Former governor Charlie Crist (R-FL) and former GOP chairman Jim Greer (R-FL), as well as several current GOP members, told the Post that Republican consultants pushed the new measures as a way to suppress Democratic voters. Crist expanded early voting hours in 2008 despite party pressure, but Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) targeted early voting almost immediately when he took office in 2011. Scott�s administration claimed the new laws were meant to curb in-person voter fraud, despite the fact that an individual in Florida is more likely to be struck by lightning than commit voter fraud.
Current party members and consultants confirmed the motive was not to stop voter fraud but to make it harder for Democrats and minorities to vote"

They should be ashamed of themselves. And every last one of them should resign. Or at the very least be voted out (if they are in an elected position).

I'm sure it will be the usual crickets here from those that screamed about voter fraud.

I could not be happier that the people of Florida defied them and voted anyway and Obama won the state. You know, one has to wonder if those creeps didn't try and stop them from voting, what would turnout have been. Maybe, just maybe, it all backfired on them and they pissed enough people off that were not going to vote. The vote in FL was very close. Now wouldn't that be fitting.

What's wrong with early voting?

Makes me smile contentedly that their plan to restrict our rights, all in the name of Republican partisanship, backfired splendidly in their faces.

Myself, I voted early for the first time--and was surprised how happy and festive the room was. Normally no one smiles--they all soberly go about their voting duties--but those who went early seemed to be so delighted at the opportunity and chatted in friendly manner with those about them.

But I do wish a couple of our posters always in our faces on this issue--BUT WHAT ABOUT CORRUPTION--IT WILL RUIN OUR AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE--IT WILL UNDERMINE DEMOCRACY (ETC)-- would have the courtesy to come back and say they are sorry for being so obnoxious and making a mountain out of a molehill.

Kate

Corrupt.

I think the Justice Department should investigate the allegations. Coming from the former Republican Governor the charges have credibility.

If true, the Governor should be impeached at the very least...jail time would be good.

OTOH, the efforts in Florida seem rather crude, and even childish in comparison to what may have occurred in Ohio this year and back in 2004.

From the linked article:

'Curiously, the Ohio Secretary of State�s vote tabulation website went down at 11:13pm, as reported by Free Press election protection website monitors, and mentioned by Rove on the news. This was one minute earlier than the time on election night 2004 -- when Ohio votes were outsourced to Chattanooga, Tennessee -- and then the vote flipped for Bush�This time, the Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) vote tabulation site went down as on election night as well. In his rant on Fox, Rove argued that Fox News should not confirm Ohio for Obama until votes came in from the southwest Ohio GOP strongholds of Delaware, Butler and Warren counties and suburban Cincinnati. It was after the crash of the secretary of state�s site in 2004 that improbable vote totals came in from Republican counties in southwest Ohio � particularly Butler, Clermont, and Warren counties. These three counties provided more than Bush�s entire Ohio victory margin of 119,000.'
Only this time, when the servers came back up, the votes never flipped. President Obama�s lead held and he went on to win, while Karl Rove - and Mitt Romney - watched in slack-jawed amazement.

We know there was a parade of Conservative talking heads in the days before the election predicting a landslide victory for Mitt Romney. Is it because they lived in a bubble, lacking pollster Nate Silver�s facts and arithmetic that actually showed the President winning in a landslide? Could it be that Rove�s election night freak-out was just a result of this same Election Day ignorance held by all Republicans? Or was Rove genuinely shocked by what he was seeing because he knew the fix was in, just like in 2004, and there was no way President Obama was going to win re-election?
And if that�s the case, why did the plan to steal the election not work?
Here�s where the story gets really interesting ...

Voters aren't committing the fraud... it is contrived and put into play at higher levels... some higher than we might think.

I would agree, Chase... investigation, prosecution, and jail time would be well served for those with their fingers in the frosting.

No, no, it's not racist; no, no it's not to prevent minorities voting; no, no......................

Then the clock struck 11:14pm, and the servers counting the votes in Ohio crashed. Election officials had planned for this sort of thing to happen and already contracted with a company in Chattanooga, Tennessee called SMARTech to be the failsafe . . . .
SMARTech was drenched in Republican politics. One of the early founders of the company was Mercer Reynolds who used to the finance chairman of the Republican Party. SMARTech's top client was none other than the Bush-Cheney campaign itself and SMARTech also did work for Jeb Bush and the Republican National Committee. And it was Ohio's Republican Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell, who ensured that SMARTech received the contract to count votes on election night should the servers go down, which they did at exactly 11:14pm.
Sixty long seconds later the servers came back up in Ohio, but now with vote rerouted through SMARTech in Chattanooga. And, coincidentally, Bush's prospects for re-election were suddenly a lot brighter. The vote totals that poured into the system from SmartTECH's computer in Chattanooga were flipping the exit polls on their head. The lead Kerry had in the exit polls had magically reversed by more than 6%, something unheard of in any other nation in the developed world, giving Bush the win in Ohio and the presidency for another four years.

If there is any creditable proof of this, someone (or several) ought to be heading for jail soon. Does anyone know if there is an investigation going on?

Have to admit--I expected to see "starring Robert Redford and coming to a theatre near you " suddenly pop up. Great fiction writing? or solid journalistic exposure? I'm sure I don't know, but it is at least one answer to the question how in the sam hill (my granpa's expression) did Dubya manage to get elected a second time?

Kate

Do they thing we didn't know?

Obama won 99% of the vote from 100 precincts. That's impossible and that is why we need to investigate fraud from both sides. In some precincts, there are no votes for other candidates. Really?

When folks say Ohio voted Democrat..take a good look at this: I know it doesn't change things, but it certainly does say something.

The unofficial tally shows that Obama won Cuyahoga County by 236,478 votes.

In Ohio's other 87 counties combined, Romney won by 129,219 votes.

In other words, without Cuyahoga County, Romney was the winner in Ohio.

While there is a reasonable likelihood of overwhelming support for Obama in a mostly black inner city voting precinct, - I mean, does tax cuts for the wealthy and banking deregulation sound like a good idea in the 'hood - with simple statistics and voter error you'd expect at least one or two Romney votes. Maybe some boyfriend who was mad at his girl friend and voted for Romney just to get back at her, or just a drunk with blurred vision.

In contrast, on the other side of the coin, there is some county in Texas where the vote was umpty-thousand for Romney, 4 for Obama.

Kate

This isn't news - Cuyahoga is a Democratic stronghold, and has denser population than other parts of the state that voted for Romney. Most of the geographical area in California doesn't vote Democratic - but the smaller, denser urban areas in and around SF and LA do.

According to the Ohio SOS statistics, the northwest portion of Ohio, also with a higher population, voted for President Obama over Mitt Romney. You can find the voting results by geographical area -- see upper left tab marked 'Presidential' -- on the website.

PA, Florida and Ohio need to be investigated and get their acts in gear for 2014. One would think Florida would be forever shamed by what happened in 2000, but apparently not. They know fraud is the ONLY way they can win.

From Cleveland.com

....sweeps for Romney were in Brecksville, Highland Heights and Independence, though Romney also did so in a handful of villages on the eastern side of the county.
Romney's strongest area was the precinct covering the portion of Hunting Valley in Cuyahoga County. The Republican won there with 75 percent of the vote.

Romney also ran strong in the four adjacent cities on the southern end of Cuyahoga County -- Strongsville, North Royalton, Broadview Heights and Brecksville. He picked up 56 percent of the vote there, though some precincts did vote Democrat.

....now for those out of towners, those cities that Romney won in are in Cuyahoga County. The only part of the above claims that are true is that if Cuyahoga County had not voted Romney would have won the state.

This has been debunked before (and posted here, in this thread.)

False data from the Plains Dealer was (is) used, the correct numbers are here:

Republicans Fail at Arithmetic Again Trying to Claim Voter Fraud.

There is no both-sides-do-it.

I did, and found a wealth of right-wing blogs echoing the claim -- the right-wing noise machine in action.

Yes, really. Haven't seen the numbers for Ohio, but I do not think it's unusual for a single precinct to vote 100% the same way. It happened in some precincts in NY this time too. Precincts are all different sizes. Some are not very big.

I'm just glad I didn't know about those servers in Ohio going down and that the same thing happened in 2004. I don't think my heart could have withstood that on election night.

Why was he so convinced those specific places he pointed out would change the entire election results? So odd.

Kate

So sorry but Cuyahoga County gets to vote in all elections, no matter how badly that goes down with 'some', and no we are not going to "secede" :)

And if the queen had balls she would be king.

Ohio Secretary Of State Tosses Ballots:

State representatives Kathleen Clyde (D-OH) and Debbie Phillips (D-OH) threatened to sue Wednesday evening over at least 384 ballots that have been discarded in the two districts in question, Tuscarawas and Cuyahoga.

According to the state reps, some ballots were put in plain manila envelopes instead of provisional ballot envelopes, rendering them invalid. Additionally, they say Husted is rejecting ballots covered under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which allows voters who have moved to a different address within the same congressional district to vote at their former precinct.

Even more ballots are likely to have been wrongly discarded because officials are using a database already proven to be flawed and incomplete to determine the voter's registration status.

Besides these possible breaches of federal election law, Husted is also tossing innumerable ballots that were thrown into question by poll worker error through no fault of the voter. A federal judge tried to stop him, declaring "I don't want to see democracy die in the darkness on my watch." But the conservative Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay that allowed Husted to throw out these votes.

Ohio leads the country in provisional ballots, with 200,000 cast this year. In 2008, the state discarded 1 out of every 5 provisional votes. These ballots are often concentrated in urban, Democratic areas - and huge percentages get discarded every election.