Republicans Trying to Capitalize on Housing Crisis, Again

You may remember how, in 2008, MI’s Republicans planned to conduct voter caging at the polls based on foreclosure lists (Democrats went to court to stop this).

It appears the Republicans–this time in Kansas–are trying similar cynical efforts to capitalize on the housing crisis with robocalls telling voters they must own a home to vote.

Kansas Democrats allege that a pro-Republican group is attempting to mislead and intimidate voters with automated telephone calls claiming the election occurs on Wednesday.

The robo-calls tell voters to bring their voter registration card and proof of home-ownership to the polls on Wednesday, November 3rd.

Voters in Kansas are not required to provide those documents to vote and the election occurs on Tuesday, November 2nd. First-time voters only need to bring proof of their name and address, such as a driver’s license.

The Kansas Democratic Party claims to have traced the calls to “an as yet unnamed Republican organization.”

In MI, the thwarted attempt to capitalize on the housing crisis was all the more cynical given that the biggest foreclosure mill in teh state, Trott and Trott, was shacking up with John McCain’s campaign office.

But this effort does seem to suggest that Republicans will look for any way to make their miserable policies an advantage at the voting booth.

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  1. bobschacht says:

    Another similar effort to watch for is vigilante squads harassing voters approaching their polling station, challenging their citizenship and other intimidating tactics. There have already been reports that some groups plan to use such tactics.

    Bob in AZ

  2. Frank33 says:

    Neo-con and “Birther” Kris Kobach is running for Secretary of State so he can disenfranchise poor people. He worked for KKKarl Rove on Vote Caging and he helped write Arizona’s anti-immigrant law. He may win. Kobach has been warning about fraudulent votes cast for deceased people. Kobach even found one such deceased voter. The Witchita Eagle also found this deceased voter, as he was raking leaves.

    Moral of the story, anything that a neo-con says is a lie.

  3. klynn says:

    This post should be front paged.

    Denying voters, lying to voters, intimidating voters and harassing voters is so far from supporting democracy and freedom. This is not and will never be the behavior of someone who stands up for the Declaration of Independence or Bill of Rights. Such individuals of the GOP, committing such offenses, are not patriotic, despite their thinking they have the right to commit such acts of anti-democracy.

    What an assault on democracy around the world.

  4. alan1tx says:

    I find it hard to believe any Democrat is so stupid as to fall for this.

    Which makes it equally hard to believe that any Republican would be stupid enough to think a Democrat would fall for it.

    • klynn says:

      Poverty and intimidation are unfortunately intertwined. It is not a matter of stupidity. It is a matter of getting a systemic message all your life that “rights are for others but not for you.” This includes voting rights.

  5. jedimsnbcko19 says:

    After reading this article one can clearly see the GOP base is not growing.

    What party that is predicted to win BIG, would be playing such games.

    The GOP is in BIG trouble. The Tea Party is great weapon that intelligent democrats need to use to destroy the GOP. The Tea Party platform, will do what Obama the trojan horse and phony dems could not do, destroy the GOP.

    This is not 1994! GOP

    I fear that GOP clowns are going to approach the wrong group of democrats and be in for a very rude awakening.

    Democrats are furious at their own party, and their hate for BUSH, has not died.

    STAY CLEAR OF ANGRY DEMOCRATS! GOP clowns

  6. onitgoes says:

    Figures. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

    ReTHugs and some kind of voter intimidation, voter fraud or vote caging or vote hacking is to be expected; in my lifetime, it’s always gone on.

  7. cbl says:

    from the Civil Rights Division site 10/27:

    The Civil Rights Division will announce later this week which states will have federal personnel as election monitors and observers at polling places.

    can’t find any further releases – anyone ?

  8. parsnip says:

    The robo-calling by the GOP in central PA was so bad that people in line at my precinct were saying how relieved they are that it’s over with. Every day for the past week we received 2 or more. Five of six 6″ x 11″ glossy mailers only had Sestak on them: two with Nancy Pelosi as bogeyman. One with this, next to an unflattering picture of Sestak: “You Pay Your Bills; Now Joe Sestak Wants YOU to Pay for Other People’s Mortgages Too!” etc.

    The woman in line in front of me said, “They should give the money to the poor.” I hadn’t said a thing.

    I think the GOP was worried that enough of their base in Central PA wouldn’t bother to vote. There was definitely less turn-out than 2008.

  9. Linnaeus says:

    To me, this is just another indicator of the ambivalent attitude that conservatism has with democracy (with the Republican Party being the institutional representative of American conservatism.

    The old Right in America was definitely of the view that there were “natural” orders and classes in society, which meant some folks were fit to take part in the political life of a community and others were not. The populist new Right that’s arisen since the 1960s takes the same position, but has inverted the rhetoric that the old Right used to employ; the problem isn’t “the masses”, but rather “elites” and their willing accomplices. They’ve swapped the labels, used that to generate resentment, and now ride on that wave.

    Bottom line: conservatives old and new really favor some form of aristocracy. The old Right thought that they were the aristocracy, the new Right thinks of itself as the squire class that will benefit if it supports the right kind of lord.

  10. dustbunny44 says:

    Everyone with more than one residence should automatically be purged from voter lists until they confirm which place they are voting at.

    After all, we can’t let them commit voter fraud by voting twice.