Purge of Likely Democratic Voters Reported

Yesterday a recommended diary on DailyKos reported that the office of Secretary of State Ken Blackwell (R-Cincinnati) has engaged in a massive purge of voters in urban apartment dwellings and student housing (likely to vote heavily for Democrats) by causing the mailing of hundreds of thousands of letters and dropping from the voting rolls anyone who failed to respond. Acording to the report, the letter was designed to look like an innocuous form letter about routine voting information. The report was discussed on the Thom Hartmann and Ed Schultz radio shows.

Today another DailyKos diary links to this news report that voting activist and Green Party gubernatorial candidate Bob Fitrakis plans to file a lawsuit over the voter purge tomorrow or Monday, and calls on the DNC to get involved:

"I would urge the DNC -- the party can't let this stand. They could proceed to Federal court and argue that this is a civil rights case -- against blacks and young people. They could file their own suit. They could join our suit. There are a lot of ways they could do it procedurally. They could intervene as an independent party. They could join our lawsuit I would welcome any action by them.

"They have to realize the election might have been decided by these purges. My book, that I wrote with Harvey Wasserman, reported that in 2004, the only reason the race was even close was because of the purging done in 2004 in the Democratic counties.

"When we go, we'll ask for an injunction, amending this to our existing, arguing that this irreparable harm to the civil rights of hundreds of thousands of Ohio voters, that they're being targetted because of their race and age."

Fitrakis also calls on individuals to contact the Democratic party, to write to newspapers, and to call in to popular TV and radio programs about the issue.

UPDATE: The Ohio Democratic Party posted on DailyKos today about these reports. The post indicates that the ODP is investigating the matter, and gives information and links about voting.