Voter suppression may be the greatest threat to our Democracy ever in what is this very continuous and dirtiest campaign season ever. Historically, both parties have been guilty of participating in these practices; however, the Republican Party has taken it to new heights and to a magnitude not previously known by the American Electorate during this all important 2012 election. 

     Can anyone please explain to me how any person would continue to support a party that would use these Karl Rove inspired tactics to silence the voices of an approximately estimated 5 million United States citizens today? I mean really! The tactics being employed by the RNC are akin to what has and is being used in third world countries by dictators and despots to win elections and hold on to their ill gotten powers. 

     What kind of tactics am I talking about here? If you don’t know, obviously your head is buried in the sand or up the proverbial puckered highway where the sun never shines upon. Irregardless, let me enlighten the reader and shine some sunlight on what is a very serious issue for our country today and in the future.

     "According to Verified Voting, a non-profit that advocates for more transparent elections, 25 percent of Americans will vote in this year's election on machines with no paper trails. That's led to fears that a few hacked machines in a decisive state could swing the entire election. A last-minute directive from Ohio's Republican secretary of state on voter IDs that could swing the election, epically long lines at early voting locations in Ohio and Florida, and GOP robocalls directing Democrats to the wrong polling places in Arizona." Of course, in our own state "Republican Governor Rick Scott pushed through a voting bill that cut the state's early-voting days from two weeks to one and made it nigh impossible for independent groups, liberal or conservative, to register new voters without facing a ton of red tape and potential prosecution. (The latter effort was halted in August by a federal court judge, who called the registration limits "harsh and impractical.") This summer Scott launched an unprecedented purge of registered voters whom he suspected of being non-citizens. Imposed against the will of the state's 67 county elections supervisors, that purge ended up disenfranchising scores of US citizens—including 30 active and reserve service members in the Tampa area and a 91-year-old World War II vet in Democratic-heavy Broward County. That was small potatoes compared with the controversy that broke out over the weekend, when voters in Democratic-heavy urban counties—Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Hillsborough—spent up to seven hours waiting in long lines to cast votes before the work week started, with many being turned away after closing time. That led to appeals from numerous political leaders and voters for Scott to extend voting hours by executive order—a move that two of his Republican predecessors, Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist, took in previous elections. But Scott refused. "Early voting will end Saturday night," he announced Friday at a GOP fundraiser, paradoxically adding: 'But I want everybody to get out to vote.' The decade long campaign by Republicans to confront voter fraud. Despite the fact that incidents of in-person voter fraud in the United States are exceedingly rare, the GOP has used the issue to tighten election laws around the country, including pushing for controversial voter ID measures aimed at suppressing turnout among minorities, the elderly, and other voting constituencies that traditionally favor Democrats at the polls. A look at some of the top dirty tricks used to swing elections, including deceitful robocalls and flyers, making voter registration more difficult, purging voter rolls, and deploying poll "watchers" with ulterior motives.

In the crucial battleground state of Ohio, intimidating billboards placed in minority communities have warned that voter fraud is a felony.

A federal judge partially overturned Pennsylvania's voter ID law, but that hasn't stopped state officials from running misleading ads suggesting otherwise.

Felon disenfranchisement laws across most of the country have made significant populations ineligible to vote on Tuesday. The most stringent such laws are in Kentucky, and in the swing states of Florida, Virginia, and Iowa.

GOP officials in Texas and Iowa have threatened to arrest international election observers who have been coming to the United States without incident since 2002.

Despite that very little voter fraud exists, paranoia about it is a bipartisan phenomenon." (Mother Jones On-line Update, 4:30 p.m. PDT, November 5) 

     For the Republican Party, which is so fired up about our freedoms and strictly following the Constitution, to employ these dirty deceitful tactics in a bid to win at all costs, they should be made to pay for their sins against us the people. So remember that, if you haven’t already voted, while you’re waiting standing in line today and then vote accordingly. Thank you for your time.