GOP SOP

Despite the hoopla about Libby's indictment, it's not like making false statements to legal authorities is a hot new trend in the GOP.

Even out here in what the Beltway gang would call "the other Washington," county GOP officials in the state's largest county have perjury as part of their Standard Operating Procedures.

Lately our fair state has seen more than its share of close elections. Readers may recall that we didn't know who our new governor would be after the last election, until it had gone through multiple recounts and a minute margin for Democrat Christine Gregoire. Which makes it perfect for an attempt by local GOP operatives to suppress Democratic votes in Seattle through bogus voter challenges immediately before the upcoming election.

Local weekly The Stranger has caught the story, which is being fleshed out by a number of local bloggers.

Steven Lacey is a regular voter whose plan for Election Day next Tuesday was to walk a few blocks from his Belltown apartment building and cast his vote, as usual, at his local precinct. At least, that was his plan until he received a letter last night informing him that his right to vote had been challenged by a woman from the east side named Lori D. Sotelo.

The letter reported that Sotelo had declared to King County election officials, “under penalty of perjury,” that Lacey’s voter registration was not valid because he couldn’t possibly be living at the address he was claiming. “Which is insane,” Lacey said. The 35-year-old insurance company account manager lives at the Watermark, a 60-unit downtown apartment building built in 1908. However, Sotelo appeared to believe the Watermark was a storage unit, a P.O. box, or some other location that Lacey could not legally be using as an address of record.

As someone who regularly drives past the Watermark on my way to my wife's office, I can attest to the fact that it is a charming old apartment building, and not a storage unit.

Lori Sotelo, local GOP chair, probably hasn't looked at it. She seems to have signed a number of such complaints based on the work of volunteer "researchers". I doubt she personally even knows the specifics of Steven Lacey or his registration, despite that bit about "under penalty of perjury" declaring on the form that "she has personal knowledge or belief" that he doesn't live at the address registered. She probably doesn't personally know about most of the nearly 2000 other voters she has also challenged.

Of course, it's not necessary that these challenges stand up. It's enough to keep these people from showing up at the polls. And the odds of the Republican county attorney prosecuting her seems small.

But as Digby points out, we can't even give Ms. Sotelo points for creativity.

Citing a new list of more than 37,000 questionable addresses, the state Republican Party demanded Saturday that Milwaukee city officials require identification from all of those voters Tuesday.

If the city doesn't, the party says it is prepared to have volunteers challenge each individual - including thousands who might be missing an apartment number on their registration - at the polls.

The move, which dramatically escalates the party's claims of bad addresses and potential fraud, was condemned by Democrats as a last-minute effort to suppress turnout in the city by creating long delays at the polls.

It's a tradition that goes back to the days when Karl Rove was fighting for leadership of the College Republicans, back in 1973:

But, in point of fact, Rove was hardly the right-winger in the race. His two opponents, Terry Dolan and Robert Edgeworth, were. And, when Dolan threw his support to Edgeworth, Rove had no other alternative. He had to cheat.

When the College Republicans gathered for their convention at the Lake of the Ozarks resort in Missouri, Rove and Atwater relentlessly challenged the legitimacy of Edgeworth's delegates, even if the evidence did not justify their attacks.

You can read more about the King County shenanigans at the blogs listed in the NW Portal Hotlist, in the right-hand column on this page, including Washblog, Horsesass.org, the NW Progressive Institute, and at the Daily Kos diary of N in Seattle.