#GOVote and Video the Vote

Video the Vote ensures timely, complete, and accurate reporting of voter suppression and election irregularities by organizing citizen journalists to document elections in their communities.

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We were tracking reported problems in several key states today and made an infographic to share. 

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Pennsylvania:

A “voter guide” was handed out to voters at a polling location in Pittsburgh, PA with only Republican candidates information. Polling Place: Peebles Elementary School .

  Many voters were confused and went in the voting booth with the official ballot and the “voter guide”.

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Ohio State Student Union: 500 students wait to vote inside and another 200 outside. Shot by J.R. McMillan for Video the Vote.

Are you an OSU student? Reply with your photos.

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Reports are trickling in from people who’re receiving robo-calls today advising them to vote tomorrow.

At least two of them have come to Orlando residents, both of them Hispanic, raising suspicions about some group trying to confuse certain groups of voters into missing their voting chance, according to a watchdog group called Video the Vote.

People can vote today, not tomorrow.

One such person is Isham Padron, who lives in the Lockhart area of north-central Orange County. He got a call this morning telling him to vote tomorrow. Padron hung up before following the robo-call pitch very far.

He believes it was a voter supression tactic. He already voted, though, by absentee ballot, so it wouldn’t have mattered. But he wonders if anyone else might fall for it.

Earlier today there were reports of similar calls in the Tampa Bay area that were being attributed to the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections. Turns out the official office was making such calls. Oops.. The office’s automated equipment erroneously sent out hundreds of such calls this morning, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

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ST. PETERSBURG — An hour after polls opened Tuesday morning, the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Office mistakenly placed hundreds — possibly thousands — of automatic calls to voters instructing them that they had until 7 p.m. Wednesday to vote.

But that is wrong. Polls close at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Any ballots turned in after that time won't be accepted.

The calls went out between 8 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. because of a glitch with the SOE's phone system. Calls were made Monday alerting voters who had requested mail ballots but had not returned them that they had until 7 p.m. "tomorrow" to get them turned in.

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(via Voter fraud signs are voter intimidation, local Democratic activist says while filing complaint | lehighvalleylive.com)

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Early this morning, at least two Latino voters in the Orlando area posted to Facebook that they received a robocall telling them to go and vote on Wednesday November 7th. Both voters confirmed the information by phone when reached by Video the Vote.

The robocall came from the number 407-218-6005. Calling the number leads to a "Call can not be connected" message. A Google search turned up the number as being for a firm that sends robocalls for Republican candidates. One complaint can be seen here reads:

Political ad for Jim Huckeba for Tax Collector -- prerecorded message received on Election Day.  

 http://www.whycall.me/407-218-6005.html

Jim Huckeba is a Republican running for Tax Collector in Orange County.

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(via Tea Party group trying to deny transgender voters | San Diego Gay and Lesbian News)

Transgender people are fraudulent voters according to True the Vote 

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True The Vote claims transgender people are fraudulent voters and should be denied the right to vote... 

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(via In Key Florida Battleground, Tea Party-Linked "True the Vote" Challenges Voters at the Polls)

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(via IPS – Voter Suppression Tactics Likely to Affect U.S. Election | Inter Press Service)

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(via Voting Rights Watch 2012 | The Nation)

Update @5:45 pm pm ET: An independent analysis of the list of names challenged by Tampa Vote Fair’s Kimberly Kelley reveals the list is 40 percent black, which compares to 15 percent of registered voters who are black. Political scientists Daniel Smith of University of Florida and Michael Herron of Dartmouth College identified 73 people on the list using voter ID numbers in the Florida voter file. They also found just 16 percent of the voters on the list were registered as Republicans, compared to 33 percent of county voters. “We’re essentially seeing the privitzation of voter suppression,” says Smith, “and that should be highly disconcerting. Now we have private citizens through this organization Tampa Vote Fair doing their own data mining and matching and challenging potential citizens at the polls.”

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Schmidt on voter id (by ThinkProgress TP)

SCHIMDT: I think that one of the things you always want to be for whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, you want everyone who is eligible to vote to vote. That’s how you want to win elections. I think that all of this stuff that has transpired over the last two years is in search of a solution to a problem, voting fraud, that doesn’t really exist when you look deeply at the question. It’s part of the mythology now in the Republican Party that there’s widespread voter fraud across the country. In fact, there’s not. Both sides are lawyered up to the nth degree and they’ll all posture back and forth on it but it probably won’t come down to lawyers.

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Calls from Jeff Flake give wrong voting locations to Democrats (by ClearChoiceArizona)

Phoenix's NBC Channel 12 reported Sunday that at least six registered Democratic voters received robocalls this weekend from the senate campaign for Republican Jeff Flake that incorrectly listed their polling locations.

Reporter Brahm Resnik played clips of those calls and showed on a map how far the listed locations were from the recipients' actual polling place. All were miles away.

The Flake campaign told Channel 12 that it was sending robocalls to registered Republican households and that less than 10 errors had been reported in more than 12,000 robocalls. Resnik reported that all of the Democrats he spoke to said they had no registered Republicans in their households. 

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(via Romney Supporters Display Anti-Gay / Racially-Charged Signs at Franklin County Voting Center)

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Massive lines greeted early voters in Columbus, Ohio on Sunday.

(via Video of Early Voting in Franklin County)

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What began Sunday morning as an attempt by the Miami-Dade elections department to let more people early vote devolved into chaos and confusion only days before the nation decides its next president.

Call it the debacle in Doral.

Elections officials, overwhelmed with voters, locked the doors to its Doral headquarters and temporarily shut down the operation, angering nearly 200 voters standing in line outside — only to resume the proceedings an hour later.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/11/04/3081614/florida-democratic-party-files.html#storylink=cpy