Don't Let Them Steal Your Vote

Melissa Harris-Perry devoted nearly the entire second hour of her show Saturday to the virulent voter suppression sweeping the nation just 11 weeks before the presidential election. Here's the first and best segment:

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But you don't have to let them win. Greg Palast gave us Seven Ways to Beat the Ballot Bandits; here are the first four:

Don’t wait until Election Day to find out you have the wrong ID, your registration’s “inactive,” (9.9 million of you) or you’re on some creep’s challenge list.

1. Don’t Don’t DON’T Mail In Your Ballot
For those of you who mailed in your ballot, please tell me, what happened to it? You don’t know, do you? I can tell you that in the last election, half a million absentee ballots were never counted, on the flimsiest of technical excuses. And when they don’t count, you don’t even know it. Worse: Tens of thousands of ballots are not mailed out to voters in time to return them - in which case you’re out of luck. Most states won’t let you vote in-precinct once you’ve applied to vote absentee. Every time I hear of a voter going “absentee” to avoid computer screens, I want to “go postal.”
2. Vote Early – Before the Ballot Bandits Wake Up
Every state now lets voters cast ballots in designated polling stations and at county offices in the weeks before Election Day. Do it. Don’t wait until Election Day to find out you have the wrong ID, your registration’s “inactive,” (9.9 million of you) or you’re on some creep’s challenge list. By Election Day, if your name is gone or tagged, there’s little you can do but hold up the line.
3. Register and Register, then Register Again
Think you’re registered to vote? Think again, Jack. With all this purg’n going on (13 million and counting), you could be x’d out and you don’t know it. So check online with your Secretary of State’s office or call your County Board of Elections. Then register your girlfriend, your wife, your mailman, and your mommy. Then contact the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the League of Women Voters, and Rock the Vote and commit to a couple of days of door-to-door registration, especially at social service agency offices. In Florida, that means you’ll get arrested. I’ll send a file in a cake.
4. Vote Unconditionally, Not Provisionally
In 2012, they’ll be handing out provisional ballots like candy, a couple million to Hispanic voters alone. If your right to vote is challenged, don’t accept a provisional ballot that likely won’t get counted no matter what the sweet little lady at the table tells you. She won’t decide; partisan sharks will. Demand adjudication on the spot of your right to a real no-BS from poll judges. Or demand a call to the supervisor of elections; or return with acceptable ID if that’s the problem. And be a champ: defend the rights of others. If you’ve taken Step 1 above and voted early, you have Election Day free to be a poll watcher. You’ll need training and credentials, either from a voter group or, in some states, a designation from a political party. Then challenge the challengers, the weird guys with BlackBerrys containing lists of “suspect” voters. Be firm, but no biting.

And from Think Progress:

The Obama campaign has also released an app, which contains information of how and where to vote, along with a rundown of voter ID laws in the user’s state.