A wave of foreclosures combined with a presidential election is a nearly perfect storm, an evil coincidence that might cause multitudes of people in foreclosure to lose their votes. In Michigan, Macomb County Republican Party chair James Carabelli reportedly said that he planned to prevent voter fraud by collecting lists of foreclosed properties and making sure no one from those addresses voted. (He now denies saying it.)
That idea was nipped in the bud last week when a court ruled that it was illegal. But that doesn't guarantee that it won't be tried in other places, or that people in foreclosure might not be too intimidated to try to vote if someone tells them they won't be able to.
Confusion about addresses can also be used to keep students from voting. Common Cause (www.commoncause.org) is educating thousands of new student voters to check in advance whether they are registered in the areas in which they attend school (unless they plan to vote at home), what ID they need and where their polling place is.
In a year when an upsurge in voter registration is expected to send unprecedented numbers of people to the polls, election watchers are offering these pointers: Check your voter registration now. Ignore emails or robo-calls that give you false information—for example, that Republicans vote one day and Democrats another; that you're ineligible to vote if you don't speak English; that you're ineligible to vote if you're in foreclosure or have an unpaid traffic ticket or have ever committed a felony.
At the polling place, if your eligibility to vote is challenged, don't let poll workers foist off a provisional ballot on you until they've checked whether you are registered in another precinct, or until you can check on your registration at your town hall. If you mark your ballot incorrectly, ask for another ballot. Problems with certain Diebold (now Premier Election Solutions) machines that time out balloting after two minutes are not expected in Massachusetts, since voters here fill out paper ballots that are separate from the tabulating machines.
If you have questions now or problems at the polls, get help by calling Common Cause's Election Protection hotline at 1-866-OUR-VOTE.
