The Virginia chapter of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s will return to federal court on Monday afternoon to argue the state is inadequately prepared to handle an enormous voter surge expected Tuesday.

State Republicans plan to oppose the NAACP’s request on grounds that altering voting procedures on the eve of the election would be disruptive and could unfairly disadvantage their candidates.

Record turnout is expected as Democrat Barack Obama tries to win 13 electoral votes in state that has backed Republican presidential candidates since 1968. Obama would be the nation’s first black president if elected.

The NAACP alleged the state failed to provide enough voting machines to handle the crowds, particularly in majority black precincts. The lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Richmond asked for paper ballots to be provided as one option if lines got too long.

More than 436,000 new voters registered since Jan. 1, a 10 percent increase that pushed voter rolls past 5 million for the first time in Virginia, a state of 7.7 million residents. Much of the increase results from the Obama campaign’s aggressive registration drive.

At the close of the first fiercely contested presidential race in Virginia in generations, several polls show Obama slightly ahead.

The NAACP had withdrawn its request for a hearing on Thursday after receiving new information from state officials about the placement of election day resources. At the time, NAACP officials said a new hearing before the election was unlikely.

But after assessing the updated information, the NAACP concluded preparations were still insufficient and on Friday requested a new hearing.

“We went back and looked at the numbers, and it’s still the same old bad news. We’re still seeing disparities between black and white precincts,” said Ben Jealous, national NAACP president.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, a Democrat and Obama ally, said the administration was surprised to see the lawsuit renewed. She said state law gives the governor no authority to extend poll hours.

“We feel confident that we’ll be prepared,” spokeswoman Delacey Skinner said. “I think that voters who are going to the polls on election day should go early and be prepared for the line, but we’re not anticipating any kind of major problems.”

Several Virginia Republicans have filed to intervene in the lawsuit, arguing that last-second changes at selected precincts the NAACP seeks could give the Democrats an unfair advantage.

Cleta Mitchell, attorney for the Republican Party of Virginia, said the GOP particularly opposes a longer voting day and paper ballots at select polling places.

“You just can’t have a situation 24 hours before the election where you go to court and start rewriting state law,” she said.

Robert D. Holsworth, a professor of government and political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, said some of the steps the NAACP suit seeks, such as extending the poll closing time from 7 p.m. Tuesday to 9 p.m., might be possible on short notice. But an overnight shuffle of voting machines, he said, would be extremely difficult at best.

“The enthusiasm and interest in this election – that in itself has introduced the potential for chaos and confusion,” Holsworth said. “The substantial reallocation of resources at the last minute adds one more element of uncertainty.”

The organization ACORN, the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, has a video clip in which they defend themselves from right wing attacks, suggesting that they are perpetrating voter fraud.

Watch the Video After the Jump

The Supreme Court sided Friday with Ohio’s top elections official in a dispute with the state Republican Party over voter registrations.

The justices overruled a federal appeals court that had ordered Ohio’s top elections official to do more to help counties verify voter eligibility.

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, faced a deadline of Friday to set up a system to provide local officials with names of newly registered voters whose driver’s license numbers or Social Security numbers on voter registration forms don’t match records in other government databases.

Ohio Republicans contended the information for counties would help prevent fraud. Brunner said the GOP is trying to disenfranchise voters.

In a brief unsigned opinion, the justices said they were not commenting on whether Ohio is complying with a provision of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 that lays out requirements for verifying voter eligibility.

Instead, they said they were granting Brunner’s request because it appears that the law does not allow private entities, like the Ohio GOP, to file suit to enforce the provision of the law at issue.

“They didn’t deal with the merits of the case,” said Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Bennett. “What they dealt with was a technicality on whether we had standing or not to bring the action.”

About 200,000 of 666,000 voters who have registered in Ohio since Jan. 1 have records that don’t match. Brunner has said the discrepancies most likely stem from innocent clerical errors rather than fraud but has set up a verification plan.

Bennett said Brunner could have set up a system months ago to check the discrepancies and that her actions have left the potential for voter fraud.

“If we have a close election in Ohio and there’s any doubts, the failures will be laid right at her doorstep,” Bennett said.

Brunner said the court’s decision would help ease confusion in the run-up to Election Day.

She said the act was clear that the mismatch lists were to be used to maintain the voter database, not to determine voter eligibility.

“We are very pleased that the court recognized that this was an illegal challenge on the part of the Republicans,” she said.

She said the office would have found a way to comply, but there were risks that qualified voters would have been disqualified.

“I think it’s an unfair tactic to subject voters to this kind of uncertainty and anxiety this close to such an important election,” she said.

In court filings, the GOP has not produced any specific evidence of voting fraud, only unsubstantiated reports that voters from other states had cast fraudulent ballots during the early voting period.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said lower court rulings have clearly said regulations issued under the act require the secretary of state to match against the list, find where there’s been fraud and inconsistencies and report them to counties.

“Why in the world would that not happen? We have the technology, the budget, the means and the manpower to make that happen,” Davis told reporters on a conference call.

Obama stressed that ACORN is not advising his campaign and is no way affiliated with the Obama camp.

“We’ve got the best voter registration and turnout and volunteer operation in politics right now, and we don’t need ACORN’s help,” he told reporters in Toledo, where he will be until tonight’s debate at Hofstra University.

The controversy began when the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) allegedly falsified voter registrations. The group is responsible for registering low-income, minority voters. Because many of the voters are Democrats, Republicans are seeking to link Obama to these allegations.

In fact, Obama’s association with ACORN began in the 90s when he represented them in a lawsuit and he has had interactions with the Chicago branch. Obama insisted that, “they are not advising our campaign.”

The McCain campaign has called for an investigation of Obama’s ties to ACORN.

“Obama has a responsibility to rein in ACORN,” said VP nominee Sarah Palin, during an interview with Rush Limbaugh.

Obama suggested that the alleged fraud was likely a result of a few bad eggs and that it shouldn’t be used as a ploy to deter voters from casting ballots on Election Day.
“My understanding in terms of the voter fraud – because having run a voter registration drive, I know how problems arise – this is typically a situation where ACORN probably paid people to get registrations, and these folks, not wanting to actually register people because that’s actually hard work, just went into a phone book or made up names and submitted false registrations to get paid,” he said.

Obama minimized the import of such controversy as “one of these distractions that gets stirred up in the course of a campaign.”

“But, what I want to make sure of is that this is not used as an excuse for the kind of voter suppression strategies and tactics that we’ve seen in the past. Let’s just make sure everybody is voting, everybody’s registered. Let’s make sure that everybody’s doing it in a lawful way,” he concluded.

As of recently FOX News, Right Wing talk radio and the right wing blogosphere have made a concerted effort to discredit and demonize ACORN (Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now). They have accused ACORN of voter fraud and of changing voter logs and made ACORN to seem like a radical untrustworthy organization. However, McCain attended an ACORN convention just two years ago. If ACORN was such a bad organization, why did McCain attend their convention?

Here’s a Video of McCain’s Address to ACORN

ACORN has defended itself from right wing attacks. With the following statement.

Fact: ACORN has implemented the most sophisticated quality-control system in the voter engagement field but in almost every state we are required to turn in ALL completed applications, even the ones we know to be problematic.Fact: ACORN flags in writing incomplete, problem, or suspicious cards when we turn them in,. Unfortunately, some of these same officials then come back weeks or months later and accuse us of deliberately turning in phony cards. In many cases, we can actually prove that these are the same cards we called to their attention.

Fact: Our canvassers are paid by the hour, not by the card . ACORN has a zero-tolerance policy for deliberately falsifying registrations, and in the cases where our internal quality controls have identified this happening we have fired the workers involved and turned them in to election officials and law-enforcement.

Fact: No criminal charges related to voter registration have ever been brought against ACORN or partner organizations. Convictions against individual former ACORN workers have been accomplished with our full cooperation, using the evidence obtained through our quality control and verification processes – evidence which in most cases WE called to the attention of authorities

Fact: Most election officials have recognized ACORN’s good work and praised our quality control systems. Even in the cities where election officials have complained about ACORN, the applications in question represent less than 1% of the thousands and thousands of registrations ACORN has collected.

Fact: Our accusers not only fail to provide any evidence, they fail to suggest a motive: there is virtually no chance anyone would be able to vote fraudulently, so there is no reason to deliberately submit phony registrations. ACORN is committed to ensuring that the greatest possible numbers of people are registered

ACORN will not be intimidated, we will not be provoked, and in this important moment in history we will not allow anyone to distract us from these vital efforts to empower our constituencies and our communities to speak for themselves.