Military shifting donations

[Lanya]

Thursday, September 13, 2007
Military shifting donations to Democrats

As the Iraq war drags on and US casualties mount, members of the military appear to be showing their discontent by donating more to Democrats, a campaign finance watchdog group said today.

Service members have traditionally supported the Republican Party, but there has been a dramatic shift since the war started in 2003 away from financial backing for GOP candidates for president and Congress, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics said.

So far this year and in the 2004 election, about 40 percent of contributions from donors identifiable as military members has gone to Democrats, compared to about one fourth in the 2000 and 2002 cycles, the center's study said. Service members gave about $1.8 million in the 2004 cycle and about $330,000 this year, the study said.

Democrat Barack Obama, who is calling for a troop withdrawal to start immediately, has received the most of any presidential candidate from uniformed service members -- about $27,000.

Ron Paul, the only Republican candidate who opposes the war, has brought in at least $19,250 -- more than Vietnam War hero John McCain, who supports the war and has raised $18,600 from military personnel.

The center's report quotes Lieutenant Colonel Joyce Griggs, an intelligence officer who contributed to Obama: "People are saying enough is enough. If you're a soldier, you're going to do your job, do what you're commanded to do. But that sentiment is wide and deep."
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2007/09/military_shifti.html

[Amianthus]

Wonder if the Democrats will respond by stopping the attempts to block military votes?

[Lanya]

McNulty knew about Griffin's vote caging, Goodling claims

Here's Monica Goodling's opening statement to the House Judiciary Committee, courtesy of TPM.

Therein, Goodling claimed that Deputy Attorney General McNulty knew that the White House's pick of interim AUSA for Eastern Arkansas had been involved in vote caging during the 2004 presidential election:

Goodling_snapshot









Tim Griffin, former research director of the RNC, was behind a plot to  disenfranchise 70,000 Florida voters during the 2004 presidential election. Black soldiers and the homeless were among the prime targets of the voter suppression effort, according to journalist Greg Palast who broke the story with BBC News.

Caging is a kind of low-tech phishing that political operatives use to disqualify voters. The classic scam is to send registered mail to a voter's address. The vote-suppressors hope that the mail will be returned as undeliverable, or that the voter will refuse to sign for the letter. If that happens, they can use the failed delivery to call the voter's residence into question and force them to prove that they can legally vote. So called "caging lists" are simply the rosters of folks who didn't respond to the registered mailing. These are distributed to political operatives working the polls on election day. When someone on the list shows up at the polls, the operatives will challenge them. Often victims give up and leave without casting a ballot, or cast a provisional ballot which is less likely to be counted.

Caging targets the most vulnerable voters, the folks who are the hardest-pressed to prove their status. That's why Griffin's crew singled out black vets and the homeless.

Caging that appears to be race-based is illegal in Florida.
http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2007/05/mcnulty_knew_ab.html

[Amianthus]

It wasn't the Republicans trying to get the military votes thrown out:

Appeals court upholds disputed military ballots in Florida election

December 11, 2000

ATLANTA (AP) -- An appeals court on Monday agreed with a federal judge who refused to throw out 2,400 of Florida's overseas ballots, mostly from military personnel, because they arrived after Election Day.

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the ruling by U.S. District Judge Maurice Paul in Gainesville, Florida, was consistent with recent comments by Florida's highest court about the workings of the absentee ballot law.

The lawsuit brought by Democratic voters sought to eliminate enough ballots to change the election results in Vice President Al Gore's favor. Republican George W. Bush led by less than 200 votes as election challenges continued in the U.S. Supreme Court and elsewhere Monday.

"While Florida law seems to favor counting ballots, this change would take away the votes of thousands of Florida citizens -- including members of America's armed forces on duty outside of the country pursuant to the nation's orders -- who, to cast their ballots, just did what they were told by Florida's election officials," the appeals court said.

The appeals court rejected the claims of lawyers representing 13 individual Democratic voters whose lawsuits were combined before Paul.

The lawsuits claimed that state and federal laws, along with the U.S. Constitution, require all ballots to be received by the close of the polls on Election Day.
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/LAW/12/11/recount.military/index.html

Guess you're proud of those Democrats, huh?

[sirs]

It wasn't the Republicans trying to get the military votes thrown out:
Appeals court upholds disputed military ballots in Florida election....

Guess you're proud of those Democrats, huh?

Since for Lanya, ends justify the means, probably so