Accountability

From the DDN:

Foreclosure on its own isn't enough to challenge right to vote

News reports in other states have said that Republicans would be using foreclosure lists to challenge voters' right to vote in the Nov. 4 election because their registered addresses may not be up to date.

Brunner issued an advisory to election administrators this week, telling them that a foreclosure action on its own isn't sufficient to challenge a voter's right to vote. They'll have to consider other information, such as whether the voter still lives at the house being foreclosed.

Of course, we've seen voter challenges used in 2000 and 2004 to try to disenfranchise voters. So when the Ohio GOP was asked....

The New York Times published a story Thursday, Sept. 25, in which Ohio Republican Chairman Bob Bennett, when asked whether his party would use foreclosure lists, declined to publicly discuss campaign strategy.

That prompted blistering criticism from Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern who said, "Ohio Republican Party leaders are apparently harboring plans to benefit from the foreclosure crisis by disenfranchising vulnerable voters who are losing their homes or struggling to keep them."

Bennett responded: "No such plan exists. It's a complete fabrication by desperate Democrats trying to use anger as a motivational tactic. Let me be very clear on this. We absolutely condemn any effort to challenge the eligibility of voters based on home foreclosure."

Doesn't that give you the sense that it might have been a plan - until called on it? I can't know for certain, but why else would the Ohio GOP refuse to discuss the topic plainly until called on it?

This is the kind of vigilance needed at all times, by all people. Make each other - and your politicians - commit publicly to doing the right thing.

And then remember that in November.