On October 15, USA Today reported, “Less than three weeks before the November election, the Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns are trading accusations of voter fraud and voter suppression and gearing up for possible court battles over the outcome.” But the rest of the article focused on allegations that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) demonstrated “a pattern of submitting fraudulent voter registrations.” Although the article quoted Sen. Barack Obama as saying “the issue should not be used by Republicans 'as an excuse for the kind of voter-suppression strategies and tactics that we've seen in the past,' ” it provided no examples of allegations of voter suppression, even though there have been numerous reported instances in battleground states including Florida, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Ohio, especially targeting voters who tend to vote Democratic.

The St. Petersburg Times reported on September 16 that the Republican National Committee sent non-forwardable fundraising letters signed by Sen. John McCain to Florida voters asking them to confirm their party affiliation, in a possible attempt to compile " 'challenge lists' of unverifiable addresses and can be used to challenge voters' eligibility during early voting or on Election Day."

From the St. Petersburg Times article:

Some Democrats suspect a motive beyond raising money. The first-class GOP mailing has a “Do not forward” instruction on the envelope, meaning they will be returned to the GOP if a recipient has had mail forwarded, perhaps to a summer address, or has moved.

Letters returned as undeliverable can be compiled into “challenge lists” of unverifiable addresses and can be used to challenge voters' eligibility during early voting or on Election Day. The vote suppression technique is known as “vote caging.”

The article also quoted Florida's top election official, Secretary of State Kurt Browning, calling the mailing “unfortunate, because it does put a lot of doubt in people's minds” about their registration status.

Moreover, an October 6 CBSNews.com article reported that Democratic and Republican efforts in Florida resulted in more than 130,000 new voter registrations in a month, but that “the state's stringent fraud prevention laws may keep some of those newly registered voters -- and many others -- from casting their ballots.” The article also reported:

For the first time, Florida law requires a voter's driver's license or social security number to match a state or federal database. It's done to prevent fraud. Several other swing states have similar laws, but none as strict as Florida's. Wisconsin dropped its own no match rule when a test run showed one in four voters would have been eliminated because of typos and other minor problems.

“Already we've seen that over 5,000 people, as of this last Monday, have had their voter registration applications rejected,” says Tova Wang of Common Cause. “The county administrators admit that it's because of mistakes like typos and variations on people's names.”

Similarly, on October 9, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that voting-rights groups filed a lawsuit against Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel “on behalf of a Cherokee County man who they said has been the victim of a methodical effort to deny him the right to vote.” The article also noted: “The suit comes the day after the U.S. Department of Justice said the state's actions to verify identity and citizenship appear to violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The law requires states with a history of discriminatory voting practices to get approval from the federal government before making certain changes to voting and election policy.”

The Journal-Constitution reported that in an October 10 hearing, a federal judge refused to grant a temporary restraining order to halt Georgia's verification process, which the plaintiffs argued could illegally prevent legitimate voters from being registered just weeks before the election. The judge, however, reportedly did agree to request that a three-judge panel review the case.

Moreover, the Associated Press reported on October 10: “The Justice Department says Georgia officials made some 2 million requests to check the Social Security numbers of newly registered voters -- far more than any other state, indicating a change in election policy. State officials question so high a number, since just 406,000 registered in Georgia during the same period.” On the October 13 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, correspondent Jonathan Serrie reported that “Handel says computers counted some applications multiple times, and the revised figure will be considerably smaller.”

In Wisconsin, McCain campaign state co-chairman and Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen filed a lawsuit against the state Government Accountability Board (GAB) asking the court to compel election officials to verify all applications of those who registered to vote or changed their addresses between January 1, 2006, and August 6, 2008, by cross-checking their applications with state and federal records. In an official statement released September 10, the GAB director said, “The Board believes it would be counter-productive to rush this effort and to create a significant risk, at best, of unnecessary hardship and confusion at the polls, and at worst, the disenfranchisement of Wisconsin citizens with a clear and legitimate right to vote.” The statement also stated: "[P]reliminary data ... showed more than a fifth of voters' data mismatched due to variations in names, differing data entry standards, or typographical errors. A check conducted of G.A.B. members' data resulted in four of six Board members' information mis-matching."

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted on September 13 that critics of the lawsuit say that the move “could force people off the voter rolls and require them to cast provisional ballots.” The article quoted Van Hollen's aides asserting that “his suit will not disenfranchise voters, because in a worst-case scenario a voter can cast a provisional ballot,” but a spokesperson for the GAB said that not all voters can do so. Specifically, the Journal Sentinel reported that “those who want to register at the polls but do not have proof of residence or someone with them who can vouch for their address ... cannot cast provisional ballots, according to the board.” Further, the Journal Sentinel reported, “Election clerks around the state say it would be impossible to run the checks in such a short time because of all the work it takes to determine why someone's data doesn't match.”

In Ohio, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that since January, “Ohio Republicans have filed a series of challenges to the registrations and [Secretary of State Jennifer] Brunner's administration of election rules. They have helped voters file lawsuits against local boards of election over registration rules, absentee ballot requests and a weeklong period that allowed registration and voting on the same day.” On October 14, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled in favor of the Ohio Republican Party, which sued Brunner under the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) to compel election officials to reprogram the state's voter-roll database so that county agencies can isolate registrations that do not match. Before the U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio, Brunner had argued that her office was in compliance with HAVA, flagging registrations that do not match in the state voter database.

On October 17, the Supreme Court overruled the 6th Circuit's decision, vacating the temporary restraining order that had compelled Brunner to act, writing decision that the Ohio Republican Party, a private entity, likely does not have standing to bring an action under HAVA.

In Montana, the Republican Party “challenged the eligibility of 6,000 registered Montana voters in seven counties historically considered Democratic strongholds," according to the Missoulian. The blog Talking Points Memo noted that the challenges, reportedly made against voters who had moved since they last registered, were withdrawn the following week. The federal judge who was slated to rule on the case chastised the Republican Party, writing that then-Montana GOP Executive Director Jacob Eaton and Legislative Director Max Hunsaker “have apparently filed false affidavits with the express intent to disenfranchise voters in counties that have historically tipped toward the Democratic party.” The judge also wrote: “The timing of the challenges is so transparent it defies common sense to believe the purpose is anything but political chicanery.” An October 15 Missoulian article reported that Eaton resigned as state GOP executive director following “rumors” that Eaton “would be pushed out because of the much-criticized effort to challenge voter registrations in seven heavily Democratic counties.”