out welcome notices to new voters that is essentially party propaganda, citing the need to remember low taxes, belief in God, and a strong military when voting. And better still, passing out 'register to vote' pens in blue ink, especially in low income neighborhoods, when Florida law requires registration forms to be filled out in black ink.

These are just two recent examples of Republican dirty tricks. But these are rear-guard actions against a trend they cannot stop, the hundreds of thousands of new voters, strongly democratic, that groups like DrivingVotes have put on the rolls. They know they have to play dirty, to suppress the Black vote, throw away ballots, strike voters from the rolls, if they want to win--as we well know, that's the only reason they control the White House now.

These activities are so deeply enfuriating it's easy to get caught up in the negative. But we can turn that anger into energy, and make sure we impress upon everyone we know the importance of this election, and the importance of spending as much time as humanly possible in swing states on up until November 2nd. And then we'll be able to blow all this angry steam into a huge crossnational victory party!