These efforts were coodinated in states where GOPers had the entire state government, but they are most crucial in the two states where they stole the 2000 and 2004 elections respectively: Florida and Ohio.
And that doesn't even count possible chicanery in vote counting. In Florida in 2000 they purged the registration rolls of thousands of eligible voters and they're trying it again in 2012. This is not a theory anymore--the former state chairman of the Republican party is saying so in court: GOPers actively sought ways to keep minority citizens from voting. The U.S. Justice Department has also gone to court with others to challenge Florida voter purges.
The 2004 election turned on Ohio, where on election day lines were several hours long in minority voting districts in the big cities because of not enough voting machines or staff--so long that many left before voting. That was remedied in 2008 by spreading out the voting over weeks instead of hours. This year, the Ohio GOPer government wants to roll back early voting, taking away the last weekend before election day. In 2008, members of black churches went to vote together after services on that Sunday. The Obama campaign is going to court to restore the full early voting.
But in an even more transparently GOPer political ploy, voting hours have been extended in counties that usually vote GOPer but not in counties with the largest populations, that usually vote Democratic. The Ohio system has voting hours regulated by county boards comprised of equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. In all counties, Democrats voted to extend voting hours. But Republicans as a bloc voted for it in all GOPer counties (where it therefore passed unanimously) and against it in all Democratic counties, which resulted in tie votes. And that tie was broken by Ohio's GOPer secretary of state (the state official in charge of elections) who in every case voted with the local GOPers to restrict hours in Democratic counties--which happen to be the ones with the largest populations, and therefore most in need of extended hours.
Most of the national attention to this issue so far has been on the many voter ID laws, most recently in the commonwealth of Pennysylvania where the estimated number of voters without the kind of IDs required by the new law is large enough to turn this back into a swing state. The head GOPer legislator is on record bragging that this law is intended to give the state to Romney. (And other GOPers are admitting that the very idea of voter ID laws--to allegedly combat the kind of fraud that almost never happens--avoids dealing with the kind that more often does result in fraud, voting by mail--because that's supposed to be how more conservatives vote.)
The Justice Department is investigating whether this law is discriminatory under a seldom used section of the Voting Rights act. If it proceeds and is successful, it would seemingly apply to other states. But already the PA law has gone on trial based on the Commonwealth's own constitution, with the state government offering a pitiable defense. A decision is expected this week. If the PA law is voided or stayed, as it clearly should be, it will send a strong message to other states and other courts that this fundamental American right must be defended.
Already the Ohio secretary of state is feeling heat from his own state's media, and is talking about uniform hours throughout the state (however my bet is that this means no expanded hours anywhere.) This is a time for courts, the media and the public to step up, to understand that this is a fundamental threat, and stop politicians from stopping the vote simply because they are afraid of the result if they allow free elections in America.
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