Repress-The-Vote Republicans

If you haven’t already, get out and vote!

And if you’re lucky, your vote may actually be counted.

Unless you plan to vote for a Republican candidate, you’re in the crosshairs of the Republican Repress-The-Vote Machine. While dirty tricks have been played by both parties over the centuries, Republicans have recently brought voting manipulation to a new low.

Whether requiring discriminatory ID’s at polling places, sending illegal notices to certain groups that they will be arrested if they try to vote, unleashing automated calling programs to annoy registered Democrats in the middle of the night, intimidating voters at the polls, challenging the registrations of entire precincts, or altering the vote counts in precincts under their control, the GOP has become the party of dirty voting.

What does it say about Republicans that they hold such a solid claim to the title? How has the GOP become the party of voter bullying and repression?

Could it be that their incessantly touted “morals and values” are a brazen sham? Could it be that they have little regard for ethics when it comes to staying in power? Could it be that they will stop at nothing--including debasing our cherished system of voting--to keep their radical and failing agenda from being thwarted? Their behavior over the last five years provides ample and conclusive evidence that the answer is “yes”.

Whether breaking the law to funnel campaign donations where they are not allowed, taking payments from lobbyists who then write laws that their politician lapdogs rubber-stamp, requiring government contractors to have no dealings with Democrats, enacting laws that their President is not bound to follow, filling legislation with massive earmarks that were never discussed in public--the Republican Party has run amok.

Hopefully, Americans will smack down the GOP at the polls today. But given the sleazy, disgusting tactics the desperate elephant has employed in these final hours of the election, the outcome is already suspect.

What a shame. And what a disgrace. Were I a Republican, I would feel deeply embarrassed and horrified that my party had sunk to such a pitiful and troubling low. Fortunately, I’m not. And I voted. I hope it counts.

- JT Compton