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Republican anti-voting tactics reprehensible It looks like it’s largely over, right? It seems as if there’s really no way short of an alien invasion for John McCain to win the election. Both candidates know it, though they both, for different reasons, have to act like it’s still a nail-biting race to the finish. The McCain camp’s trying to set up its “Dewey defeats Truman” moment by “leaking” internal numbers that say McCain’s a lot closer than the public polling would indicate. It’s a transparent gambit to give the campaign a little bit of extra oxygen, but last gasps are last gasps. Right? Absolutely. In fact, I think the only way that McCain can win is by climbing still further into bed with the same sleazy elements in the GOP that sabotaged him in 2000: roadblocks, phony fliers, harassment — cheating, in other words. The opening salvo has already been fired, though it’s hard to hear among the thunder of the campaign’s final days. Restrictive voter-registration laws have quietly crept into being in several swing states, with the effect that numerous eligible voters may be turned away on Nov. 4 for clerical errors and typos over which they have no control. Republicans in Ohio are challenging a huge number of new voter registrations on the ostensible grounds that there’s some kind of widespread fraud happening. This is always their argument: “We’re trying to combat the threat of voter fraud!” Of course, no such threat exists. Their real purpose is to make it more difficult for people to vote, especially young people and minorities. In addition to challenging registrations before the election, they’ll have people at polling places to harass and challenge voters on election day, post fliers in minority-dominant neighborhoods warning that voters could be arrested if there’s something wrong with their registration, and fight to close polling places even if there are still people waiting to vote. It amazes me that some of these guys can even look at themselves in the mirror anymore. Let me point out, of course, that it’s not going to happen here in Iowa City. (And even if it did, my honed political senses tell me that Iowa City would still go roughly 832,106 to 1 for Obama.) But on Election Day, be aware that there’s no tactic to slimy or racist or flat-out illegal for today’s Republican Party to contemplate. Keep your eyes open, huh? Jon Gold is a former Opinions editor and columnist. |