LA: Republicans tar registration drives as "phony" and LA SOS "investigates" their legitimacy

Democrats’ Vote Drive in Louisiana Stirs Concern

By SHAILA DEWAN
Published: June 15, 2008

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/us/politics/15vote.html>

A Democratic voter registration drive in largely black neighborhoods of Louisiana has swamped the state’s voter registrar offices, forcing them to hire new staff members and work 12-hour days to process thousands of applications.

Buoyed by the popularity of Senator Barack Obama, the drive has raised complaints from registrars about large numbers of duplicate, invalid or incomplete applications, and has led to an investigation by the Louisiana secretary of state, Jay Dardenne, a Republican...

The state Republican Party called the operation “the Dems’ phony registration drive.”

They have the track record to prove it.

And poorly filled out forms are a reason to contact the prospective voter, not investigate the drive. So sorry poor people are inconveniencing the bureaucrats by trying to vote. (Not.)

Toward the bottom of the linked article, the reporter writes that of the 4 parishes which got the largest # of new registrants, the 3 parishes with Republican registrars claim a high rate of illegitimate applications and accepted less than 1/2 of them, whereas the Democratic registrar in the parish that actually got the highest # of applications only turned down ~3% of the applications sorted so far with ~3/4 done. One of the reasons that the Republican registrars gave for turning down applications was that they didn't "match the signature on file with the DMV". If they want to, this can be interpreted as meaning that an application with a signature with or without a middle initial contrary to the signature on their license is invalid. 'Nough said.