Vote Caging

Listening to a recent Greg Palast discussion on the upcoming election, I was again re-awakened to how elections are tilted. In this case tilted to favor the Republicans.

I came across this description of the caging practice utilized by the Republicans during the 2004 election.

This is voting in America.

Sourcewatch: Vote caging

"In 2004, BBC reporter Greg Palast obtained two e-mails -- prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director -- that listed '1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas' of the Jacksonville, FL Naval Air Station. Palast explains:

"Here's how the scheme worked: The RNC mailed these voters letters in envelopes marked, 'Do not forward', to be returned to the sender. These letters were mailed to servicemen and women, some stationed overseas, to their US home addresses. The letters then returned to the Bush-Cheney campaign as 'undeliverable.'

"The lists of soldiers of 'undeliverable' letters were transmitted from state headquarters, in this case Florida, to the RNC in Washington. The [Republican] party could then challenge the voters' registration and thereby prevent their absentee ballots being counted."

Nice little scheme, is it not.