Lose your house, lose your vote - Wow - Then they recant

[MB_722]

Lose your house, lose your vote

By Eartha Jane Melzer 9/10/08 6:42 AM

Michigan Republicans plan to foreclose African-American voters

The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.

“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. He said the local party wanted to make sure that proper electoral procedures were followed.

State election rules allow parties to assign “election challengers” to polls to monitor the election. In addition to observing the poll workers, these volunteers can challenge the eligibility of any voter provided they “have a good reason to believe” that the person is not eligible to vote. One allowable reason is that the person is not a “true resident of the city or township.”

The Michigan Republicans’ planned use of foreclosure lists is apparently an attempt to challenge ineligible voters as not being “true residents.”

One expert questioned the legality of the tactic.

“You can’t challenge people without a factual basis for doing so,” said J. Gerald Hebert, a former voting rights litigator for the U.S. Justice Department who now runs the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington D.C.-based public-interest law firm. “I don’t think a foreclosure notice is sufficient basis for a challenge, because people often remain in their homes after foreclosure begins and sometimes are able to negotiate and refinance.”

As for the practice of challenging the right to vote of foreclosed property owners, Hebert called it, “mean-spirited.”

GOP ties to state’s largest foreclosure law firm

The Macomb GOP’s plans are another indication of how John McCain’s campaign stands to benefit from the burgeoning number of foreclosures in the state. McCain’s regional headquarters are housed in the office building of foreclosure specialists Trott & Trott. The firm’s founder, David A. Trott, has raised between $100,000 and $250,000 for the Republican nominee.

The Macomb County party’s plans to challenge voters who have defaulted on their house payments is likely to disproportionately affect African-Americans who are overwhelmingly Democratic voters. More than 60 percent of all sub-prime loans — the most likely kind of loan to go into default — were made to African-Americans in Michigan, according to a report issued last year by the state’s Department of Labor and Economic Growth.

Challenges to would-be voters

Statewide, the Republican Party is gearing up for a comprehensive voter challenge campaign, according to Denise Graves, party chair for Republicans in Genessee County, which encompasses Flint. The party is creating a spreadsheet of election challenger volunteers and expects to coordinate a training with the regional McCain campaign, Graves said in an interview with Michigan Messenger.

Whether the Republicans will challenge voters with foreclosed homes elsewhere in the state is not known.

Kelly Harrigan, deputy director of the GOP’s voter programs, confirmed that she is coordinating the group’s “election integrity” program. Harrigan said the effort includes putting in place a legal team, as well as training election challengers. She said the challenges to voters were procedural rather than personal. She referred inquiries about the vote challenge program to communications director Bill Nowling, who promised information but did not return calls.

Party chairman Carabelli said that the Republican Party is training election challengers to “make sure that [voters] are who they say who they are.”

When asked for further details on how Republicans are compiling challenge lists, he said, “I would rather not tell you all the things we are doing.”

Vote suppression: Not an isolated effort

Carabelli is not the only Republican Party official to suggest the targeting of foreclosed voters. In Ohio, Doug Preisse, director of elections in Franklin County (around the city of Columbus) and the chair of the local GOP, told The Columbus Dispatch that he has not ruled out challenging voters before the election due to foreclosure-related address issues.

Hebert, the voting-rights lawyer, sees a connection between Priesse’s remarks and Carabelli’s plans.

“At a minimum what you are seeing is a fairly comprehensive effort by the Republican Party, a systematic broad-based effort to put up obstacles for people to vote,” he said. “Nobody is contending that these people are not legally registered to vote.

“When you are comprehensively challenging people to vote,” Hebert went on, “your goals are two-fold: One is you are trying to knock people out from casting ballots; the other is to create a slowdown that will discourage others,” who see a long line and realize they can’t afford to stay and wait.

Challenging all voters registered to foreclosed homes could disrupt some polling places, especially in the Detroit metropolitan area. According to the real estate Web site RealtyTrac, one in every 176 households in Wayne County, metropolitan Detroit, received a foreclosure filing during the month of July. In Macomb County, the figure was one household in every 285, meaning that 1,834 homeowners received the bad news in just one month. The Macomb County foreclosure rate puts it in the top three percent of all U.S. counties in the number of distressed homeowners.

Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Kent and Genessee counties were — in that order — the counties with the most homeowners facing foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac. As of July, there were more than 62,000 foreclosure filings in the entire state.

Joe Rozell, director of elections for Oakland County in suburban Detroit, acknowledged that challenges such as those described by Carabelli are allowed by law but said they have the potential to create long lines and disrupt the voting process. With 890,000 potential voters closely divided between Democratic and Republican, Oakland County is a key swing county of this swing state.

According to voter challenge directives handed down by Republican Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, voter challenges need only be “based on information obtained through a reliable source or means.”

“But poll workers are not allowed to ask the reason” for the challenges, Rozell said. In other words, Republican vote challengers are free to use foreclosure lists as a basis for disqualifying otherwise eligible voters.

David Lagstein, head organizer with the Michigan Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), described the plans of the Macomb GOP as “crazy.”

“You would think they would think, ‘This is going to look too heartless,’” said Lagstein, whose group has registered 200,000 new voters statewide this year and also runs a foreclosure avoidance program. “The Republican-led state Senate has not moved on the anti-predatory lending bill for over a year and yet [Republicans] have time to prey on those who have fallen victim to foreclosure to suppress the vote.”

http://www.michiganmessenger.com/4076/lose-your-house-lose-your-vote

Republicans recant plans to foreclose voters but admit other strategies

By Eartha Jane Melzer 9/11/08 3:41 PM

The Macomb County Republican Party chair who told Michigan Messenger earlier this week that Republicans planned to challenge voters at the polls using a list of foreclosed homes has changed his story.

James Carabelli now says the party has “no plans to do anything,” according to a story in the Macomb Daily.

Reports of the plan for foreclosure-based challenges have spurred outrage and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) planned a demonstration today at the Macomb County Republican headquarters.

Eric Doster is former counsel for the Michigan Republican Party and a lawyer who plans to represent GOP election challengers on Election Day.

Doster returned a call Wednesday afternoon and in a 30-minute conversation told Michigan Messenger that while he is unfamiliar with plans to use foreclosure lists to challenge voters, he does expect party volunteers to challenge voters in other ways.

When asked whether Michigan Republicans plan to create a challenge list based on returned direct mail, a practice known as “vote caging,” Doster replied, “I think so. I know this has been done in years past … both parties may be doing this.”

Doster said that the party’s deputy political director, Kelly Harrigan, would have more information about the challenge lists. Harrigan did not respond to a call from Michigan Messenger.

“Voter caging” is controversial because it can be used to target certain groups of voters. Some say that a piece of returned mail should not be enough to challenge a person’s claim of residency.

Last week Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner acknowledged that the use of mail for vote caging has disproportionately affected poor and minority communities and she instructed that returned mail should not be considered reasonable evidence that someone has moved.

http://www.michiganmessenger.com/4231/republicans-recant-plans-to-foreclose-voters-but-admit-other-strategies

[Slapper]

Damn friggin republicans!

[donrhummy]

http://www.michiganmessenger.com/4463/obama-campaign-files-suit-over-foreclosure-lists

[Tre]

Believe it or not, there are plenty of people in this category who support the GOP, regardless of their personal situation or who the candidate is.

[donrhummy]

Believe it or not, there are plenty of people in this category who support the GOP, regardless of their personal situation or who the candidate is.

I believe it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What's_the_Matter_with_Kansas

[headhuntersix]

How is this the GOP's fault.

A. Not everybody deserves a house.....people don't deserve house anyway
B. If u can't afford the house u have no business buying it
C. How is it the GOP's fault that idiot lenders allowed "no paper" or "stated income " loans.

Clinton deregulated this crap in 1998. I'm sure it was not his entent to watch the market crash, but people within the beaurocracy of Washington began to push for more loans, so everybody could be part of the Clinton boom. This is not my fault nor the GOP's that some people are loosing homes because of bad self inflicted decisions.

[MB_722]

http://www.getbig.com/boards/index.php?topic=234244.0

[headhuntersix]

OK, thats fucked up. Who will perpetrate more voter fraud on election day...just wait. they'll try and keep polls open in inner cities, the Chicago machine will be in full force. I can't disagree on that particular story but I'm sure its not as cut and dry as that, nothing ever is.

[donrhummy]

How is this the GOP's fault.

A. Not everybody deserves a house.....people don't deserve house anyway
B. If u can't afford the house u have no business buying it
C. How is it the GOP's fault that idiot lenders allowed "no paper" or "stated income " loans.

Clinton deregulated this crap in 1998. I'm sure it was not his entent to watch the market crash, but people within the beaurocracy of Washington began to push for more loans, so everybody could be part of the Clinton boom. This is not my fault nor the GOP's that some people are loosing homes because of bad self inflicted decisions.

I don't think you read the article. The point is not who's fault is it that the people had their house foreclosed, the point is after losing their houses, the GOP in Michigan is now also trying to take their right to vote away.

[tu_holmes]

How is this the GOP's fault.

A. Not everybody deserves a house.....people don't deserve house anyway
B. If u can't afford the house u have no business buying it
C. How is it the GOP's fault that idiot lenders allowed "no paper" or "stated income " loans.

Clinton deregulated this crap in 1998. I'm sure it was not his entent to watch the market crash, but people within the beaurocracy of Washington began to push for more loans, so everybody could be part of the Clinton boom. This is not my fault nor the GOP's that some people are loosing homes because of bad self inflicted decisions.

I don't think you read the article. The point is not who's fault is it that the people had their house foreclosed, the point is after losing their houses, the GOP in Michigan is now also trying to take their right to vote away.

I'm afraid that HH did not read this article at all...

The GOP is saying that if your address on file on your voter registration card is under foreclosure... You can't vote.

That's pretty fucked up.

[headhuntersix]

Whats the law say.....there u go. Sorry I apologize for jumping to a conclusion that 99% of the time I'd be right about, but i stand corrected.

[tu_holmes]

Whats the law say.....there u go. Sorry I apologize for jumping to a conclusion that 99% of the time I'd be right about, but i stand corrected.

I understand that we all get tired of bullshit rhetoric dude... It's cool.

[headhuntersix]

I'm starting to assume threads.....I would have thought with NFL foorball being back my mental health would have gotten better, then Brady's knee falls off and I'm melting on getbig.

[donrhummy]

I'm starting to assume threads.....I would have thought with NFL foorball being back my mental health would have gotten better, then Brady's knee falls off and I'm melting on getbig.

Understandable but the article tells you what the law says.

1. If your house is foreclosed within 60 days of the election, you can still use that address to vote (The GOP was trying to keep current foreclosures from voting which would violate this law)
2. In many states (including michigan) you can remain in the house and contest the foreclosure (and try and get your house back) for a number of months, which would also mean you're still legally living there and make the GOP's action illegal for them as well.

The real danger here is that even if it's illegal, if they're able to do this and thus deliver the presidency to McCain, he'd get to keep it. No one's kicking out a president after the election (as we've already seen).

[headhuntersix]

This stuff happens on both sides and its very bad because its keeps the wheel spinning. The Dems will now have to find another way to stuff ballots, and then the Repubs will do it. I had a soldier, who's dad, is doing Federal time for major voter fraud in St Louis. He was a Dem part official in East St. Louis.

[Decker]

The reliably shallow and greedy american public that bank on acquisitive success played a big role in the scandal by living beyond their means and the Bush administration let it happen.

How?  Bush's administration (OCC) pre-empted state oversight laws for predatory mortgage lender practices and left the federal laws unenforced.  Naturally the free market imploded on itself, like it has a tendency to do, and we have this mess.

Thank both the american public and Bush for this scandal.

It's similar to the S&L scandal of the first Bush Administration.  These crooks really know how to pluck their pigeons.