October 22, 2008 07:23 AM UTC

RFK Jr. speaks out on voter purges on Rachel Maddow

• 0 Comments
• by: wade norris

As you may have read in my past posts on the GOP stealing the election in Colorado, you know that those of us in Colorado are frankly worried about the real possibility of our votes being stolen on election day.

I wanted you to see the people coming together to protest the corrupt actions of our Secretary of State, Mike Coffman, and highlight the Rolling Stone Article and of course RFK jr on Rachel Maddow.

There are people working hard on this here in Colorado, but it is troubling to hear from RFK Jr. that this is systematically going on in several states, from Ohio, to West Virginia to North Carolina to others.  

Link to RFK Jr. on Rachel Maddow

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21…

Here is the rally to protest the Secretary of State’s ruling to disenfranchise voters over a simple check box, a ruling which directly contradicted the trainings that voter registration drives were required to attend.

More from America Votes State director, Rich Pelletier:

This was a pro-active decision, to misinform voters out there. The hypocrisy in all this is that the Secretary of State is also an officer in the National Guard, who has served in Iraq, who was fighting for this country, to preserve the very right that he is taking away form citizens right now.

I served in Iraq, and every person who serves in the military is there right now, today, because they are there to preserve the rights we have as Americans. To have a man who has led troops into battle for the purpose of protecting our rights…

(me)– and to give the Iraqis the chance to vote themselves…

… to take that away, how hypocritical is that?

How hypocritical? Read from the Rocky Mountain News‘ endorsement for Coffman for Secretary of State in 2006, which he later used for his campaign commercials:

In many years, it might not matter much who is elected Colorado secretary of state. The position typically calls for an administrator who can effectively handle the processing of government documents and the like. “Vision” doesn’t seem to be a requirement for the job.

But 2006 is different, as anyone who’s paid attention to the controversy surrounding the certification of voting machines can attest. The next secretary of state needs to regain the public’s trust in the reliability of the technologies used to tabulate ballots.

A major in the U.S. Marines, Coffman took a leave of absence as treasurer to help organize and oversee elections in Iraq.

Anyone who can pull off an election while literally under fire deserves a serious look at running elections here. We hope voters agree, and elect Coffman secretary of state.

Yes,he actually ran on being a person who was experienced at administering elections and ensuring votes. Instead, he is operating as a partisan and disenfranchising voters.

More from the Rolling Stone article by Greg Palast and RFK jr. “Block the Vote”

Republican Secretaries of State of swing-state Colorado have quietly purged one in six names from their voter rolls.

Over several months, the GOP politicos in Colorado stonewalled every attempt by Rolling Stone to get an answer to the massive purge – ten times the average state’s rate of removal.

(hattip to Aaron S. of Square State)

And this from Donna Brazile:

“The new registrations thrown out, the existing registrations scrubbed, the spoiled ballots, the provisional ballots that were never counted – and what you have is millions of voters, more than enough to swing the presidential election, quietly being detached from the electorate by subterfuge.

“Jim Crow was laid to rest, but his cousins were not,” says Donna Brazile. “We got rid of poll taxes and literacy tests but now have a second generation of schemes to deny our citizens their franchise.” Come November, the most crucial demographic may prove to be Americans who have been denied the right to vote. If Democrats are to win the 2008 election, they must not simply beat John McCain at the polls – they must beat him by a margin that exceeds the level of GOP vote tampering.

I am thankful for the spotlight from Rachel on this story, which we should get active on now. Thanks to Chantel Taylor from Colorado Ethics Watch

for investigating these abuses.

Help us in Colorado by taking action, not just for Obama, but to stop the pattern of Republican Secretary of State officers who steal elections without consequence,

contact the Secretary of State’s office here,

or the Denver District Attorney’s office, an urge him to investigate,

or contact AND THANK Democratic Governor Bill Ritter’s office here, for his public reprimand of Coffman.

I encourage others to add the contact info for the other state’s secretary of states from other swing states.