Project Vote Decries GOP plans to disenfranchise African-American voters

From Market Watch: "Project Vote Denounces GOP Plans to Foreclose on the Voting Rights of Low-Income Michigan Residents"

It is terrible to lose one's home to foreclosure. It is additionally terrible to be disenfranchised of one's right to vote by virtue of having one's home foreclosed.

The Macomb County, Michigan Republican Party (or "GOP") revealed that it planned to disenfranchise African-American voters that have lost their homes to foreclosure.

James Carabelli, chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Michigan, has announced plans to assign "election challengers" to polling places to question the eligibility of home foreclosure victims based on residency. "We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren't voting from those addresses," Carabelli told the [Michigan] Messenger . . . .

As the Messenger reports, Macomb County is in the top three-percent of counties in the U.S. hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis -- and African-Americans, as the primary victims of sub-prime lending practices, make up the majority of these cases. African-Americans also tend to vote democratic, which is why it's not surprising that the GOP would target these voters for suppression.

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This is clearly a racist maneuver, and so, it is a violation of the 14th and 15th Amendments. Also, we have full adult suffrage; it is not the 1820s any more. You don't need to own property in order to vote. Democracy-minded voters should denounce the Republicans' plans. Lastly, the government should not permit private, non-governmental groups to assume powers of deciding whom should receive the franchise (the power to vote).

It is fortunate that the chicanery has been uncovered earlier. We must be vigilant against these disenfranchisement maneuvers continuously, through the end of the election. We must mobilize to make sure that people are not prevented from voting as they were in 2000 and 2004.
The September 11, 2008 Market Watch article on the GOP anti-franchise plans and Project Vote's protest.

UPDATE:
By the end of September 11, the Michigan GOP withdrew the maneuver disenfranchise voters that had lost homes to foreclosure, but planned other vote-thwarting maneuvers, as this post from "Michigan Messenger" indicates: "Republicans recant plans to foreclose voters but admit other strategies"