McClatchy Newspapers: Ohio, Florida Laws Could Dampen Democratic Voting in 2008

[flpoljunkie]

No sh*t! Very disturbing!

Ohio, Florida laws could dampen Democratic voting
By Greg Gordon
McClatchy Newspapers

Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007

WASHINGTON — Ohio and Florida, which provided the decisive electoral votes for President Bush's two razor-thin national election triumphs, have enacted laws that election experts say will help Republicans impede Democratic-leaning minorities from voting in 2008.

Backers of the new laws say they're aimed at curbing vote fraud. But the statutes also could facilitate a controversial Republican tactic known as ``vote caging,'' which the GOP attempted in Ohio and Florida in 2004 before public disclosures foiled the efforts, said Joseph Rich, a former Justice Department voting rights chief in the Bush administration who's now with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights.

Caging, used in the past to target poor minorities in heavily Democratic precincts, entails sending mass mailings to certain voters and then using the undelivered letters to compile lists of voters for eligibility challenges.

As the high-stakes ground war escalates heading into next year's elections, Republicans have led the charge for an array of revisions to state voting rights laws, especially in key battleground states. Republican political appointees in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division have endorsed some of these measures.

much more...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/19982.html

[aquart]

1. So. Nothing's changed, you mean.

[flpoljunkie]

2. It sure seems that way. R's using Florida and Ohio to get to the White House.