INSTITUTE INDEX: Block the vote?
Rank of voter registration problems among the top threats to the franchise this year, according to the Brennan Center for Justice: 1
Number of U.S. residents who tried to vote in 2008 but could not due to voter registration problems: around 3 million
Percent decrease in new voter registrations in North Carolina this year over 2006: 28
Percent decrease in Florida: 26.7
Percent decrease in Tennessee: 16.9
Number of voter-registration applications the grassroots community organization ACORN collected nationally in 2006: about 550,000
In 2008: 1.3 million
Month that ACORN disbanded after accusations of criminal conduct from conservative activists that turned out to be untrue: 3/2010
Month that a mysterious and still-unsolved fire consumed a warehouse storing most of the voting machines and other elections equipment in Harris County, Texas: 8/2010
Month that King Street Patriots, a Tea Party group in Harris County, accused a voter registration group called Houston Votes of engaging in widespread voter fraud by pointing to problem registrations filed before Houston Votes was even founded: 8/2010
After the allegations were made, number by which voter registrations collected daily by Houston Votes declined: 800
Estimated number of Harris County residents, most of them people of color, who are eligible to vote but not registered: 600,000
Year in which Texas could go Democratic if all the people eligible to vote in this congressional election and the next cast ballots: 2012
Number of volunteers that True the Vote, a group affiliated with King Street Patriots, called to descend on Harris County to serve as poll observers: millions
Date on which the Texas Democratic Party expanded an ongoing lawsuit to charge the King Street Patriots with Republican collusion: 10/18/2010
Number of complaints received so far in Harris County about intimidating behavior by poll observers affiliated with the King Street Patriots in predominantly minority precincts: about 14
Date on which fliers spreading misleading information about voting were distributed in primarily black neighborhoods in Houston: 10/26/2010
Number of complaints received in Wake County, N.C. about intimidating behavior by poll observers working on behalf of GOP congressional candidate and Tea Party favorite Bill Randall: at least two dozen
Date that voting officials in Buncombe County, N.C. heard complaints about voter intimidation: 10/26/2010
Number of people convicted of election fraud charges between October 2002 and September 2005 when the Bush administration was focusing on such crimes: 55
Of those, number convicted of casting fraudulent ballots: fewer than 20
Number convicted of voter registration fraud: 5
Date on which the U.S. Justice Department vowed to prevent any effort to intimidate voters: 10/27/2010
(Click on number to go to source.)
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Sue Sturgis
Sue is the former editorial director of Facing South and the Institute for Southern Studies.