The Minnesota Republican Party has no plans to use lists of recent home foreclosures to challenge voters on election day, according to party officials. Earlier this month, our sister site, the Michigan Messenger, reported that local Republican party officials intended to utilize such lists in order to strike voters from the rolls. “We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” James Carabelli, chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Michigan, told reporter Eartha Jane Melzer.
But according to Nina Countryman, communications director for the Minnesota GOP, there are no plans to engage in similar tactics here. “We’re not doing that here,” Countryman says. “It’s just not true.”
Local party officials echo that sentiment. “I would be shocked if it happened,” says Rory Koch, GOP chairman in the Fourth Congressional District. Koch further argues that such tactics wouldn’t succeed in Minnesota because the state has same-day voter registration. “It’s ludicrous first of all, but in Minnesota it wouldn’t work anyway,” he says.
GOP officials in Michigan have questioned the veracity of the Michigan Messenger article and Carabelli has threatened so sue for libel, but the web site has stood by its reporting. The Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee have filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to prohibit GOP officials from challenging voters based on foreclosure lists.













5 Comments »
Comment posted September 22, 2008 @ 11:56 pm
We need to go national with same day registration. That GOP official is right (never thought I’d write that phrase) that it’s hard to pull these sorts of schemes in Minnesota, or other states with election day registration. The purging of voter rolls with a convenient emphasis on people in Democratic-leaning precincts is the biggest threat to this year’s election. I put it well above touchscreens and caging lists.
Comment posted September 23, 2008 @ 6:33 pm
The state, not the GOP or the DFL, should automatically purge voter rolls. Obviously, if a home is foreclosed, the former voters no longer live there and the voters should be purged from the rolls. If there is no integrity in the voter rolls, why have elections?
Comment posted September 25, 2008 @ 12:19 pm
Obviously, if a home is foreclosed, the former voters no longer live there and the voters should be purged from the rolls.
Obviously, you have no idea what you are talking about.
Comment posted October 15, 2008 @ 9:50 am
You do not lose your residency once your home is foreclosed. First of all, even after a home has entered foreclosure proceedings it can take 6 months to a year for title to transfer to the mortgage holder.
Even after title has transferred to the bank, there is still a large possibility that the voter still lives at the home despite being on the foreclosure lists. If the bank has yet to kick them out, then they still are a resident of the home.
Residency for voting in MN is incredibly flexible. You don’t have to own the home. You just have to either live or sleep in the precinct in which you are voting, or intend to have your home there in the future.
Comment posted November 8, 2008 @ 9:12 am
The debate surrounding Foreclosure says to me that we need EDUCATION AND CIVIC CLASSES IN THIS COUNTRY so that there is an understanding on not only the bill of rights, but the CONSTITUTION AS WELL. It is not to criticize but to state that we as a country need to EDUCATE about the FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT OF VOTING. (not dependent on arbitrary factors or money or wealth….)
Ownership of property is not the basis for Voting in the United States. (Otherwise we would not be a democratic society but a society of landed gentry!).
As long as you establish an intent to be domiciled in an area, a resident of an area you are entitled to vote.
Therefore… even a HOMELESS people are entitled to vote . Hence if you are a citizen of this country.. you are entitled to vote.
What is sad, is that our society is not questioning the removal from voter rolls enormous numbers of voters (especially from the more democratic leaning areas across this country) for no satisfactory reason….
We are just accepting it, just like the well meaning
John K. who said that “The state, not the GOP or the DFL, should automatically purge voter rolls. OBVIOUSLY, if a home is foreclosed, the FORMER VOTER NO LONGER LIVES THERE AND SHOULD BE PURGED the rolls. If there is no integrity in the voter rolls, why have elections?: (EMPHASIS ADDED.)
What is shocking about John K’s statement is that it is said without malevolence or hostility but from a deeply concerned but misinformed place….
Voting is what makes a democracy free.. and a democratic society affords all citizens who live in it the right to vote and participate in who governs…
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