Also, Obama continues to caution us to play it safe. At a rally yesterday (or maybe today):
"Don't underestimate the capacity of Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory," he said, only half in jest. "Don't underestimate our ability to screw it up."
He added: "I want everybody running scared. Over the next 18 days, other than your family and your job, I want you to make a decision that there is nothing more important than bringing about this change that we need."
Nate Silver wrote about this (and Sassy covered it) weeks ago but a trader on Intrade gets formally exposed for making purchases to drive up the price of McCain's stock (or at least the predication that he'll win. or something like that.)
GOP Voter Suppression effort loses big in Ohio.
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court sided Friday with Ohio's top elections official in a dispute with the state Republican Party over voter registrations.
The justices overruled a federal appeals court that had ordered Ohio's top elections official to do more to help counties verify voter eligibility.
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, faced a deadline of Friday to set up a system to provide local officials with names of newly registered voters whose driver's license numbers or Social Security numbers on voter registration forms don't match records in other government databases.
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I don't think I fully understand the implications of the Ohio case, though. Yes, the GOP got a pretty abrupt slap from the court, but unless I'm reading it wrong, those200,000 new registrations could still be in jeopardy of being invalidated. Or at least a lot of them.
Ugh, I keep leaving comments about one section of a post and forgetting to respond to another. How huge would a Powell endorsement be? That would be absolutely sweet!
sorry, dave, should have included a link to an earlier article with more info about this. but kos did his own little summary, hopefully clears it up.
"A bit of background: Republicans sued Brunner demanding that she establish a system which would allow for the strict "matching" of newly registered voters (those who registered since January 1, 2008) to government records. In other words, Republicans demanded that Brunner set up a framework whereby local election boards could force newly registered voters to vote provisionally based solely on the fact that the information they provide at the polling place does not exactly match the information in government databases.
Provisional ballots are essentially "maybe" ballots. They are counted if and only if eligibility is proven at some later date. That makes sense, but the process in verifying eligibility can be cumbersome (as you can see here) and can be a turnoff for legitimate voters.
There were many arguments raised against the GOP challenge, among them, an argument that the GOP waited far too late in the game to raise their claims (because sitting on your ass for years and then raising the argument a month before the election seems totally fair), that the GOP didn't have the right to bring raise the claim in the first place, and that the requested action was not required under federal law. It should be emphasized that the Supreme Court's decision today relates only to the narrow procedural question of whether the GOP had standing--or the right--to bring its lawsuit.
But hey, we'll take a victory on any grounds when election fairness is at stake.
So why was the GOP's plan do odious? The challenge would affect about 1 in 3 newly registered voters--that is, voters who registered since January 1st of this year.
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