Voter Suppression, or Why Republicans Suck

This is why I hate the Republican Party:

The Republican Party in Ohio has sent out 1 million absentee ballot applications. The application looks exactly like the typical form that has been sent out in the past...except that there is a new feature, hidden near the bottom: a box to check off next to a line that says " I am eligible to vote in this election."

If you don't check off that box, you are saying you are not eligible to vote.

And therefore, you cannot be sent an absentee ballot. By the time one figures that out, it's too late to vote.

Ohio's Secretary of State is screaming mad about this, but her hands are tied. Anybody who neglects to check off that box will not be allowed to have an absentee ballot.

The ballot for the state of Mississippi is being challenged because the line for the special election to replace Trent Lott is at the bottom of a very long ballot. State law says that the line for Senate Elections has to be near the top, with other Federal offices. The line for the regularly scheduled Senate race is right where it belongs. But Governor Haley Barbour's Secretary of State has opined that because it's a special election, it can have special placement.

The latest news is a setback for Barbour and the other R's. A judge has ruled that the ballot is illegal, and that statutes make it very clear that both Senate ballot lines must be at the top of the ballot.

Barbour is appealing the ruling to a State Court, where elected judges, mostly Republican, are likely to vote in favor of the scheme. Barbour, by the way, is the former chair of the National Republican Party.

These people will lie, cheat, and steal to win. This is blatant thievery. What would happen if a similar operation happened here in Maine? Think Susan Collins would be upset if every Republican voter in Maine got a similar absentee ballot application form? Maybe we should find out.

At the very least, she needs to be asked to publicly repudiate her party's actions in MS and OH.