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caging for instance (Ibid ). This is the devious scheme where registered voters in targeted areas are sent mail marked "DO NOT FORWARD" and then the retuned mail is used to challenge voter's right to vote (Kennedy, 2008). Despite the cleverly crafted pre-election accusations cast against the so called "liberal-democratic-leaning Obama-supporting group" ACORN, who were said to be involved in some sort of grand conspiracy to fix the 2008 vote, let us not forget that it was Karl Rove et al. who were the real experts at voter suppression during the last four national elections. Not to mention the fact that Bush won the 2004 election based solely upon the 119,000 votes plucked from notorious Diebold voting machines and certified by Kenneth Blackwell, the Republican Party State Chairman who also happened to be the Secretary of State in Ohio (Palast, 2004). Diebold C.EO, Walton O' Dell was not even shy about making his intentions clear, "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral vote to the president" he said (Harris, 2004). These facts are a part of the public record and cannot be disputed. Oddly enough, in his state there were 153, 237 ballots that were simply tossed aside; or "spoiled" that is to say. In Iowa, an additional 36,811 votes were spoiled, and in New Mexico it was reported that over 600,000 ballots were not even counted (Palast, 2004). Over the last eight years, Rove and company have actually made an art out of voter suppression.

The Help America Vote Act passed by the Republican Congress in 2002, as a result of the resounding clamor for free and fair elections after the 2000 debacle, actually produced the opposite effect. As strange as it may seem, some of the most diabolical provisions of the HAVA, which allow for the purging of tens of thousands of voters from the voting roll, were actually written by convicted felons former Congressman Bob Ney (R-OH) and the infamous Jack Abramoff; both of whom are currently serving time in federal prison (Kennedy, 2008). It is the Republicans who have skillfully used this piece of legislation to create a maze of confusion that would ultimately disproportionately disenfranchise millions of mostly black and brown voters. Not since the all white primaries of the Jim Crow era has so much effort been spent trying to keep U.S. citizens from voting. If Barack Obama was serious about bringing transparency to the government in Washington D.C., there can be no better place for him to start than with this fundamental

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