West Virginia Secretary of State Disenfranchising Thousands of Obama Voters?

[babylonsister]

West Virginia Secretary of State Disenfranchising Thousands of Obama Voters?

Posted by Matt Stoller, Open Left at 5:07 AM on April 29, 2008.

Separate but unequal voting systems in West Virginia threaten to disenfranchise independent voters.


I got a call today from Mark Levine, the election protection attorney for Donna Edwards and one in whom I have a good amount of trust, and he told me about a brewing problem in West Virginia which will probably end up disenfranchising thousands of Obama voters. Here's the nub of the issue. West Virginia has an open primary, which means you can vote even if you are an independent. However, if you are a Democrat or a Republican, you are automatically given a normal ballot in a primary. If you are an independent, you are pointed to a touch screen device which does not list a Presidential choice.

If you are an independent, you have the option of requesting a Democratic or Republican ballot so you can vote in the Presidential primary, but you have to request it. And unless you know to request it, you will end up with no vote in the Presidential primary. The Secretary of State has decided not to inform people of this fact, which will leave potentially thousands of voters in West Virginia who came to vote for Obama without a choice.

Independents, in other words, are being disenfranchised. There's a full press release on the flip.

Jeff Kisseloff is an author and journalist. His most recent book is "Generation on Fire: Voices of Protest from the 1960s" (University Press of Kentucky, 2007).

The West Virginia Secretary of State's office and county election offices in the state are refusing to tell independent ("no party choice") voters arriving to early vote at the state's 55 voting locations that they are entitled to vote in the Democratic primary, stating that they are forbidden to do so by law.

"The Obama campaign will lose thousands of votes during early voting if this situation isn't corrected quickly," Victoria Baker, a former Republican who is an Obama supporter in Huntington, WV, said Sunday. "The Secretary of State's position is not supported by the law," according to Roy D. (Don) Baker, a West Virginia lawyer familiar with the situation. "It is wrong," he said. Mr. Baker, a Democrat, is also an Obama supporter and Ms. Baker's husband

more...

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/83823/#more

[catgirl]

1. This seems so deliberate

This needs to get some press to put pressure on the SOS to fix this!

[babylonsister]

2. It sure does seem deliberate, as does this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=108x129892

But don't expect anyone in the m$m to mention it; they're having their field day assaulting Obama via Wright. They're way too busy to actually pay attention to anything of merit that might actually educate anyone.

[fed_up_mother]

3. Obama's ground organization is strong

I'm sure he'll have workers with signs posted warning independents to request a ballot - if it comes to that.

Meanwhile, this needs to be changed!

[catgirl]

4. The newspapers should post this information

[OhioChick]

5. K&R

:kick: