(h/t Heather)

Rachel Maddow goes through some of the dirty tricks we've already seen happening in various locations across the country and empowers us all to not let anyone steal your vote.



After eight years of perhaps the most incompetent government in American history, we‘ve got one way to fix it now, one way to exchange a president who is more despised by his own people than any other president in the time that polls existed. Choose who you will, but do not give up the power to choose by letting anyone or anything stop you from voting.

Transcripts below the fold

There is bad news and good news this election eve. The bad news, there‘s a crime wave going on. People are trying to steal from you as we speak - steal, rob, burgle, pilfer, abscond. That is the bad news. The good news? Unlike most arch-criminals, these thieves can be stopped if you just ignore them. Can you imagine if Batman could have ignored the Joker? Holy simple solution.

Well, what treasure do these thugs want from you? They want your vote. They want your power. Anyone who tells you, you can vote by phone in this election is lying and trying to steal your vote. You cannot cast your vote by phone. Anyone tells you, you are risking arrest or traffic tickets or outstanding warrants by turning up and voting tomorrow, they are lying to you and trying to steal your vote. You will not be arrested at your polling place.

Anyone who tells that you are expected to show up to vote on Wednesday instead of on Tuesday because of high expected turnout or something, they are lying to you and they are trying to steal your vote. The last day to vote is tomorrow, Tuesday.

If anyone threatens your college financial aid or tells you your parents will not be able to claim you as a dependent on their taxes anymore, if you vote where your college is instead of where your parents live, say it with me now, they are lying to you and are trying to steal your vote. The Supreme Court has affirmed that college students have the right to vote where they go to school.

Now, in an ideal world, candidates would each try to persuade the largest possible number of Americans that they‘d be the better elected official. And that‘s how elections would go. Who ever persuaded more Americans to their side would win.

In the real world, there‘s a whole lot of hullabaloo and holy-baloney that gets in between us deciding who we want to vote for and our votes actually getting cast and counted.

First, it‘s the voter registration purges. With election officials looking to produce the smallest possible roster of eligible voters, kicking people off the voter rolls for squinting in their ID photo or whatever.

Then, it‘s the allocation of voting machines and poll workers and the restricted polling place hours to ensure that you have to be able to afford to wait in line a really, really, really long time if you want the privilege - I mean, the right of casting that precious ballot.

Then it‘s these last-minute dirty tricks that fall somewhere between mob tactics and the kind of prank calls that Bart Simpson makes to Moe‘s bar, “Is Mr. Kaholic there? Al Kaholic?”

Voters in Virginia have been getting these flyers with the seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia on them, the letterhead of the Virginia State Board of Elections. And they tell them that if they‘re planning on voting for a Democratic candidate, they should show up the day after Election Day.

Robo calls in the Pittsburgh area are telling voters the same thing. Voters in Broward County, Florida have been getting calls that sound like they‘re from the county election supervisor inviting them to vote by phone instead of at the polling place. Same thing in Nevada, where Latino voters are being targeted with the same vote by phone scam.

At Drexel University in Philly, flyers warning students that voting would cause them to risk arrest at the polling place.

Here‘s what I think about this anti-democratic, “steal your vote, screw the heroes who died for this right,” underhanded, cowardly, sniveling, illegally intimidating and misleading, unpatriotic, anti-American, bull pucky. I‘m not crazy about it.

And since it‘s illegal, and since it happens to a greater or lesser degree in every election now, it would be nice to see this stuff get prosecuted every once in a while.

In the meantime, we can all fight back by not being intimidated, not getting tired, not letting the obstacle course they are making you run through keep you from exercising your right as an American to participate in this big group decision we call democracy.

After eight years of perhaps the most incompetent government in American history, we‘ve got one way to fix it now, one way to exchange a president who is more despised by his own people than any other president in the time that polls existed. Choose who you will, but do not give up the power to choose by letting anyone or anything stop you from voting.