Spoiled Obama Ballots

Michelle Malkin has another voter fraud story… Premarked ballots for Obama… More Change You Can Believe In!

Found: Pre-marked ballots for non-English speakers

By Michelle Malkin  •  November 4, 2008 05:44 PM

Sigh:

At least two Spanish-language ballots were pre-marked for Barack Obama at a rural Oakdale precinct Tuesday morning, causing election officials to confiscate and inspect all the blank ballots.

“I consider this extremely serious,” said Lee Lundrigan, Stanislaus County clerk and registrar of voters. “We’ve sent an additional person to the precinct, and everyone is now watching each other.”
The incident happened about 9:20 a.m. at the River Oak Grace Community Church polling place on Rodden Road just north of Oakdale.

Hector Parra, who doesn’t speak English, was handed a Spanish-language ballot, which he took to the voting station. A moment later, he went to the precinct workers seeking help. Since there was no designated translator working at the time, the precinct’s staff asked if anyone in the crowded room could speak Spanish.

Sylvia Moreno volunteered to translate, and she said Parra didn’t understand why the ballot he was given had been marked.

“He was going to vote for Obama, but it was already filled in for Obama,” Moreno said. “He just wondered why.”

Moreno explained the problem to precinct workers, who then took Parra’s ballot and put it among the “spoiled” ballots. Parra then was handed a second Spanish-language ballot.

“It was marked for Obama, too. It truly was,” said Moreno, who witnessed the fresh ballot being handed from the precinct worker to Parra in the middle of the room.

Over 48,000 Reports of Voter Intimidation & Fraud In Multiple States

More reports of Voter fraud and intimidation. Pretty wide spread, and this is just the tip of the iceberg I bet. More Change You Can Believe In!

GOP presidential candidate John McCain’s campaign said Tuesday that it is hearing of several instances of voter intimidation and fraud on Election Day, and sued twice to rectify what it sees as illegal conduct. 

On a conference call with reporters, McCain advisers said they have successfully sued in Philadelphia to have their poll watchers recertified, and they expect similar results from an effort to do the same in New Hampshire.

Sen. McCain’s (Ariz.) campaign alleged that Democratic supporters of McCain’s rival, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), have been calling Republican voters in Lancaster, Pa., and telling them that their polling places have been moved. 

McCain spokesman Ben Porritt said caller ID had helped identify the callers as Obama supporters, but he stopped short of saying the calls reflected any kind of concerted effort by the Obama campaign.

“It would be hard to make that connection,” Porritt said.

In some parts of Virginia, the advisers said, the ballot is two pages and only Obama appears on the first page.

McCain adviser Brian Jones said the campaign feels “elections should be decided by voters, not lawyers,” but it is committed to ensuring that fair voting practices are followed.

The Obama campaign has been quiet about any Republican efforts to influence the election through fraud or voter suppression. However, the group Election Protection said it had received more than 48,000 calls by 2:45 p.m. at a toll-free number that opened at 5:30 a.m.

More Voter Fraud – Philadelphia

And this is why organizations such as the Black Panthers can militantly assualt America’s right to vote… The legitimate authorities are blocked from it… Notice how the stories excuses of why the republican EB members were kicked out differs… More Change You Can Believe In!

GOP Election Board members have been tossed out of polling stations in at least half a dozen polling stations in Philadelphia because of their party status.

A Pennsylvania judge previously ruled that court-appointed poll watchers could be NOT removed from their boards by an on-site election judge, but that is exactly what is happening, according to sources on the ground.

It is the duty of election board workers to monitor and guard the integrity of the voting process. 

Denying access to the minority (in this case Republican) poll watchers and inspectors is a violation of Pennsylvania state law. Those who violate the law can be punished with a misdemeanor and subjected to a fine of $1,000 and sent to prison between one month and two years. 

Those on site are describing the situation as “pandemonium” and there may be video coming of the chaos.

Some of the precincts where Republicans have been removed are: the 44th Ward, 12th and 13th divisions; 6th Ward, 12th division; 32nd Ward, Division 28.

“Election board officials guard the legitimacy of the election process and the idea that Republicans are being intimidated and banned for partisan purposes does not allow for an honest and open election process,” said McCain-Palin spokesman Ben Porritt in a statement to Townhall.

The City of Brotherly Love was roiled in controversy during the 2004 election because of rigged voting machines that showed nearly 2,000 votes for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry before the polls had opened. A man also used a gun to intimidate poll workers at Ward 30, division 11 in 2004.

Update: Fox News just did a report about the controversy. The Democrats are saying that the polling station is crowded and election board members need to cycle through the areas intermittently.

Update 10:53am: Pennsylvania Secretary of State Pedro Cortes says this matter is already being heard in court and should be resolved soon. He says there was a dispute of the names of the poll watchers on record. This is a different story than the Democratic officials told Fox News earlier this morning.

Voter Fraud & Voter Intimidation – Ohio

Debbie Schlussel reports that one black man voted multiple times (3x) and a Orthodox Jewish Woman was denied, even though she had the same ID card that the 3x voter had…

More Change You Can Believe In!

It isn’t just Black Panthers intimidating voters in Philadelphia today, it’s also this absurdity in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, as reported by Fred Taub of Boycott Watch:

While voting today, I blocked what I saw as blatant election fraud, where an African American man whose ID did not match his voter registration and also had registered for an absentee ballot was almost allowed to vote, potentially for a third time, was in fact allowed to vote with a regular ballot at the polls.Later, I was told that an Orthodox Jewish woman was denied the right to vote, also with the same type of identification problem. I believe this was done to sway votes in the Presidential election using voter profiling, and I notified the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.

 

Orthodox Jews are likely McCain voters (in contrast with the rest of American Jewry).

ACORN Using Children In Voter Registration Fraud

More Acorn corruption…

 

7-YR.-OLD GETS AN ACORN VOTE CONN. JOB TO BOOST OBAMA

YOU KIDDING? A voter-registration card for 7-year-old O’jahnae Smith, submitted by volunteer group ACORN, claimed she was 27.

 

O’jahnae Smith is ready and registered to vote this November.

There’s only one problem: She’s 7 years old.

The Connecticut girl is 11 years too young – and nobody in her family knows how she ended up on a voter registration form submitted by ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

“She’s registered to vote?” said a surprised Jerome Smith, O’jahnae’s teenage brother. “She’s too young to vote.”

But that didn’t stop someone from forging the child’s signature on a voter registration card and giving her a fake birth date that upped her age to 27. The family told The Post a drug-addicted relative may have given the bogus card to ACORN.

Voter registration fraud complaints like these continue to mount for the group, already under scrutiny in 11 states where hundreds, if not thousands, of new registrations are being questioned.

ACORN volunteers have been found to register dead people and even put members of the Dallas Cowboys on Nevada lists.

The community organizing group has a long history of flooding low- and middle-income neighborhoods in election years with temporary workers instructed to register 20 to 25 voters per day – or risk getting fired.

Most states prohibit paying per signature, but ACORN workers earning $8 to $9 an hour still have to hit their quotas. And many need the money – including some ex-cons in work-release programs.

ACORN’s controversial tactics have fueled John McCain’s criticism of Barack Obama, whose campaign paid an ACORN spinoff – Community Services Inc. – about $800,000 to knock on doors and urge people to vote for Obama in four key primary states: Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

In his pre-politics days, Obama ran the Illinois chapter of Project Vote in 1992, before it hooked up with ACORN.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis on Friday called for a freeze on taxpayer dollars to ACORN until recent allegations have been investigated.

Meanwhile, state authorities in New Mexico, Indiana, Missouri, Connecticut, Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Nevada have launched probes of bogus voter registration forms filed by ACORN.

Roberta Casteel, a nurse, is one of several dozen Nevada voters caught in the web of fake ACORN registrations. Casteel, a registered voter since 1991, was shocked to receive a letter rejecting a voter application she didn’t know she’d made.

Authorities said they’d received two voter applications in her name: one as a Democrat and one as an independent. Both cards had her address, date of birth and Social Security number, and were submitted by ACORN workers. Neither signature matched her original one on file.

A former ACORN worker in Pennsylvania has already been charged with 17 counts of identity theft and forgery.

Other states are sifting through cartons of suspicious forms.

The ACORN shenanigans likely won’t rise to actual voting fraud, stressed election law expert Terri Enns at Ohio State University.

“ACORN’s problematic registrations create extra work for election boards, because they have to check them, but it’s not double voting,” she said.

 

The Fake Registrations Can Be Used To Vote…

Well well well, the past couple of weeks I have heard officials from several states saying the fake voter regristraions cannot be used to vote. My case, which I stated before is that it still distrupts the voting operation and could cause other problems because of backlogs, in addition there are many places in the US where there is no real validation of voter IDs at the polls. Well it seems the liberals have found a definitive way to bypass the system. Voting through Absentee Ballots obtained through fraudlent registrations…

Guess where, non other than Acorn’s Ohio getaway…

Something smells at 2885 Brownlee Avenue in Columbus, Ohio.

I strongly recommend that the Ohio Republican Party get on the case before it’s too late. Today’s the last day to challenge voters who registered early in Ohio before the run up to Election Day.

Here’s the stench: An entire houseful of young, non-Ohioan Democrat activists have used the Brownlee Avenue address to register themselves to vote in the Buckeye State and secure absentee ballots under extremely shady circumstances — all while mobilizing a large effort to register thousands of others for absentee and early voting. The activists are leaders of a group called “Vote From Home ‘08.” The group is self-identified as having “extensive experience with political organizing, election administration, and Democratic politics.” They were hailed as the “Justice League” by a Daily Kos blogger. Their Facebook page brags: “Want to turn the Presidential election blue in a key swing state? Vote from Home is a political organization that was founded by a team of young people for the purpose of assisting, aiding, and tracking voters to elect progressive candidates to the White House. Encouraged by the excitement of the 2008 elections and the movement around the Democratic candidates, Vote From Home will be in Ohio seeking to deliver 10,000 votes to Democratic candidates statewide.”

My friends at Palestra.net, a network of young reporters who have been doing the voter and registration fraud reporting that the MSM has been slow to do, have a breaking investigative report on how several members of the Democrat Vote From Home team — all Rhodes, Marshall, Fulbright, and Truman Scholars studying abroad — are turning up on Franklin County voter rolls despite having no bona fide residence in Ohio and admittedly having little to no knowledge about the state before descending on it in August to sign up other new voters in a rush to put 10,000 Obama supporters on the rolls.

Watch:

Here’s the page listing the Vote From Home team. Take a good look at these three, for starters:

Here’s the Franklin County, Ohio registered voter search page.

Here’s just one of several Vote From Home activists, Daniel Hemel, who registered to vote with the Brownlee Ave. address listed as his “home:”

The Franklin County, Ohio site shows that Hemel was mailed an absentee ballot on October 1.

Palestra reporters Shelby Holliday and Tiffany Wilson visited the Vote From Home “home” in search of Hemel and were told that the Scarsdale, NY native and Harvard grad had returned to school — he’s a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University in England studying for an M.Phil in International Relations — and had no plans to return to Ohio.

You’ll recognize another of the names and faces from the Vote From Home team. This is Marc Gustafson, a driving force behind the effort and in front of the cameras:

He is also registered to vote in Franklin County, Ohio at the same Brownlee address and was mailed an absentee ballot on September 30:

He’s also the same activist Palestra reporter Shelby Holliday interviewed in her “Thug Thizzle” report. Gustafson’s the one who bragged about the free shuttle program for the homeless Ohioans for Obama:

“It’s a perfect opportunity for them to come in, register at a temporary address like a homeless shelter or a YMCA or something like that. They can register at that address because they don’t know where they’re going to be tomorrow or next week.”

Where’s Gustafson? Not in Ohio. He’s a Marshall Scholar at the Oxford University in England who worked as a field coordinator for the Howard Dean Campaign in Rhode Island, Iowa and New Hampshire. According tocampaign contribution reports, he lists New York as his residence.

According to the Ohio Secretary of State’s page, you must be “a resident of Ohio for at least 30 days immediately before the election in which you want to vote.” The guidelines also state:

Generally, a person’s residence is the place where the person’s habitation is fixed (i.e., where the person lives on a permanent basis) and the place where the person intends to return
whenever the person is absent.

...a person’s temporary presence in Ohio, such as during a vacation or working in
Ohio on a temporary basis, does not make the person eligible to register and to vote in Ohio.

Gustafson’s friend and business partner, Heather Halstead, is another Vote From Home activist who shows up in Franklin County, Ohio voter rolls:

She is based in New York, went to Dartmouth for college, and lists New York as her residence in campaign contribution reports. No connection to Ohio other than the brief period she spent signing up others — and herself — to vote in the swing state.

Halstead was mailed an absentee ballot on September 30.

Vote From Home team member Jennifer Kyle, whose bio states that she works for ShoreBank International in the Washington, DC area, is also registered to vote in Franklin County, OH using the Brownlee address:

Kyle was mailed an absentee ballot on October 4.

Vote From Home team member Greg Nolan also used the Brownlee address to register to vote in Franklin County, OH:

He is based in Florida, where he attended college and was “active in Democratic politics,” and is headed to Stanford for graduate school. No ties to Ohio other than his brief stint working with Vote for Change.

And on and on it goes. Shelby at Palestra tells me that some 12 activists associated with Vote From Home may have fraudulently registered and voted already. If they were this breathtakingly careless or brazenly reckless with their own registrations, imagine what damage they might have done in their voter registration drive — and what damage they may yet do in following through on absentee ballots with those voters.

Will the rest of the MSM pick up on the invaluable investigative reporting of Palestra’s intrepid young reporters? Or will they look the other way? Will out-of-town punks — all using 2885 Brownlee Ave. in Columbus as their ballot drop house — help turn Ohio blue? Will the Democrat Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, bury her head in the sand?

The ball is in the Ohio GOP’s court. Don’t drop it.

57,000 False Voter Registrations Submitted By ACORN in Philadelphi County

AtlasShruggs, brings us a great piece on Pennsylvania’s voter fraud being perpertrated by ACORN. ACORN is doing this around the country. Note that the 57,000 count is just one county. Multiply that number by all the places ACORN is “Getting The Vote Out”… This is going to create more problems as the election takes place. In most areas there is very little validation of who shows up at the polls. It is time for a Federal overhaul of the voter registration process to create a national database. Additonally voter validation at the polls needs to be updated and there needs to be proof of identity at the polls. It is time for America to stand up against this fraud.

More Change You Can Believe In.

There is no way, no way, we can have a fair election with legitimate results. No way. The taxpayer is funding this stealth coup against our election system. ACORN is the most egregious but they are hardly singular. We must STOP, verify  every voter, confirm their legitimacy. This is CHAOS and it is happening, strangely enough, in every battleground state.

There is something terribly, terribly wrong here. Ask Santorum about Pennsylvania.

By Jeffrey Lord 
10/10/2008 4:09:45 PM

A retired Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice says that she is “not confident we can get a fair election” in the state come November.

Justice Sandra Newman, accompanied by Dauphin County District Attorney Edward Marsico and Pennsylvania Republican State Chairman Robert Gleason, expressed her concerns at a Harrisburgpress conference this morning. A thick document replete with photo copies of phony registrations and aerial shots of vacant lots used as “addresses” for “voters” was handed out to journalists.

Gleason was even more explicit.

“Between March 23rd and October 1st, various groups, including ACORN, submitted over 252,595 registrations to the Philadelphia County Election Board” with 57, 435 rejected for faulty information. “Most of these registrations were submitted by ACORN, and rejected due to fake social security numbers, incorrect dates of birth, clearly fraudulent signatures, addresses that do not exist, and duplicate registrations. In one case, a man was registered to vote more than 15 times since the Primary election.”

“Voter fraud is no longer just a Philadelphia problem,” Gleason said, with ACORN targeting key counties across the state. Counties specifically cited included:

* Delaware County: One of four key suburban counties that surround Philadelphia and are at the heart of the campaign by the forces of Senator Barack Obama to carry the state. In one instance, an ACORN employee circulating voter registration forms in Delaware County was featured on the Pennsylvania “Megan’s Law” website, described as having been arrested for “aggravated indecent assault” of a child. Other ACORN circulators had prior criminal records for forgery and giving false information to a police officer, among other charges. Gleason has provided copies of complaints from actual Delaware County voters who were notified by the local election board of their “new” registration to vote. One voter wrote that he “did not complete this form because this information does not match my info at all. I have been a voter for many years. Did not recently register to vote.” Said another: “I did not submit any application for voter registration…While the spelling of my name and address is correct, the birth date and Drivers License (sic) number are incorrect.” And another angrily wrote that the “personal information” on a form submitted in her name “IS NOT ME.” She added: Please have the county investigate this. I feel my identity is being compromised.”

* Philadelphia County: The situation in the state’s largest city is so bad the Philadelphia City Commission, which supervises the registration of Philadelphia voters, voted unanimously to “voluntarily” turn over its extensive records to the United States Attorney’s office for prosecution.

* Dauphin County: Dauphin County (the location of the state capital) District Attorney Marsico said the situation was so bad in Harrisburg that one ACORN worker is now being sought by authorities for submitting more than 100 fraudulent voter registration forms. The charge is 19 counts of perjury. One Harrisburg lobbyist, a voter for 30 years, had received notification she had recently filled out a registration form. The lobbyist went straight to the DA with her complaint. Marsico said that what was happening with ACORN “affects the integrity of the process” and that the volume of phony registrations made him “sure that others are going on” that have been undetected.

* Allegheny County: Pittsburgh. Here District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. and county police Superintendent Charles Moffatt have just announced, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, that “they are investigating and considering charges against ACORN staffers and other voter registration groups.”

* Centre County: The home of Penn State, which enrolls more than 40,000 students at its home campus. Justice Newman said there was a “massive effort” to fraudulently register students, with efforts aimed at “multiple registrations.”

* Erie County: The county at the northwestern tip of the state with its largest namesake city, here too students at local colleges are being targeted in “student registration drives” designed to register voters 18 and over “multiples of times.” Student registrants, registered to vote in their home states, had “pending absentee ballot applications” submitted so they could vote for president both in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. The Director of Elections in Erie has reported the telltale “same handwriting” on applications, according to Newman.

Marsico added that he believed the attempted fraud was being perpetrated in smaller Pennsylvania counties as well, counties where the resources to investigate simply don’t exist.

Perhaps most humorously was the role of 21st century technology in tracking down several attempted frauds. Through the wonder of Google, aerial shots displayed the following:

* 2418 Curtin Terrace in Philadelphia is — an empty field.
* 3103 S. 24th Street in Philadelphia — ditto.
* 4543 N. 11th Street in Philadelphia — ditto.

And so on. And on again.

Asked whether the Pennsylvania State Democratic Party had come forward to work with the GOP on the ACORN voter fraud issue, Gleason tersely shook his head. One source did say that much of the impetus for the fraud was “an Obama effort,” as opposed to the Democratic Party as an institution.

All of this brings Pennsylvania into focus as yet another key battleground state where a serious effort is being made to, bluntly put, steal the presidency in a move reminiscent of the attempts made by the 2000 Gore campaign in Florida. Just as ACORN’s efforts have been directed at key electoral states such as Florida, Colorado, Missouri, New Mexico Ohio, and Wisconsin, so within Pennsylvania have its efforts been targeted at key Pennsylvania counties. For decades the internal electoral math of the state for Republicans has been to overwhelm the heavy Democratic vote in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with strong showings in the Philadelphia suburbs, Central Pennsylvania, and western counties outside Pittsburgh.

Thus have ACORN’s fraud efforts — those at least that have been detected — been directed at Philadelphia (where increasing the Obama total to counter less enthusiastic support from white ethnics becomes critical), Delaware County in the pro-GOP Philadelphia suburbs, Dauphin County (in the heart of Central Pennsylvania) and Erie in the Northwest.

Is it really possible that the presidency could be stolen for Obama by virtue of a massive voter fraud here in Pennsylvania? And elsewhere? ACORN seems to think so. One so-called “non-partisan” ACORN member, Gleason pointed out, has been captured on video tape saying the group’s objective was to “beat McCain down.” Not exactly “non-partisan” sounding, is it?

Newman, the retired Supreme Court Justice, was blunt on the evidence: “I don’t want a president who does this.”

ACORN clearly does. Makes you wonder: why?

FLORIDA: Many convicted felons remain on voter rolls, according to Sun Sentinel investigation  (hat tip Van)

Thousands who should be ineligible are registered to vote More than 30,000 Florida felons who by law should have been stripped of their right to vote remain registered to cast ballots in this presidential battleground state, a Sun Sentinel investigation has found.

Community Organizers Don’t Always Do Good For Their Communitees

Barack Obama has touted this work as a community organizer as his main qualification for President of the United States. This is what being a community organizer means to Barack. Corruption, Fraud, Forgery, Not paying the poor that you hire, oppression … More Change You Can Believe In.

Please read and view everything below as this affects the future of America if Obama is elected.

Acorn is tied to Barack Obama, Obama has paid them money, has worked for them and this is the result.

• http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/05/obamas_ties_to_acorn_more_subs.html
• http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/datelinedc/s_488184.html
• http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/election/s_584284.html
• http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/07/05/obamas-acorn/
• http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=28948
• http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/10/10/republicans_try_to_tie_obama_to_vote_fraud_cases/

Paid to register by ACORN representatives in cigarettes and cash. Now that in itself is bad, what is even worse, he was signed up 72 times.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10102008/news/politics/1_voter__72_registrations_132965.htm

These ballots are fraudulent as well as forgeries, which the last I checked Forgery is a Crime…

http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/2101903/posts?page=4

There are numerous cases similar to this where ACORN is pushing Obama down the throats of the people… Acorn fails to pay “Employees”

I keep hearing how there is no way false registration cannot be used manipulate votes… Wrong.

Keep regisistering until you cannot remember how many times you regeristed

Faith Vote, a friend of ACORN

 

Democrats Crying Wolf

Still almost two months to go until election day, Democrats are already preparing themselves for a loss by filing a lawsuit alledging voter tampering. It is sad when the democrats have to make up stories in order to get the votes of those that have already or are about to loose their homes.

The allegation is that people Michigan who are on a foreclosure list will be denied the right to vote by Republicans. There is no evidence of such a conspiracy. This is a vote garnering scheme to get these poor people to vote for Obama…

This shows the growing desperation of the Obama Camp… This has to be by far the most underhanded tactic used in this election campaign so far. What is next, Obama will claim McCain is going to take away the votes of those in the Gavelston, TX area…

I live the last part of the article about people having to show IDs in order to vote. Yes, why shouldn’t they, with all this voter fraud going one we would not want people to cast votes as other people. But the article talks about how some people are discriminated against because they do not have a car and therefore do not have a drivers license. Well sorry there are various other forms of ID available to people and for the most part you cannot get a job or cash a check without some form of positive ID. State issue, passports, employee issued etc…

The Obama campaign yesterday went to court to block what it alleged was an attempt by Republicans in Michigan to stop people who lost their homes in the mortgage crisis from voting in November’s election.

The suit, filed in a Michigan court yesterday, is the latest sign of contention over voting procedures. Voting rights activists in several battleground states have reported an aggressive push by Republican elected officials and activists to make it harder to vote.

In Macomb county, Michigan, a swing constituency, Republican officials for the first time tried to use America’s housing crisis as a way of striking people off lists, the Obama camp told reporters yesterday. “There is no doubt that there is an immediate threat to the voting rights of citizens in Michigan whose names could appear on a foreclosure list,” said Bob Bauer, an Obama lawyer.

The situation came to light last week when the Republican party chairman of Macomb county told a local newspaper he planned to draw on publicly available lists of home foreclosures to bar people from casting their vote.

“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” the official, James Carabelli, told the Michigan Messenger.

The national Republicans later distanced the party from his comment, but other state party officials confirmed there were plans to deploy an army of poll “challengers” who would check voters’ credentials.

The Republicans argue that people who have lost their homes may no longer be resident at the address listed on voter records, and hence are ineligible to vote, and that their efforts are aimed at preventing voting fraud.

Such a claim is dismissed by campaign experts, who say there is minimal fraud in American elections.

Instead, they say the drive in Michigan to deploy poll challengers is intended to reduce turnout in poor areas and among African Americans, disproportionately affected by the housing crisis and thought to be likely Democratic voters.

Voting rights activists say they have already found a much more aggressive attempt by Republicans this election season to try to strike people off voting lists.

“I think that certainly the Republicans seem to be much more out front about how they are going to challenge people’s right to vote,” said Gerald Hebert, director of the nonpartisan campaign legal centre. “What we are seeing this time around is more of a broad-based effort, and we are also seeing the Republicans being much more assertive and bold in their announcements and not necessarily trying to do it under the radar.”

Voting rights activists in Ohio and Missouri have reported attempts to use the housing crisis to try to disqualify voters.

In Michigan, Republican state party officials had planned to mail voters whose names appeared on a list of foreclosed homes obtained from the public records office. The idea was to compile a list of people who had been forced to move homes, but had yet to update their voter registration to their new address.

Republican party workers stationed at polling stations would then challenge such voters when they turned up on election day.

Also in Ohio, the state Republican party filed a law suit seeking to block streamlined new regulations that make it easier for people to cast their ballot by early voting.

In Wisconsin, meanwhile, the state’s Republican attorney general has gone to court to try to compel poll workers to match voters’ names against driving licence records.

Florida, which has a Republican governor, also moved last week to require poll workers to check voters’ names against a government database.

The stated rationale of all these moves is prevention of voter fraud, although organisations which study elections say such fraud is a minimal risk.

The effort received a boost last April when the US supreme court ruled that states were entitled to require voters to present a state-issued photo ID such as a driving licence at the polls.

Civil rights organisations argued that the requirement discriminates against the poor and the elderly, who often do not have driving licences because they cannot afford a car.

More than 20 states now require voters to show ID at the polls, and there have been a series of recent reports about elderly people losing their right to vote.