More Election Day shenanigans are revealed by our colleague Eartha Jane Melzer at Michigan Messenger in this breaking news story on the latest dirty disenfranchisement tactic by a local Republican operative to challenge voters at the polls on Nov. 4 and how the McCain campaign stands to benefit.
The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.
“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. He said the local party wanted to make sure that proper electoral procedures were followed.
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The Macomb GOP’s plans are another indication of how John McCain’s campaign stands to benefit from the burgeoning number of foreclosures in the state. McCain’s regional headquarters are housed in the office building of foreclosure specialists Trott & Trott). The firm’s founder, David A. Trott, has given at least $23,000 to McCain’s campaign and raised between $100,000 and $250,000 for the Republican nominee.
The Macomb County party’s plans to challenge voters who have defaulted on their house payments is likely to disproportionately affect African Americans who are overwhelmingly Democratic voters. More than 60 percent of all sub-prime loans — the most likely kind of loan to go into default — were made to African Americans in Michigan, according to a report issued last year by the state’s Department of Labor and Economic Growth.
Read the whole story at Michigan Messenger.
