(9 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
On my trip over to ePluribus Media this morning I found this open thread Help Make Sure Every Voter’s Story Gets Told in 2008, not long but with very useful information that was gathered from two other sources from yesterday, one found here at daily kos about incidents at early voting polls here in North Carolina and also sourced at Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic
Regardless of your political alignment, nobody — from any party, special interest or group, has the right to interfere with your right to vote for the candidate of your choice.
There was a short form that can be filled out and sent to the VoterStory website
On a visit to VoterStory this is what I found:
The VoterStory web widget is programmed to collect and classify voter complaints in real time across the Internet and will provide a data feed of complaints that can be addressed in real time by Voter Protection groups who partner with VoterStory. Originally developed for the 2006 General Election, the VoterStory Web Widget is distributed web technology that enables a broad and expandable network to easily place sophisticated voter protection functionality on news, organizational web pages, blog and social media sites such as FaceBook or MySpace.
The VoterStory widget will be active on November 4, 2008. Complaints generated in the General Election will be shared with election protection partners.
Please download the widget and put it on your website today.
How the VoterStory.org Web tool works
1 On Election Day, the voter completes the form with their story.
2 When they hit “submit” their information is transmitted to voter protection organizations who will be standing by to intervene or lend support if necessary.
3 The voter also receives an email confirming that their story was transmitted.
4 Voter information is entered into a database of election incidents.
5 Voter Protection groups receive live information about voting problems during the election.
{You can get the above interactive form embed code to place at your sites at VoterStory}
Did a quick search, the local Charlotte Observer didn’t seem to have any reports about yesterdays happenings, probably because it never got to the calling in the police stage, but I’ll be keeping an eye on that paper as well as other papers around the state. But did find these:
ACLU Demands Halt To Intimidation Of Lawful Voters
“The Ohio Republican Party ought to stop harassing innocent voters. First they challenged newly registered voters’ right to vote absentee, and now, after the courts turned them down, the party is continuing to imply wrongdoing by undertaking a sweeping investigation of legitimate voters for simply having the nerve to lawfully cast a ballot. Voting is a right. It should not be treated as a crime.”
Voter harassment claims rolling in
“My guess is (the complainants) are probably some folks who have some motivation for doing so,” Swain said. “I’d find it hard to believe any of our volunteers are doing anything else.”
Mark Owen, chairman of the Vanderburgh County Democratic Party, denounced the reports of voter harassment as the work of Republicans.
“This is just another attempt by the Republicans … to embarrass the Obama campaign and the Democrats to suppress the vote,” Owen charged. “If they have witnesses and evidence, bring it forward and those people should be prosecuted.”
Protecting the Vote: Know Your Rights
Republicans this year have stated they will use voter challenges as intimidation and harassment to reduce the vote in the hopes of helping John McCain win the presidential election.
Now if you witness or might be harassed yourself after filling out the form and clicking to send you can visit the ePluribus Media link above, they have a link in the post to also send them the information that can than be archived and used as research material on Voting.