US election: McCain aides attack group's voter registration processes

The Guardian ^ | 9/23/2008 | Daniel Nassaw

[markomalley]

Two advisers to John McCain's presidential campaign today said a flood of questionable voter registration applications in swing states threatens to undermine the accuracy of the November election and could prevent legitimate voters from registering for a ballot.

The warning came less than a week after the Democratic party filed a lawsuit in Michigan seeking to end what its lawyers said were Republican efforts to suppress votes of poor people and African Americans, two historically Democratic constituencies. The move indicates the Democratic and Republican parties are set to battle over voter registration in the remaining weeks of the campaign.

On a conference call with reporters this afternoon, former Republican senators John Danforth and Warren Rudman said a coalition of community organisations called Acorn had in several states submitted voter registration applications for people who were already registered.

The senators did not accuse the group of fraud, but suggested the group's registration drive was "diluting" legitimate votes and causing havoc in the nation's voter registration process.

"Our mission is to ensure that everybody who is entitled to vote gets to vote without any intimidation but also that there's no stuffing of the ballot boxes, no fraudulent voting and also that the rules are the same for everybody," said Danforth, a former Missouri senator.

"We are concerned that there is or may be a pattern of registering people who are not entitled to vote or otherwise gumming up the system for registering voters."

He cited news reports in Michigan, Colorado and elsewhere describing problematic registration applications surfacing after large Acorn registration drives. Earlier this month in Detroit, for example, the secretary of state's office cited a "sizeable number of duplicate and fraudulent applications" arising from an Acorn drive.

[ForbesFan]

In AZ you need a photo ID, or two forms of ID that don’t have a photo.

[queenkathy]

Yes it’s new this year. Just passed. Photo ID required in Mich

[EDINVA]

Thanks!

I thought we needed photo ID in VA ... when the Republicans in the state legislature were pushing the bill, you’d have thought by the Dem reaction that they were requiring your first born.