Republicans tried out what would be called “Cross-check” in Coatesville PA’s 5th Ward on Election Day Nov. 2004. An elderly black woman came out of the polling place saying, “They won’t let me vote.”

The Chester County Republican Committee was a powerhouse in Republican Party politics back in 2004. In 2020 the CCRC is a QAnon/Christofascism group possibly backed by a handful of multimillionaires. I believe most of Chester County’s old Main Line money is now going to Democrats.

I believe the system of using common Black surnames and linking that name to a voter registered by the same name in a different precinct to be named “Cross-Check” was under development. 

"CCRC Chair Skip Brion was part of a Commonwealth wide effort to disrupt mostly Democratic voting precincts.

“Early on the General Election Day of 2004 several Republican attorneys from Spring City showed up outside of Coatesville's Fifth Ward (precinct 120). When the polls opened they went inside and I saw an elderly black women coming out of the polls saying, "They won't let me vote."   

When the Democratic attorney was inside the polling place everything was peaceful. 

When the Democratic attorney took a break, again people were walking out saying they won't let me vote.   

 The effect of all that Republican muscle in Coatesville's Fifth Ward was stopping long time voters from voting.   

 I can't understand why they brought in lawyers from Spring City and why CCRC Chairman Skippy Brion was screaming at a Democratic poll watcher inside the polling place in front of voters but I don't have the mind of a Republican.  

  

But I do think that if the Republicans persisted in stopping long time voters from voting there would have been violent incidents at the Fifth Ward." 

"In 2004, hundreds of University of Pittsburgh students waited for hours to vote in the presidential election. The local Democratic Party, alarmed at the bottleneck, handed out pizza and water to encourage the students to stay. Pittsburgh Steelers Hall-of-Famer Franco Harris worked the line, armed with a giant bag of Dunkin Donuts, and Liz Berlin of the Pittsburgh band Rusted Root performed on guitar. 

The stalled line wasn’t because of the high turnout. It was what was happening at the check-in desk. 

'The attorneys for the Republican Party were challenging the credentials of pretty much every young voter who showed up,' recalls Pat Clark, a Pittsburgh activist and registered Democrat who was working for an election-protection group that day. 

The GOP attorneys were acting as poll watchers. A common practice in many states, partisan poll watching helps parties get out the vote and keep an eye out for irregularities. But in Pennsylvania, laws governing how observers can challenge voters are unusually broad, and that makes them susceptible to abuse…

'Instead of seeing orderly poll watching,' says Wendy Weiser, director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program, 'we might see a lot of individuals trying to take on the role of election officials or law enforcement, and crossing the line into intimidation, discrimination and polling place disruption.”

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POLITICO

How Hostile Poll-Watchers Could Hand Pennsylvania to Trump

The state’s unique rules make it vulnerable to Election Day mischief. In a tight race, that could help Donald Trump.

By ERICK TRICKEY October 02, 2016 

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Friday, October 14, 2016

I can still see elderly black woman walking away from Coatesville’s 5th Ward saying “They won't let me vote."

“How low can they go?” he asked. “I mean, how can they do that?”

I put his question to Robert Fitrakis, a voting-rights attorney who examined our Crosscheck data. I showed him Donald Webster’s listing – and page after page of Ohio voters. Fitrakis says that the Ohio secretary of state’s enthusiasm for Crosscheck fits a pattern: “He doesn’t want to match middle names, because he doesn’t want real matches. They’re targeting people with clearly defined ethnic names that typically vote for the Democratic Party. He wants to win Ohio the only way he knows how – by taking away the rights of citizens to vote.”

Kobach refused to speak for this story. So I went to Newton, Kansas, where he was headlining an ice-cream-social fundraiser in a public park. I approached Kobach with the Crosscheck list he had refused me, and asked, “Why are these lists so secret?”

“They aren’t,” Kobach answered, contradicting what his attorney had told me.

I pointed to a random match on the Crosscheck list and asked him why it identified James Evans Johnson as the same voter as James P. Johnson.

Kobach denied the name could be on the list. “Our system would not yield this match,” he said. (And according to the rules of his program, it shouldn’t have.)

“This is the list you gave [Virginia], and they knocked off 41,000 voters,” I said.

“That is false!” he said, as he hurried away. “You know why? Federal law prohibits that.”

Kobach is correct that federal regulation typically would complicate such a sweeping purge, but somehow tens of thousands of voters in Virginia got knocked off the rolls anyway.

Kobach’s Crosscheck purge machinery was in operation well before Trump arrived on the political scene – and will continue for elections to come. Low voter turnout of any kind traditionally favors the GOP, and this is the party’s long game to keep the rolls free of young people, minorities and the poor. Santiago Juarez of New Mexico, an attorney who has done work for the League of United Latin American Citizens, has spent years signing up Hispanic voters in the face of systemic efforts to suppress their vote. He scoffed at the idea of a massive conspiracy among Latinos to vote in two states. “Hell,” he said, “you can’t get people to vote once, let alone twice.”

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August 24, 2016

The GOP’s Stealth War Against Voters

Will an anti-voter-fraud program designed by one of Trump’s advisers deny tens of thousands their right to vote in November?