« Previous | Main | Next »

Obama Campaign Pushes Back Against Possible Voter Suppression

Share

September 16, 2008 3:13 PM

ABC News' Karen Travers and Arnab Datta report: The Obama campaign and DNC have filed an injunction in federal court as an effort to challenge what they deem as illegal voter suppression of people whose houses are in foreclosure.

The injunction is in response to the comments last week from the Macomb County (MI) Republican Party chairman, James Carabelli, who allegedly said: "We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses."

On a conference call with reporters, Bob Bauer, general counsel for the Obama campaign, said this practice is illegal and would be used to intimidate and prevent people from going to the polls.

Bauer said that one out of every 285 households in Macomb County have been foreclosed on and MI Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer said that in July 2008 alone, over 11,000 households in Michigan received foreclosures notices.

Bauer and Brewer could not cite specific examples of this already happening in Michigan this cycle. ABC News' Chris Bury reports that Carabelli denies ever saying the statements that were attributed to him in the Michigan Messenger.

Joe Biden addressed this yesterday at an event in Michigan, stating "ladies and gentlemen, I heard, I was told yesterday that there's a Republican County Chairman right here in your state, in Michigan, that said that they're keeping a list of foreclosed homes, suggesting that anyone who lost their home in foreclosure should also lose their right to vote."  He added, "if you're worried about losing your home, you should vote, you should vote for the guys who are going to help you keep your home, not those who take it away."

UPDATE: In a paper statement today, Carabelli pushes back hard against the Messenger's reporting.

“This story is not true. The Michigan Messenger made it up,” Carabelli said. “Because of reckless and fabricated reporting by the Michigan Messenger, my good name has been besmirched on the Internet and across the mainstream media and my reputation irrevocably harmed. I never said what the Michigan Messenger quoted me as saying. It’s not true, and I want a full and complete retraction of the quote, and I am taking legal action to get it. Let me state, again and unequivocally, there is no such plan to use foreclosure lists to challenger voters, and I never said there was. This is a story line being pushed by one liberal blog, the Obama campaign, and their friends and operatives on the Left.”

September 16, 2008 in McCain, John, Obama, Barack, Vote 2008: Democrats, Vote 2008: Republicans | Permalink | User Comments (207)

User Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

OK correct me if I am wrong, if your home is forclosed on you cannot be living there right? If your home is in the processes of being foreclosed on you can be living there? If you are still in you home, you should still be able to use that address to vote. Good thing Obama was a constitunal law professor. So it begins. The Republican campaign begins in earnest.

Posted by: community organizer | Sep 16, 2008 3:34:12 PM

The law is, if your home is foreclosed on, you are allowed to vote in the next election using that address. The Republicans know that the only way they can win this election is by rigging it.

Posted by: Derek | Sep 16, 2008 3:36:05 PM

Republicans need to adopt Obama's ACORN strategy where dead people vote early and often.

Posted by: HarleyDavidson | Sep 16, 2008 3:37:23 PM

Oh goody an injunction so that people who don't exist can vote. I have read stories that the dems have been paying people to register and in a lot of cases registering under false names. One even had the nerve to register as George Bush LOL The democratic campaign begins in earnest.

Posted by: samhiguchi | Sep 16, 2008 3:38:00 PM

Typical Republican dirty tricks.

Posted by: Wm. J. LePetomaine | Sep 16, 2008 3:39:58 PM

Karl Rove tactics at their sleaziest.

Posted by: Wm. J. LePetomaine | Sep 16, 2008 3:41:01 PM

Republicans sued in Pennsylvania to keep Bob Barr off the ballots there. Republicans have become very sleazy to preserve power.

Posted by: Ben Straub | Sep 16, 2008 3:44:56 PM

The Obama backed ACORN

ACORN Workers Indicted For Alleged Voter Fraud

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Four people have been indicted on charges of voter fraud in Kansas City, officials said Wednesday............
http://www.kmbc.com/politics/10214492/detail.html

Quote:
MORE ACORN VOTE FRAUD

Well, we’ll give you a whole bunch more names, as the Barack Hussein Obama-connected ACORN got caught submitting false and incomplete voter registration forms.

Madison - Workers registering Milwaukee voters for a liberal group turned in hundreds of fabricated forms and many more that were incomplete, raising fears among Republican Party leaders of fraud at the polls.
http://texasholdemblogger.wordpress....-vote-fraud-2/

Quote:
Kansas City officials say this is the most irresponsible and extensive voter registration abuse in Missouri in the twenty five years they have been on the job with the Kansas City Board of Elections.

That's saying a lot considering there were 16 convictions of election crimes since 2004 in the St. Louis area alone

Posted by: HarleyDavidson | Sep 16, 2008 3:46:15 PM

"We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses."

What the ****.

Well, in fairness to this state guy - Carabelli - he denies having said that. So maybe it was a mistake by the reporter.

Posted by: Paul | Sep 16, 2008 3:46:38 PM

Barrack Obama - THE KING OF VOTER FRAUD!!!!!

Posted by: Watching | Sep 16, 2008 3:48:44 PM

If someone is not living at the address, how are they eligible to vote in that precinct?

Posted by: a reader in georgia | Sep 16, 2008 3:48:48 PM

The jails will be full of Acorn and Project Vote employees at the end of this election. Dirty, cheating losers!!!

Posted by: Watching | Sep 16, 2008 3:54:02 PM

Oh here is another ABCNEWS bs report. What happen to unbaised reporting? WHAT IS WRONG WITH FOLLOWING THE LAW? Oh excuse me, they are black, brown, purple, green, red, or spotted it does not matter, if they are NOT REGISTERED they can not vote, what is wrong with you people? the Democrats have the WORST record for stealing elections.

Posted by: 1repulicanred | Sep 16, 2008 3:55:04 PM

The law is, if your home is foreclosed on, you are allowed to vote in the next election using that address. The Republicans know that the only way they can win this election is by rigging it.
According to Derek.

Posted by: community organizer | Sep 16, 2008 3:55:53 PM

That seems typical of Republicans. If someone is going through tough times, first blame them for their own failures, and then make sure they can't vote!

Posted by: jock59801 | Sep 16, 2008 3:56:51 PM

Obama's ACORN

King County, Washington, Canvassing Board revoked 1,762 allegedly fraudulent voter registrations submitted by ACORN employees.

Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Stephen Hobbs told the board that six ACORN workers had admitted filling out registration forms with names they found in phone books last October. The canvassers filled out the forms while sitting around a table at the downtown Seattle Public Library

Posted by: HarleyDavidson | Sep 16, 2008 3:57:05 PM

Dems - consider volunteering as a poll worker in your precinct for the upcoming election. Correct - Republican crooks will do anything, literally anything illegal to hold onto the White House. Let's stop them! Republican philosophy is the scourge of our society!

Posted by: Caribel | Sep 16, 2008 3:57:17 PM

As a republican I agree 100% with this article...Even Republicans are turning out and rejecting Sarah Palin.


David Brooks writes in the New York Times that Sarah Palin is unqualified:

In the current Weekly Standard, Steven Hayward argues that the nation's founders wanted uncertified citizens to hold the highest offices in the land. They did not believe in a separate class of professional executives. They wanted rough and rooted people like Palin.

I would have more sympathy for this view if I hadn't just lived through the last eight years. For if the Bush administration was anything, it was the anti-establishment attitude put into executive practice.

And the problem with this attitude is that, especially in his first term, it made Bush inept at governance. It turns out that governance, the creation and execution of policy, is hard. It requires acquired skills. Most of all, it requires prudence.

...

Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she'd be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness.


Ross Douthat agrees at the Atlantic:

Now that we've seen the entirety of the Palin-Gibson tete-a-tete, I concur with Rich Lowry and Rod Dreher. The most that can be said in her defense is that she kept her cool and avoided any brutal gaffes; other than that, she seemed about an inch deep on every issue outside her comfort zone. Yes, the questions were tougher than the ones that a Tim Kaine or Tim Pawlenty probably would have been handed, but they were all questions that a vice-presidential nominee needs to be able to answer. And there's no way to look at her performance as anything save supporting evidence for the non-hysterical critique of her candidacy - that it's just too much, too soon - and a splash of cold water for those of us with high hopes for her future on the national stage.
And in the Washington Post, Richard Cohen goes off on McCain, seizing on the Palin pick as a sign of how far gone the candidate is:

McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. He internalizes the code of the McCains -- his grandfather, his father: both admirals of the shining sea. He serves his country differently, that's all -- but just as honorably. No more, though.
...

His opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir -- the person in whose hands he would leave the country -- is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that. He means to win, which is all right; he means to win at all costs, which is not.

Posted by: Mark | Sep 16, 2008 3:58:46 PM

Hhmmmmm, let's think of who won't vote for us and how we can rig this election so those people can't vote......

Posted by: florida stacey | Sep 16, 2008 3:59:13 PM

Typical AA, blame everyone else for your failings - take responsibility, stop crying like babies and stand on your own and stop trying to cheat!!

Posted by: Watching | Sep 16, 2008 3:59:16 PM

Post a comment