Monday, February 05, 2007

Republican Official Refuses to Comply with County Attorney Order

For the past few days, Republican State Chair Joe Mondello has been saying publicly that he plans to engage in a campaign of voter intimidation on election day with blanket requests for identification. On Saturday, the NY Times reported Mondello said, "Our poll watchers and election inspectors will challenge people to show some kind of identification as to who they are."

The County Attorney's office issued instructions to the Board of Elections that they reach out to poll workers, and make sure that they were informed of the law and the special circumstances under which poll workers were to request identification:
"I am requesting that you immediately notify all special election poll workers and inspectors that they must not request identification of any person seeking to vote, unless there is an "ID" notification next to the bar code for the voter name on the registration poll ledger prepared by the Nassau County Board of Elections."
The Republican response to these instructions was to was to disobey the county Attorney's directive.

Below are two letters, the Nassau County Attorney's letter

SD7_letter_from_cty_atty-voter_intimidation

and the Republican response

SD7_letter_from_Republicans-voter_intimidation

Update: A Nassau County Supreme Court Judge is ordering Republicans to comply with election law and not intimidate voters in tomorrow's special election, and has scheduled a hearing for Tuesday at 9:30 am. The order was sought by Nassau County because the Republican commissioner of the County Board of Elections refused to comply with a County Attorney directive to follow election regulations and prohibit voter intimidation. The Nassau County police will deliver notice of the court order to every polling place in the Seventh State Senate district when the polls open at 6am on Tuesday.

Here are the three pages of the Judge's order

SD7_judgesorder_pg1

SD7_judgesorder_pg2

SD7_judgesorder_pg3

2nd Update: Follow this story at the newly launched Nassau Voter Protection blog.

Tomorrow is Election Day! Don't let the Republicans steal the vote!

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