Adding to my post on Romney’s
false accusations against Obama and the Republicans ongoing campaign to
prevent Democrats, and especially minorities who vote Democratic, from
exercising their right to cast a ballot, here’s another tactic
Republicans use to suppress Democratic voters:

Now, in heavily Democratic cities like Cleveland, Columbus, Akron and Toledo,
early voting hours will be limited to 8 am until 5 pm on weekdays beginning on
October 1, with no voting at night or during the weekend, when it’s most
convenient for working people to vote. Republican election commissioners have
blocked Democratic efforts to expand early voting hours in these counties, where
the board of elections are split equally between Democratic and Republican
members. Ohio Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted has broken the tie by
intervening on behalf of his fellow Republicans.
‘I cannot create unequal access from one county
board to another, and I must also keep in mind resources available to each
county,” Husted said in explaining his decision to deny expanded early voting
hours in heavily Democratic counties. Yet in solidly Republican counties like
Warren and Butler, GOP election commissioners have approved expanded early
voting hours on nights and weekends. Noted the Cincinnati Enquirer: “The
counties where Husted has joined other Republicans to deny expanded early voting
strongly backed then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008, while most of those where
the extra hours will stand heavily supported GOP nominee John McCain.” Moreover,
budget constraints have not stopped Republican legislators from passing costly
voter ID laws across the map since 2010.
Ohio Republicans have a long
history of attempting to rig elections. You may recall when the CEO
of Diebold voting machines promised to deliver the state to George Bush in
2004. And then during the actual election there were so many
complaints about irregularities in the process, John Conyers launched an
Congressional investigation. The complaints ranged from voting machines
that incorrectly registered the voters’ choices to inexplicable shortages of
voting machines in Democratic districts leading to waits so many hours long in a
cold rain that thousands gave up and left before casting a ballot.
Reforms were made in Ohio after 2004 which
mitigated the problems. However, after the sweep of 2010, the newly empowered
Republicans repealed those reforms. Thus Ohio is again ripe for the only real
voting fraud that exists in America, which is preventing legally registered
voters from voting at all.Libby Spencer is a social media maven whose
political commentary has been published on a wide variety of websites including
a rather short lived guest blog at Fox News. She has been practicing her
particular brand of punditry at the Detroit News Politics blog since April
2004.

http://blogs.detroitnews.com/politics/2012/08/09/gop-voter-suppression-in-ohio/