Booman Tribune

Now Montana --Investigating Voter Fraud; Disenfranchising Voters

by Cho
Thu May 24th, 2007 at 01:58:58 PM EST

Hattip to Publius Revolts for the Helena link.

crossposted from ePluribus Media

You all may remember Roxy's mother's problems voting in the 2004 Presidential election, as quoted here Voter Fraud and Fired U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton.

My mother ... bless her heart ... turns 98 years young today.  To the best of my knowledge she has never missed voting in an election.  I grew up with the mantra -- "if you don't vote, don't bitch."  She has lived in the same district for the last 82 years, and in the 2004 election she ran afoul of the Montana's new voter ID law.


Mom has never had a driver's license -- or any state issued photo ID -- and when she got to the polls they asked her for ID.  She didn't have ID, but determined to vote, she made the person that drove her to the polls take her home to get a piece of mail. (The elections folks would accept her social security card, but would not accept her medical insurance ID or her baptismal certificate).  There are only 753 (maybe less now) people in the little town where she lives.  The poll workers all knew her, her name was on the voting register ... yet, the "two men in suits" insisted she provide ID to vote.  

Well, apparently, the tactic of conjuring the false specter of Voter Fraud in order to suppress the vote is still "full steam ahead."

Yesterday's Helena Independent Record in its article Under federal pressure, secretary of state changes voter verification lets us know that the crew in the Civil Rights Divison, Voting Section are still hard at work keeping us safe from little old ladies who have voted in the same district for 82 years.

For latest from the Independent Record, jump below the fold.


May 23, 2007 HELENA - Facing mounting pressure from the federal government, Secretary of State Brad Johnson ordered county election officials Tuesday to use a new method to verify Social Security numbers provided by a small percentage of voters to prevent fraud.

Johnson took the step after U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division twice since March 2006 threatened to take enforcement against the Montana secretary of state's office if Johnson didn't put a system in place to comply with the 2002 federal Help America Vote Act.

"If your state is not prepared to take this action promptly to comply with HAVA in a timely manner, we are prepared to take appropriate enforcement action,'' John Tanner, chief of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department, said in an April 23 letter to Johnson.

Much of this information is familar to ePluribus Media readers -- see Resurrecting Jim Crow: The Erratic Resume of the Voting Section Chief | Dismantling Voting Rights Enforcement | Voter Rights: Is Robert Popper the Fox Guarding the Henhouse? | and The Voting Rights Act, Voter Disfranchisement and the Tail Wagging the Dog.

But it's worth pointing out a little known organization, the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR), incorporated as a 501(c)3 non-profit two years ago on March 3rd 2005 in Virgina, is the  engine that pushes the meme of Voter Fraud, through propaganda, legislation, and amicus briefs.


As sentient Americans recognize, voter fraud as  a serious threat to democracy has been debunked by several news organizations, including The New York Times. Even the Department of Justice's numbers show how miniscule the problem of voter fraud is: according to the DOJ's Civil Rights Division announcement that, after 5 years of intense work through the Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Initiative, a mere 86 individuals have been convicted of ballot fraud offenses, (119 individuals have been charged).

That averages out to a stunning (snark intended) 17 persons (out of, what, maybe 2.3 billion???) a year proven to have committed ballot fraud -- and this after an intense "initiative" by the DOJ, complete with annual two-day seminars intended to train DOJ staff to spot and investigate the scalywags!

Yet in these times of fear of the immigrating "brown other,"  the threat of voter fraud provides a perfect cover for dismantling voting rights and manipulating elections.

I just keep thinking about Roxy's Mom.



Display:
Richard Hasen at Slate has an interesting article from 18 may 07 regarding the sudden demise and disappearance of the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR):

The Fraudulent Fraud Squad The incredible, disappearing American Center for Voting Rights:

[...]

The death of ACVR says a lot about the Republican strategy of raising voter fraud as a crisis in American elections. Presidential adviser Karl Rove and his allies, who have been ghostbusting illusory dead and fictional voters since the contested 2000 election, apparently mounted a two-pronged attack. One part of that attack, at the heart of the current Justice Department scandals, involved getting the DoJ and various U.S. attorneys in battleground states to vigorously prosecute cases of voter fraud. That prong has failed. After exhaustive effort, the Department of Justice discovered virtually no polling-place voter fraud, and its efforts to fire the U.S. attorneys in battleground states who did not push the voter-fraud line enough has backfire. Even if Attorney General Gonzales declines to resign his position, his reputation has been irreparably damaged.

But the second prong of this attack may have proven more successful. This involved using ACVR to give "think tank" academic cachet to the unproven idea that voter fraud is a major problem in elections. That cachet would be used to support the passage of onerous voter-identification laws that depress turnout among the poor, minorities, and the elderly--groups more likely to vote Democratic. Where the Bush administration may have failed to nail illegal voters, the effort to suppress minority voting has borne more fruit, as more states pass these laws, and courts begin to uphold them in the name of beating back waves of largely imaginary voter fraud.

[...]

recommended reading, as well as Greg Palast's latest: The Goods on Goodling and the Keys to the Empire...[NOTE: on previewing l find the article has suddenly disappeared from his web site...l'll leave the link, just in case it comes back]

here's the opening paragraph:

This Monica revealed something hotter -- much hotter -- than a stained blue dress. In her opening testimony yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee, Monica Goodling, the blonde-ling underling to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Department of Justice Liaison to the White House, dropped The Big One....And the Committee members didn't even know it.

Goodling testified that Gonzales' Chief of Staff, Kyle Sampson, perjured himself, lying to the committee in earlier testimony. The lie: Sampson denied Monica had told him about Tim Griffin's "involvement in `caging' voters" in 2004.

Huh?? Tim Griffin? "Caging"???

[...]

and links to the emails that were part of the article:

caging e/m

e/m to goodling from griffin

never clear your cache/history too soon, eh.

kudos to you and the folks at ePM for the great work you're doing on this issue.

lTMF'sA

 

lTMF'sA...the revolution will not be televised...Peace

by dada on Thu May 24th, 2007 at 02:44:10 PM EST
Palast article available at Bradblog

lTMF'sA



lTMF'sA...the revolution will not be televised...Peace

by dada on Thu May 24th, 2007 at 02:59:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]
It's great that we have Democrats with the ability to conduct oversight and investigations now.  They are taking a beating on the Iraq supplemental (with reason) but there are some things they are doing well and pushing the U.S. Attorney investigations is one of the correct actions they have taken.  
by standingup on Thu May 24th, 2007 at 09:10:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]
If Bush bombs Iran, look for Patriot Act III, more terror alerts, more voter caging lists, and another stolen election.

Obama is a Patriot
by Steven D on Fri May 25th, 2007 at 09:25:34 AM EST


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