Thursday, September 11, 2008

Disenfranchising The Dispossessed


The State of Michigan has a popular Democrat Governor, but the Legislature is a Republican controlled body. In the last year, they have stalled an anti-predatory lending bill that would rein in the lending practices that have lured hundred of thousands of American into housing loans they did not understand and consequently led to the loss of homes.
Now this very same legislature is trying to push legislation through as fast as they can to make it impossible for those who have lost their homes to register to vote or use the addresses of the homes they lived in to assure their right to vote.
This is being ramrodded through especially in Macomb County, where thousands of homes have been foreclosed. This is not an isolated effort in a state where close to 70,000 home owners have lost their homes and would be affected by this legislation.
Interestingly enough, one of the biggest foreclosure experts, the firm of Trott & Trott in Macomb County, own and occupy the building housing John McCains regional headquarters. The owner, David Trott has raised up to $250,000 for McCain.
The Michigan Republican Party is being supplied with a list of foreclosures so they can challenge names on the basis of not being "true residents". They claim that this would apply even if the person named on the list still resided in their home during the foreclosure procedure!
The technicalities of this are being argued, but the very attempt of this is so mean spirited and blatantly corrupt in its aim at disenfranchising black voters that it can only be interpreted as the GOPs inherent fear of black voters.
This is also occurring in Ohio, the director of elections in Franklin County( Columbus), Doug Priesse, who is the chairman of the local Republican Party is investigating the use of the same tactics of voter repression.
This seems to be part of a unified strategy by the Republicans to use their officials in counties across America to put road blocks in the way of honest voters trying to vote by their time honored use of the exaggerated claims of voter fraud.
To challenge the right to vote for every one who has suffered the misfortune of home loss through dispossesion will create a legal nightmare for voters in inner cities across America. Long lines of challenged voters who will have to provide documentation to prove their right to vote will discourage those who are dispossesed and those who have to put up with the lines.
The Republicans are probably right to fear the black voters this time. They have created their own race problem that will haunt them for years and they know it.

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