While you watched the debate, Obama enrolled new Missouri voters

While everyone's attention was focused on last night's presidential town hall debate in Nashville, the well-organized ground game of the well-financed Barack Obama campaign kept on grinding away at its voter registration drive in Missouri. And elsewhere.

These are the kinds of sweaty, unglamorous, off-the-radar strategies that make the real difference on election day -- as about-to-be-President John F. Kerry, a Democrat, found out to his unhappy surprise late on election day in 2004 when enough registered evangelicals suddenly showed up in Ohio to prove the early exit polls extremely erroneous and reelect George W. Bush. As arranged by Karl Rove's minions weeks before.

Missouri is a key target state for Obama -- next door to Illinois, once fairly reliably GOP but recently trending Democratic. Why try to persuade too many traditional voters to go for your man when you can just sign up thousands of new, already committed ones?

With Missouri's voter registration deadline set for 5 p.m. today, Obama volunteers are registering new voters virtually around the clock. In St. Louis, they have nine "Would you like change with that?" drive-through centers where motorists can complete the registration in three minutes and be on their way.

In Kansas City, according to an Obama news release, volunteers like Earlene Meckelvey have been working the grocery stores, beauty shops and diners daily since early summer, racking up about 20 new voters apiece per day.

In college towns across the state, young volunteers are signing up classmates at outdoor tables or cafeterias.

The goal is to enroll 75,000 new voters before the deadline this afternoon.

To drive home the point and energize folks, Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden will barnstorm the state Thursday and Friday. Such tag-team struggles are going on in key states across the country.

Just for fun, make a note to check out the Missouri voter tallies come Nov. 4. See how well they did. And if it made a difference in the electoral vote count.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Speaking of registering, you can still go to Twitter and sign up for free automatic and instant alerts of every new Ticket item sped directly to your cell.

Photo credit: Associated Press

Comments

[yellow journalism]

What a dastardly conniving tactic! Attempting to engage citizens into the political process. The very idea!

So I am hoping for an early retirement for mr. Malcolm.

This dribble will end one day.

[TruthHound]

Missouri officials suspect fake voter registration

By BILL DRAPER – 17 hours ago

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Officials in Missouri, a hard-fought jewel in the presidential race, are sifting through possibly hundreds of questionable or duplicate voter-registration forms submitted by an advocacy group that has been accused of election fraud in other states.

Charlene Davis, co-director of the election board in Jackson County, where Kansas City is, said the fraudulent registration forms came from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. She said they were bogging down work Wednesday, the final day Missourians could register to vote.

"I don't even know the entire scope of it because registrations are coming in so heavy," Davis said. "We have identified about 100 duplicates, and probably 280 addresses that don't exist, people who have driver's license numbers that won't verify or Social Security numbers that won't verify. Some have no address at all."

The nonpartisan group works to recruit low-income voters, who tend to lean Democratic. Most polls show Republican presidential candidate John McCain with an edge in bellwether Missouri, but Democrat Barack Obama continues to put up a strong fight.

Jess Ordower, Midwest director of ACORN, said his group hasn't done any registrations in Kansas City since late August. He said he was told three weeks ago by election officials that there were only about 135 questionable cards — 85 of them duplicates.

"They keep telling different people different things," he said. "They gave us a list of 130, then told someone else it was 1,000."

FBI spokeswoman Bridget Patton said the agency has been in contact with elections officials about potential voter fraud and plans to investigate.

"It's a matter we take very seriously," Patton said. "It is against the law to register someone to vote who does not fall within the parameters to vote, or to put someone on there falsely."

On Tuesday, authorities in Nevada seized records from ACORN after finding fraudulent registration forms that included the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys.

In April, eight ACORN workers in St. Louis city and county pleaded guilty to federal election fraud for submitting false registration cards for the 2006 election. U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway said they submitted cards with false addresses and names, and forged signatures.

Ordower said Wednesday that ACORN registered about 53,500 people in Missouri this year. He believes his group is being targeted because some politicians don't want that many low-income people having a voice.

"It's par for the course," he said. "When you're doing more registrations than anyone else in the country, some don't want low-income people being empowered to vote. There are pretty targeted attacks on us, but we're proud to be out there doing the patriotic thing getting people registered to vote."

Republicans are among ACORN's loudest critics. At a campaign stop in Bethlehem, Pa., supporters of John McCain interrupted his remarks Wednesday by shouting, "No more ACORN."

Debbie Mesloh, spokeswoman for the Obama campaign in Missouri, said in an e-mailed statement that the campaign supported any investigation of possible fraud.

According to its national Web site, the group has registered 1.3 million people nationwide for the Nov. 4 election. It also has encountered complaints of fraud stemming from registration efforts in Wisconsin, New Mexico, Nevada and battleground states like Michigan, Ohio and North Carolina, where new voter registrations have favored Democrats nearly 4 to 1 since the beginning of this year.

Missouri offers 11 electoral votes; the presidential candidates need at least 270 to win the election.

[BJ]

ACORN is the vehicle OBAMA is using to register not only low-income people, but also African American CRIMINALS who have not yet been sentenced, as well as those that have completed their sentences.

This does not say positive things about the Obama campaign at all. He is nothing but a fraud and a snake oil salesman! He is bringing his Chicago style tactics to the national level.

Rev. Wright is right... Obama will DO and SAY anything, just to get elected.

[Vegas]

Not true. Let's not leave out Republicans and their voter caging and their voter purging. They've stolen many an election.

Cindy McCain is a felon. She's not convicted, because her hubby wanted to run for President. But here we are, she has a chance at being First Lady, even though she has committed several felonies. How can she even stand up on stage with her head up?

She's avoided serving time not once, but twice. The first time where she was doing and stealing drugs from needy patients from a charity she helped found. She forged doctor's prescriptions and got a doctor to help her do so. The verdict, the doctor lost his entire career and Cindy gets to dress up and try to be First Lady.

Another time...she was involved in"peddling a buzz". Her partner in business served hard time, she only got richer.

So, clearly, rules and laws DO NOT APPLY to Cindy McCain like they apply to the rest of Americans. So, personally, I can overlook felons voting. Cindy gets to vote and run for First Lady. She's not any better than a common thug.

Here are some links...
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Whistleblower_breaks_15year_silence_to_allege_0911.html

http://www.tuccille.com/blog/2008/05/for-peddling-buzz-cindy-mccain-gets.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Juf2zmHzUro