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Now, they are claiming that they were misquoted and threatening to sue for libel, but two weeks ago, the officials of the Republican party in Macomb County, Michigan, were talking to the press about their plans to create a voting mess in Michigan like the ones that we witnessed in 2000 in Florida and in 2004 in Ohio.

The plan is quite ingenious and certainly legal, but slimy as well. The intent of the party was to get the list of recent foreclosures in Macomb County, that’s suburban Detroit and one of the areas hardest hit by the mortgage crisis, and then send a flyer to each of those folks whose homes were in foreclosure.

The flyers, all stamped prominently with “do not forward” would go to registered voters who had lost their homes. If the flyer was returned to the party, then come election day the party would challenge that voter’s right to vote in that precinct. It is, above all, legal. Technically, if people move more than 30 days before the election, they are required to change their voter registration.

A challenged voter is given a “provisional” ballot and election officials can easily decide not to count that ballot. So, some Michigan Republicans were going to be sure that people who lost their homes lost their right to vote as well. You can read the full story here

As I said before, it is technically legal. But is it right? Hell no. When you are losing everything you worked for, do you really stop to think about your voter registration? of course not. You think about putting food on the table and getting a roof over your head. The laws were put in place to avoid voter fraud, but this isn’t about people trying to vote twice or dead people voting, this is about American citizens who lost everything be denied the right to vote.

And, you can claim it’s not racially motivated, but the plan came out of Macomb County, one of the three counties with the highest concentrations of African-Americans in Michigan. If it’s not racial, why not do it everywhere?

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