GOP Pays Company to Defraud Registered Democratic Voters into Switching Parties

News from the LA Times looks bad for a Republican Party and a McCain/Palin campaign that have mercilessly attacked Barack Obama and his connections to ACORN. According to the Times, the GOP has been paying a company called YPM to dupe Democratic voters into registering as Republicans while believing that they were signing a petition for tougher penalties against child molesters.

If the charges of a GOP confidence game are true, then all of John McCain's and Sarah Palin's allegations of voter registration fraud (and their ridiculous charges of "voter fraud," which would require someone casting a vote under a false name) amount to two-faced hypocrisy. It shows that neither McCain nor Palin need to be from Chicago to access a Chicago-style swindle.

This attempt to suppress could have real effects on Democratic turnout, and even if they win on November 4, it could mitigate any perception that they have a mandate to govern:

The 70,000 voters YPM has registered for the Republican Party this year will help combat the public perception that it is struggling amid Democratic gains nationally, give a boost to fundraising efforts and bolster member support for party leaders, political strategists from both parties say.

Those who were formerly Democrats may stop receiving phone calls and literature from that party, perhaps affecting its get-out-the-vote efforts. They also will be given only a Republican ballot in the next primary election if they do not switch their registration back before then.

Some also report having their registration status changed to absentee without their permission; if they show up at the polls without a ballot they may be unable to vote.

70,000 votes suppressed along with GOP voter purging projects (like the failed one in Ohio that would have purged 200,000) and assigning off-duty cops and first responders to watch heavily Democratic urban precincts could manipulate the next election and its aftermath profoundly and exponentially.