“I voted every election since 1962,” said Benton County resident Charles Hubbs, 69.

Hubbs registered to vote when John F. Kennedy was president. He said he was shocked when he received a letter in the mail from the Benton County Election Commission letting him know his voter registration was invalid.

He was even more shocked when he found out why.

Unanswered follow up question to the report: just which law is Benton County election admin Mark Ward following? We have a request in to the State Election Commission for clarification and specifics and will update when we get a reply. So far we are unable to find reference to his inorthodox approach in the Tennessee Code, the Help America Vote Act, or the National Voter Registration Act 0f 1993.

“According to state law, this is the only way to do it,” Ward said. “I don’t know any other way to do it.”

But some said Ward went too far by throwing out voter registrations from decades ago.

They said it’s especially difficult for those where the birthplace is on the registration but the citizenship box isn’t checked.

Ward said even if their birth date is on the form, he had to throw out registrations if they didn’t check the box for being over 18.

“It’s not good enough to me because the question isn’t answered on the form,” said Ward.

“Yeah, he followed the law,” said Mark Goins, Tennessee election administrator. “He did exactly what the law said.”

The state acknowledged there’s a mess in Benton County, and while it said Ward followed the law, the state doubts a judge would have invalidated the voter registrations of these longtime voters if there had ever been a challenge.

If this is happening in Benton County, it’s happening in other Tennessee counties as well. Protect your vote – confirm your registration.

UPDATE: Additional reporting from Kumari:

“It appears to me that they are going far beyond the legal, the proper reasons for purging a voter record,” said Rep. Gary Odom, D-Nashville.

Odom said he’s upset that these people are in danger of being thrown off the rolls. He said the way he reads state law, once a person is declared a registered voter, he or she can be purged only for specific reasons, such as committing a felony or dying.

He’s proposing a change to state law that says registered voters can’t be purged if their form is found to be deficient years later, and it would take effect immediately.

Yes, it’s true. A cute little Bichon Frise named Captain Chito was mailed a voter registration form by the Alabama Democratic Party. It has been established that the form was never processed. What hasn’t been established is 1) who initiated the mailing and 2) what poll worker would actually give a four legged ball o’ fluff a ballot?

In other words, there are a lot of hurdles one needs to jump over (without the benefit of having four legs) to commit “voter fraud” and almost all of them are federal offenses bringing 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. And even though some have tried really, really hard to find and prosecute such cases, only 23 have been prosecuted since 2002 (out of millions of votes cast).

The non-partisan Brennan Center has the skinny on “voter fraud” at truthaboutfraud.org. And keep in mind, that even though dogs can have a political affiliation, they cannot vote.

• Part 1 Get Your Boo On – It’s our annual Halloween Spooktacular and Mary and Freddie dress up as each others worst nightmare. (21:43 34.8MB)
• Part 2 – Interview with Juan Villaseñor – The president of the Nashville chapter of the American Constitution Society tell us a little bit about the American Constitution Society, including who would win in a rugby match against the Federalist Society, and an event they’re having on Wednesday. (28:03 44.9MB)
• Part 3 Early Voting A Go We love to talk about what to do to protect your right to vote and, it turns out, our listeners do too! And there’s nothing scarier than that guy on that other station who, we hear, would rather tear down our precious democracy with divisiveness than celebrate it. Way to go, other guy. (32:56 52.8MB)
• Part 4 Protect Your Vote – Our voting love fest continues – with instructions on what you can do to protect your vote. (20:39 33.1MB)

In 2004, an estimated 3 million voters who showed up at the polls were refused regular ballots because their registration was challenged on a technicality. Instead, these voters were handed “provisional” ballots, a fail-safe measure mandated by HAVA [Help America Vote Act] to enable officials to review disputed votes. But for many officials, resolving disputes means tossing ballots in the trash. In 2004, a third of all provisional ballots — as many as 1 million votes — were simply thrown away at the discretion of election officials.

With their status in limbo, the voters were forced to cast “provisional” ballots, which can be reviewed and discarded by election officials without explanation.

And Step 4 in their guide to Stealing Back Your Vote urges,

DO NOT FILL OUT A PROVISIONAL BALLOT if your vote is challenged!! In 2004 the Republicans challenged a ridiculous number of voters. The voters were then told by a sweet little lady at a table that their “provisional ballot” would be counted, BUT IT WON’T. Don’t listen to the little old lady!! DEMAND that poll judges make the judgment ON THE SPOT. Demand a call to the supervisor of elections. If you have to, go home and come back with a better form of ID. If you need help, call ELECTION PROTECTION at 1-866-OUR-VOTE. And help those around you when you’re at the polling place. Look for people having trouble. Call the number for them. Tell them not to fill out a provisional ballot!

In this clip from Uncounted, Ohio citizen Bobby Jackson, who was forced to vote provisionally in 2004, sends out a heartfelt plea for participatory democracy – despite his vote not counting. “I guess I’ll vote next time too,” he says, “’cause people fought and died for my right to vote…and I know that…”

Please help spread this clip and its message, along with with Mr. Kennedy’s and Mr. Palast’s timely and specific instructions, and help, in the words of Mr. Jackson, “make it right…”

STEP 1: DON’T DON’T DON’T mail in your ballot!! Absentee ballots are often not counted for the weakest of reasons. Furthermore, there are new rules in many states that you must photocopy your ID and send it with the ballot. However, they often don’t even tell you that. So hundreds of thousands of absentee votes will not be counted for this reason.

STEP 2: VOTE EARLY …VERY EARLY! Many states are already allowing you to vote. Do it NOW. That way if you’re not listed on the voter roles, you have plenty of time to get your complaint heard.

STEP 3: REGISTER AND THEN REGISTER AND THEN REGISTER! There is a TON of purging of voter rolls going on. It’s not enough to think you’re registered. Double check twelve times. You can check online at www.votersunite.org. Once you’re done with that, go register. …Then go register. [For the majority of us, this is probably not possible now since registration deadlines have passes. So if you find out you are no longer on the rolls, you'll have to go down to your election commission and sort it out in person.]

STEP 4: DO NOT FILL OUT A PROVISIONAL BALLOT if your vote is challenged!! In 2004 the Republicans challenged a ridiculous number of voters. The voters were then told by a sweet little lady at a table that their “provisional ballot” would be counted, BUT IT WON’T. Don’t listen to the little old lady!! DEMAND that poll judges make the judgment ON THE SPOT. Demand a call to the supervisor of elections. If you have to, go home and come back with a better form of ID. If you need help, call ELECTION PROTECTION at 1-866-OUR-VOTE. And help those around you when you’re at the polling place. Look for people having trouble. Call the number for them. Tell them not to fill out a provisional ballot!

STEP 5: STEP AWAY FROM YOUR COMPUTER! Walk out your front door and get active!! Volunteer to help with the campaign. Or ignore the campaign and do something on your own. It’s as simple as printing out these ELECTION PROTECTION steps and leaving them at people’s doors. Hell, you could hand them out outside the polling places. Don’t sit still or this election will be stolen. And go to a swing state if at all possible.

STEP 6: FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS VOTE WITHOUT FRIENDS! Don’t go to vote alone. Bring friends!! Lots of them or only one of them. Make it a date. Arrange to have lunch with everyone after you vote. Whatever it takes. And have your election protection phone number WITH YOU (1-866-OUR-VOTE).

STEP 7: IT AIN’T OVER ‘TILL IT’S OVER! If the election is indeed stolen, don’t throw in the towel! The day after is CRUCIAL! Three words need to be chanted over and over again: COUNT EVERY VOTE. For example, in 2000 Al Gore lost because of a Supreme Court decision that was 5-4 against him. Imagine if he had won that court decision. But if half of America had not chanted COUNT EVERY VOTE after election day, we would never have gotten to the Supreme Court. Half of America could’ve thrown in the towel on election night, but thanks to people in the streets, it was fought to the end.

I never expected that the actual October Surprise would take the unrecognizable form of something much more low key – the understated, insidious, and coordinated attack on ACORN and the subsequent cries of “voter fraud” it has enabled. It may not be dynamic enough to swing votes prior to the election, but it certainly will cast doubt on the legitimacy of the winner after the election.

After more than four years of activists and independent journalists trying – with little success – to get Democratic party leaders to take the very real issues of election fraud and voter suppression seriously enough to bring it out of the shadows, the issue – along with the righteous indignation and moral high ground that comes with trying to protect our precious right to vote – has been co-opted by Republican operatives who, in a matter of days, got the very false narrative of “voter fraud” on the lips of every television and radio newscaster and pundit.

Early voting has only just begun and already Fox news, Senator McCain, and conservative ideologues are reporting incidences that “prove” multiple and fake voter registrations – not to mention the intent of some to cast more than one ballot. This, despite no real evidence (or convictions) in recent years of this kind of fraud and a federal law (HAVA) that requires ID from anyone voting for the first time who hadn’t originally registered in person. In other words, false registrations do not equal stolen elections in any way, shape, or form.

Even worse, the cries of “voter fraud” have drowned out reports of real and potential problems at the polls. Whereby “voter fraud,” according to a comprehensive study by the Brennan Center for Justice, is “irrational and extremely rare” and “many vivid anecdotes of purported voter fraud have been proven false or do not demonstrate fraud,” election fraud and voter suppression – including large scale voter roll purging, insecure and easily manipulated electronic voting machines, voter intimidation, manufactured long lines (i.e. allocating too few voting machines for the expected turnout), the systematic suppression of low-income, young, and minority voters, and legislative influence (like Florida’s stringent “No Match, No Vote” law) – does exist. For instance, there is a law in Pennsylvania, a key state in this election, that mandates that voters can spend no more than 3 minutes casting their votes once they are in the voting booth. If they do take longer, they can be physically removed. You can’t put a time limit on democracy.

This election’s October Surprise sets the stage for Republicans to accuse Barack Obama, should he win on November 4, of stealing the election – a gut wrenching and ironic twist.

Thank you, Mark Crispin Miller, for succinctly writing what I have been fuming about all day. In an introduction to an incredible piece in OpEdNews called, “The False Narrative of ‘Voter Fraud,’” by Kenneth Anderson, Mark writes: “Amen, amen. And what it makes entirely clear is that we need not just election reform (and campaign finance reform), but also sweeping media reform.”.

This whole thing about McCain grabbing the moral high-ground on the Election Integrity issue by hopping on the “voter fraud” bandwagon is really getting my goat. Those of you who ask those of us in the reality-based community to put on our tin-foil hats when we talk about a vast right-wing media conspiracy, need only look at what is happening right now for the truth…Election Integrity activist and independent journalists have been trying to get the media and the punditocracy to talk about this issue for FOUR YEARS and yet it only takes 3.5 seconds for “ACORN” and “voter fraud” to be on everyone’s lips? Really?!? At this point you have to ask yourself, “Why IS that?” and “HOW is that?”

The False Narrative of ‘Voter Fraud has some answers. Here are excerpts:

A false election narrative of “voter fraud” is currently under construction in various swing states and being built by the Republican party and their media organ, Fox News. The narrative, that the Democratic party and, more specifically, Barack Obama, will steal the election through fraudulent voter registration, is being fleshed out by various state Republican party organisations, Republican Attorneys General and the McCain campaign. A false equivalence is being made between fraudulent voter registration and voter fraud.

GOP-led vilification of the grass roots community organization, ACORN, is now in full swing, after state police in Nevada raided the office of ACORN in Las Vegas in a desperate attempt to paint the organisation as rife with voter fraud intent. The only evidence that voter registrations gathered by ACORN were problematic were actually provided by ACORN itself, which flags potentially invalid voter registrations and submits those registrations to state election authorities. The raid has been describe as a “stunt,” a stunt designed to do bolster the voter fraud narrative. More raids in other critical swing states are expected. And let’s be clear about one thing: ACORN actively canvases low income — usually inner city — neighborhoods throughout the country in an effort to get more low income citizens involved in the electoral process. This is exactly not the demographic Republicans want to see enfranchised in elections.

These GOP driven state-level efforts have attracted the attention of Fox News, which is now in full propaganda mode, breathlessly pronouncing the phrase “voter fraud” and “ACORN” at every possible opportunity. During one broadcast, a Fox News host pondered recent events:

“Barack Obama is ahead right now in many of the battleground states — the same states where investigations are under way for voter fraud. Is this a coincidence?”

Clearly, this is not a coincidence. These “investigations” are being triggered by local Republican agents. They represent a direct response to the looming electoral defeat of John McCain and are occurring in conjunction with GOP-orchestrated challenges to new voter registration. But the Fox News implication is exactly reversed from reality, ridiculously claiming that pre-election polls of an Obama surge in swing states must be somehow be the result of fraudulent voter registrations.

Fox News, in the middle of their Brit Hume panel discussion (Brit wasn’t there), didn’t “bat a TV eye,” nor mentioned a word about the news conference, but-after a commercial break-continued with an “ACORN” report (and alleged ties to Obama) throughout the entire time that Paulson was speaking to the nation, and to the world, about one of the worst financial crises we have ever faced.

After years of known electoral fraud, of Republican-linked corporations and their daft voting machines, after numerous, anomalous election results, suddenly and in a matter of days, the Republican machine has pressed the issue of “voter fraud” to the front and center of this election. It is a case that demonstrates the power centers of American politics, where GOP-connected corporations rig elections and are rewarded for their efforts, while humble, community organizations that encourage the poor and the dispossessed to vote are lambasted on the national political stage. This is a disgrace beyond measure, and it must be stopped.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Spread the truth about ACORN far and wide. Refute “voter fraud” with real stories of “voter suppression” to everyone you know.

Despite McCain and company’s maneuverings, Brad Friedman of BradBlog rightly calls out their actual intent as an “assault on democracy” and points out that are still completely ignoring the real problem, “Concerns of Actual Election Fraud, Voter Registration Purges in State After State…”:

The GOP’s October “Surprise” continues…Even as it’s no surprise at all that they are hoping to cause absolute bedlam at the polls. They are off to a good start, as the Democrats seem to be caught flat-footed, despite years of warnings about all of this.

The latest Republican assault on democracy began earlier this week with a ’stunt’ raid in (swing state) Nevada, then unsubstantiated allegations in (swing state) Missouri last night (raid coming soon, no doubt), and just hours ago as AP reports, it’s (swing state) Ohio…

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Law enforcement officials in southwest Ohio are seeking information on hundreds of voters who registered and voted during Ohio’s weeklong same-day voting window.

Greene County Sheriff Gene Fischer and representatives of County Prosecutor Stephen Haller have contacted the local Board of Elections asking for the voter registration cards of everyone who voted during the six-day window, which ended Monday.

Haller is the former law partner of Mike DeWine, the former Republican senator who is chairing presidential nominee John McCain’s Ohio campaign.

[Update: In an updated version of the AP report quoted above, it's noted that Sheriff Fisher is "a Republican," that Green County is "rich with Democrat-leaning college students," and that Fisher requested the voter information after "he had been inundated with phone calls from people concerned about possible fraud." In other words, no actual evidence of anything, just angry Republicans, fired up by chasing their own tails after Fox/RNC told them too. Smelling the rats here, yet?]

Whatever fear the Dems had of talking about this issue seems a tad bit silly right about now…