When the fight erupted over early voting in Lake County, IN several weeks ago, Republican lawyer David Brooks suggested that his party objected to the opening of voting centers in Gary, Hammond, and East Chicago because of the county's partisan geography. While the three cities are home to 40 percent of the county's population, they're also heavily Democratic. Meanwhile, the main early voting center was located over a half-hour away, in a Republican-leaning area. Brooks told the Indianapolis Star in early October that it was all about fairness: "They aren't opening any satellite offices in Republican areas. You have to find politically balanced or neutral locations."
During the Superior Court hearing yesterday on the early voting dispute, Judge Diane Kavadias-Schneider zeroed in on the issue of geography, asking the Republicans whether they would be satisfied if the county opened up several additional early voting centers in GOP-friendly parts of the county. The answer from lawyer R. Lawrence Steele was quite revealing.
She explored with [Lake Co. Board of Elections Director Sally] LaSota whether to open even more early in-person voting centers in suburban communities in response to Republican complaints Democrats have opened voting in the county's three largest Democratic strongholds.
However, R. Lawrence Steele, a GOP lawyer, told the judge they don't want more early voting centers open, they want Gary, Hammond and East Chicago's centers closed.
Got that? It isn't about equal access to early voting, as the Lake County Republicans attempted to argue in the beginning. It's just about obstructing ballot access in Democratic areas. Amazing.
This 1980 statement by conservative leader Paul Weyrich appears in the ACORN video we posted earlier today. But I think it deserves a reprise in this context:
The GOP lawyers also said they would have no problem throwing out the votes already cast in Gary, Hammond, and East Chicago:
Kavadias-Schneider asked, "What of those who have already voted?" Steele said, "Maybe those votes should be discarded."
Blue Indiana's Thomas has this to say about the situation:
These guys care about nothing more than making it extremely difficult for people to vote -- especially if you don't work regular hours, don't happen to have a car, or perhaps just don't happen to have three hours to kill on a Tuesday, standing in cold lines in November. And on top of it all, they apparently are fine with tossing a few thousand votes just days before the election.
Absolutely, inexcusably despicable.
Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 10/22/2008 - 11:58
For extremist Republicans, politics is just war by other means. And all is fair in love and war. No respect for the countless service men and women who have died protecting the right to vote for all Americans.
Will they be able to steal it? Their only hope is a huge terrorist attack, which the National Journal says today has to be "cataclysmic" to influence the election. Let's hope that the prayers of Islamic and Republican extremists fall on deaf ears.
Look for Al-Quaida to get more active in the campaign in one way or another in these closing days. They will try to influence the outcome and we should not let them.