Get ready for an uptick in nasty "issue advocacy" advertisements in battleground states. The New York Times notes that wealthy right-wing activist Howard Rich recently mailed menacing letters to liberal contributors that read, "We are monitoring all reports of a wide variety of leftist organizations. ... Should any of these organizations be found to be engaged in illegal or questionable activity, it is our intent to publicize your involvement with those activities." Rich acknowledged that "he had read a letter that a pro-Democratic group called Accountable America," which is run by MoveOn's Tom Matzzie, "sent during the summer, which offered a $100,000 reward for information about 'unlawful conduct by business-oriented or conservative' nonprofit groups. ... [B]oth letters were intended to scare off the other side's Section 527 activities -- the lightly regulated money that swamped the 2004 election. ... This year, such spending is down by $104 million compared with 2004, according to Evan Tracey, president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group. But he pointed out that a recent Supreme Court ruling will permit 527 money to be spent in the final days of the campaign this year, unlike 2004. 'If you were to write a dictionary definition for the 527s, first and foremost the purpose is to be disruptive,' Mr. Tracey said. 'Being allowed to run ads at the end of the campaign is most disruptive.'"

Volunteers at the Center for Media and Democracy's Election Protection Wiki have collected unbelievable reports of voter suppression nationwide in the nine days since it went online.

Among the reports on the EPWiki:

• In Colorado and New Mexico there are not enough voting booths or machines for Election Day.
• Students in Virginia are receiving probing questionnaires from voting officials falsely implying they don't have the right to vote there.
• In Ohio alone, more than 600,000 newly-registered voters are threatened with purging.
• There are reports of sometimes-illegal mass voter roll purges in Michigan, New Mexico, Florida, Georgia, Colorado and other states. Several states are even purging voter rolls of people who are "Bob" on driver's licenses and "Robert" on voter registration forms.
• Officials in Indiana are avoiding setting up polling places in areas of the state heavily populated by minorities.
• The Republican Party in Michigan planned to challenge the registrations of every voter whose home had been foreclosed on recently.
• ACORN, which has been held out as a bogeyman for voter fraud (though only 26 TOTAL cases of voter fraud were prosecuted nationwide from 2002 - 2005), has bad registration rates below the California Republican Party's and a lawsuit alleging fraud in 2004 was dismissed by a judge for lack of merit?
• And, of course, there are ongoing worries across the country about electronic voting machines.

The Election Protection Wiki (at EPWiki.org) is the only website trying to document and centralize these reports, which were found scattered across the Web by volunteers. We are trying to get everything ready so activists, advocates and the media have a central place to go on Election Day for immediate information about these issues.

We need your help to collect more reports. No experience is necessary and CMD staffers are here to help with ready-to-go simple tasks and any support you need. Please join us in protecting the right to vote - go to EPWiki.org and click on "things you can do" to begin.