How the Republicans are trying to steal the election

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Voter suppression efforts by Republicans are in full swing all across the country, but the focus clearly, and as usual, is on key swing states like Ohio and Florida -- where else?

For example, in Florida:

[Saturday] night, voters in Miami-Dade County were forced to wait in line up to six hours to vote. In some precincts voters who arrived at 7PM were not able to cast their ballots until 1AM.

In response, Republican-affiliated election officials in Miami-Dade have effectively extended early voting from 1PM to 5PM today [Sunday] by allowing "in-person" absentee voting. But this accommodation will only be available in a single location in the most Republican area of the county.

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The decision to make the accommodation available was presumably made by Miami-Dade Election Supervisor Penelope Townsley. She is registered with no party affiliation but was appointed to her position by Republican Mayor Carlos Gimenez.

Mayor Gimenez did not request Gov. Rick Scott extend early voting throughout Miami-Dade county. Further, according to Jim DeFede, an investigative reporter for CBS News in Miami, the decision to have in-person absentee balloting was made last night but not announced publicly until 9:30AM this morning. 

And in Ohio:

Ohio GOP Secretary of State Jon Husted has become an infamous figure for aggressively limiting early voting hours and opportunities to cast and count a ballot in the Buckeye State.

Once again Husted is playing the voter suppression card, this time at the eleventh hour, in a controversial new directive concerning provisional ballots. In an order to election officials on Friday night, Husted shifted the burden of correctly filling out a provisional ballot from the poll worker to the voter, specifically pertaining to the recording of a voter's form of ID, which was previously the poll worker's responsibility. Any provisional ballot with incorrect information will not be counted, Husted maintains. This seemingly innocuous change has the potential to impact the counting of thousands of votes in Ohio and could swing the election in this closely contested battleground.

This generally will be one of the key stories to watch tomorrow: Republicans doing their utmost to prevent people in Democratic-leaning areas, and likely Democratic voters generally, from voting.

They'd be up to this anti-democratic malfeasance anyway, but with the presidential race so close and Romney's path to 270 looking bleaker and bleaker they're ramping it up with every last weapon at their disposal.