Women's Voices, Women Vote - Voter Supression Controversy

Glenn Smith at MyDD has a really good post up about the WVWV controversy. While I agree with him that the tone of the criticism of WVWV's actions has gotten a little shrill, I wonder if he would be as charitable if the voter group involved was conservative.

It's the tone of the criticism that concerns me, the rush to condemn and convict. It smells like the Ocoee fire to me.

I don't know what the facts are. I am a committed supporter of Barack Obama's. I have long sense abandoned any idealism that every Democratic candidate is above immoral and unconscionable acts, so I imagine there are supporters of his opponent who would try to suppress his vote. WVWV made mistakes, mistakes that appear to have caused confusion and dread among the voters of North Carolina. The group also mishandled the press and the blogosphere in its reaction to the accusations.

But I still find it hard to believe that a group that has registered hundreds of thousands of voters and conducted similar campaigns in post-election settings that couldn't possibly suppress votes because the voting had already happened would engage in an overt voter suppression effort. If they have, it's the most sophisticated and intricate suppression plan I've ever heard of, complete with alibis and cover of an extraordinary kind.

If you need a backgrounder on the WVWV controversy, Political State Report and Wired both have pretty good overviews. PSR has links to PDFs from the North Carolina AG's office.