Vote fraud! America is the new Florida

You want a conspiracy, folks? Just look at the way this election is shaping up.

I'll still cover every detail of the bulge business (see the "second voice" post directly beneath this one!). But we also need a site -- actually, a few dozen sites -- devoted to tracking the many allegations of vote-stealing dirty tricks. These stories are growing by the hour:

In Nebraska, dead people were found to have applied for absentee ballots. In Ohio, a representative of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was found to have offered crack cocaine to a known drug addict in exchange for completed voter registration forms, which he duly submitted in the names of Mary Poppins, Janet Jackson and Jeffrey Dahmer, the notorious cannibal serial killer.

The disease is spreading all over the country. One, two, many Floridas...

South Dakota:

Questionable absentee ballots across the state lead to criminal charges.

Six Republican notary publics face misdemeanors in connection with absentee ballot applications filled out on South Dakota college campuses.

Here's a neat trick in swing-state Pennsylvania:

Then there’s Pennsylvania, where Republicans are trying to relocate 63 Philadelphia polling places, 59 in largely minority neighborhoods. Republicans claim those polling places are not adequate for voters, but didn’t file their complaint until Friday. Since voters who go to the wrong polling place will not be able to vote, the last-minute nature of the complaint (which is expected to fail) sure makes it look like an attempt to suppress minority voting:

"I've never witnessed a more wanton example of an effort to discourage minority voters from participating in an election," Kerry campaign spokesman Mark Nevins told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "It's despicable."

Also in Pennsylvania:

Sproul & Associates, a consulting firm based in Chandler, Ariz., hired to conduct the drive by the Republican National Committee, employed several hundred canvassers throughout the state to register new voters. Some workers yesterday said they were told to avoid registering Democrats or anyone who indicated support for Democratic nominee John F. Kerry.

"We were told that if they wanted to register Democrat, there was no way we were to register them to vote," said Michele Tharp, of Meadville, who said she was sent out to canvass door-to-door and outside businesses in Meadville, Crawford County. "We were only to register Republicans."

Sproul's been up to dirty work in Oregon, Nevada, West Virginia, and elsewhere:

Substitute teacher Adam Banse wanted a summer job with flexible hours, so he signed up to knock on doors in suburban Minneapolis and register people to vote.

He quit after two hours. "They said if you bring back a bunch of Democratic cards, you'll be fired," Banse contends. "At that point, I said, `Whoa. Something's wrong here.'"

Still more on Sproul:

A political consulting firm owned by the former head of the Arizona Republican Party, which contacted several libraries regarding voter registration drives, has come under scrutiny after a former employee told authorities that thousands of voter registration forms submitted by Democrats were destroyed. Oregon officials are now investigating Voters Outreach of America, a group run by the Nathan Sproul-owned Sproul & Associates, which received $500,000 from the Republican party.

You'll also want to check out this fine investigative piece by Capitol Hill Blue on Sproul.

Meanwhile, back in Florida (naturally):

the elections office contacted police after Democrats complained about men videotaping people in front of the office all day. U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown and coalition members confronted them in the evening. But Scheu said the videotaping was allowed on a public sidewalk across the street.
"We're powerless to stop them," Scheu said.

Owner Fred Hillerich of Price Rite Investigations of Jacksonville declined to say who hired his firm to videotape events at the office. But he said he had done the work elsewhere before, and "I ain't doing anything to nobody."

"I'm sure it is, it's intimidation," said the Rev. Willie M. Bolden, a Southern Christian Leadership Conference official who joined others questioning Hillerich. "They're doing all kinds of things across the state."

More from Florida (expect to see a LOT more):

Gordon Sasser first got the feeling that something strange was going on when the telephone pierced the silence of a weekday afternoon at his house on the swampy fringes of Tallahassee, northern Florida.

An automated voice had some surprising news: did he know that he could now cast his presidential vote by phone, and could do so right now, using the keypad? Mr Sasser’s suspicion that somebody was trying to trick him into thinking he was casting a vote - presumably so that he wouldn’t cast a real one - was far from unique.

James Scruggs, another Tallahassee resident, remembers a similar unease about the young woman who phoned him at home, insistently offering to collect his absentee ballot to ensure its safe delivery.

Then there was the elderly woman who called the local elections office last week to register her husband for an absentee vote. According to office staff, as she hung up she made a point of thanking them: she wouldn’t have thought to get in touch about her husband, she said, if it hadn’t been for their helpful call the night before, when someone had taken her own details, assuring her that she was now registered and would receive a ballot.

But the elections office makes no such calls.

Ohio:

The state's Democrats had filed a lawsuit challenging Blackwell's directive instructing county elections boards not to give ballots to voters who come to the wrong precinct and to send them to the correct polling place on Election Day.

Blackwell has said allowing voters to cast a ballot wherever they show up, even if they're not registered to vote there, is a recipe for Election Day chaos.

The Ohio Democratic Party and a coalition of labor and voter rights groups had argued that Blackwell's order discriminated against the poor and minorities, who tend to move more frequently.

More on intimidation of voters in Ohio:

The Republican Party plans to station thousands of recruits at Ohio polling places during next month's election to challenge newly registered voters.

One election officials said Ohio has never seen what's about to happen, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported Saturday...

The massive GOP campaign has forced officials to prepare for unprecedented disruptions in the voting process, as well as alarm and complaints among voters, many of whom are expected to feel intimidated by the Republican effort.

Yes, even in California:

Santa Clara County, CA - Pollworkers in Santa Clara County are being trained not to offer voters a chance to use paper ballots instead of electronic voting machines, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has learned. California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley mandated in May that all polling places offer a paper ballot option, which would allow people concerned about e-voting machine reliability a chance to vote on paper ballots at the polls. But pollworkers in Santa Clara County are being instructed not to tell voters that this option is available. Instead, they will make paper ballots available only if voters specifically request them.

Ed Cherlin, a pollworker being trained in Santa Clara County, said he was very disturbed to learn that he was not supposed to mention the paper option. "I object to the government telling me that I can't tell people about their rights," he said.

You've just seen the tip of the tip of the iceberg. Those of you who have devoted whole websites to the "bulge" factor -- maybe you should start tracking this stuff as well.