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29.10.08

Sham complaint completes Democrat election tactic

Louisiana Democrats are looking for a little election insurance by their complaints that there’s some sort of discrimination going on in dropping voters off rolls for failure to verify their information, part of a longer-term plan launched months ago where the charges have only political, not factual, bases

In front of a Louisiana legislative committee, a party operative claimed something fishy was going on, alleging something was amiss with a disproportionate elimination of “non-Republicans” from eligible voter rolls. After the books close for an election date, registrars are empowered to identify questionable registrations and ask for confirmation. If none is received, the doubted registration is cancelled.

The numbers, however, tell a different story. Statewide, the proportion of Democrats struck from the rolls was about 3.5 percent higher than their statewide proportion of the electorate, for Republicans it was about the same lower, and it was about identical for other and no party registrants. Certainly the allegation that “non-Republicans” were disproportionately struck was false, but had to be made to hide the partisan overtones of the complaint.

Accounting for the small difference for the two major parties, besides the obvious fact that, socioeconomically speaking, Democrats typically are on the lower end of the scale and therefore more likely to be transient, this time out the higher rate may be due to activities such as special interests running registration drives that had a high degree of questionable registration requests in the first place. Months ago, Louisiana Democrats tacitly approved of the efforts of Project Vote, affiliated with the radical Association for Community Reform Now (ACORN, once associated with Sen. Barack Obama prior to and early in his political career), and of another group allied with them called Voting is Power, to turn in as many new registrations as possible. Containing as many as a third bogus requests, the strategy was to overwhelm registrars in the hopes that it would dull efforts to challenge the less obvious questionable information to allow those who otherwise might be ineligible to vote to be eligible for mobilization and voting on election day. Alert registrars may have snuffed this strategy since the drives were targeted at signing up people who demographically typically register as Democrats.

(Where registrars choose to be alert, that is, this happens. It would be interesting to know how many challenges were attempted in Orleans Parish, a Democrat stronghold, where recently as many other urban parishes would routinely remove thousands of names in this process its registrar would remove just a handful. It’s also interesting to note that only since Secretary of State Jay Dardenne got into office have registrars begun much more aggressive checks. Why weren’t Democrats concerned about the process back when it hardly seemed to work?)

This incident is just the final part of the Democrat strategy – wink at the overburdening of registrars, then try to dissuade them from doing their jobs by crying about some mythical unfairness. This is what played out, and we should expect to see it replayed in the years to come.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think someone is using smack again.

Anonymous said...

Your titles on reductbox.com are the only ones that I can be spot on, all the time in guessing which blog they came from.

You are the biggest hack sellout the academic world has ever known. You know nothing on this issue and have nothing to add. That doesn't keep you from weighing in on it, though.

Unknown said...

Indeed T. Wong, Ideological purity in academia must be preserved.

Anonymous said...

The beauty of all of this, Sadow, is that barely anyone looks at your little partisan blog. It's clear you're spending all of your time writing little commentaries on the political scene under the guise of some reasoned logic (that always favors the republican party's conservative wing)--but it's equally clear to all reasoned observers that 1) Barack Obama will be the next president, 2) Mary Landrieu is going to win re-election, and 3) you're really pissed about it.

But, get used to it Sadow. Your lack of objectivity neuters any influence you might hope to have. That's why you have little to none.

Anonymous said...

Oh, and we're supposed to believe the objectivity of Kaos, Politico, and other credible blogs with absolutely no bias whatsoever? At least Sadow is honest about his affiliations and you pointing them out everytime a blog appears is the equivalent of the slow child who loves the fact that the sun comes up every morning. T. Wong, you have never contributed to this blog in any way other than you exercising your god given right to be an anonymous douchebag on this blog.

Bravo you brave soul.

Anonymous said...

You guys are treating this junkie way to seriously. Loosen the pressure on your left arm Jeff, you are getting even more delusional.

Anonymous said...

True, we are treating this way too seriously. Nevertheless, I have never been all that anonymous. My name is Kent Payne. Basically a nobody, but I am not hiding out. So equate me with an item of personal hygiene if you will, but I am NOT anonymous.

And pkrevbro, if that is REALLY your name, there is nothing wrong with a blog being partisan or biased. Mine certainly is. The wrong occurs when one attempts to disguise that partisanship by cloaking it with purported academic legitimacy when none exists