George,

Don't know if you've seen them, but there has been a middle-aged couple sitting outside the e-school [Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia] this week with a table on which an "Official Voter Registration" sign sits. I asked them yesterday who they were affiliated with, and they told me (and other people, I've heard) that they were contracted by the state Board of Elections to register voters, which I knew immediately was a bogus claim since obviously the state BOE doesn't pay unidentified people to set up card tables on college campuses to register voters. I asked them for their information, and the gentleman gave me a card with his information - "Mike Gebbie, CYMA Solutions, Inc., Amherst, OH."

After googling that info, I found Republican Party of Virginia Hires Bigoted Goons.

Today, after filling a complaint with the local registrar for voter registration fraud (misrepresenting themselves while performing an official act), I called the number on Mr. Gebbie's card and reached a woman at the headquarters of the Republican Party of Virginia, who told me they would be back at UVA on Tuesday and asked if I was interested in "signing up my fraternity" to register voters as a fundraising project. I also called the Democratic Party of Virginia, and they informed me that complaints had been registered in the last few days about this couple in multiple Virginia locations for asking people to register to vote, asking them to sign a petition to ban gay marriage, and then discarding completed applications of those who refused to sign their petition, a horribly illegal act.

I feel this issue deserves investigation and publicity because students do not deserve to be defrauded, especially when the student-led, non-partisan "Hoos Choose - 2,005 in 2005" coalition is doing such good work to register voters this year.

David Wasserman (electronic mail, September 7, 2005)