‘Voter Fraud’ Issue Linked to Efforts to Reduce Voter Participation, Elect Republican Candidates
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Related subjects: In the Loop, J.E. Robertson, The Vote, U.S. Attorney firings, U.S. Elections, U.S. Politics, Vote 2008 Comments (3)
The state of Ohio was ground zero in the 2004 presidential election for the controversial “voter fraud” issue, which Republican officials in numerous states and in the Bush administration Justice Department used to target organizations that work with underprivileged and minority voters, and to “purge” voter registration lists of names they believe may not favor Republican candidates. Investigations are ongoing in several states and at the federal level, including an Independent-Counsel review of former Attorney Gen. Alberto Gonzales‘ alleged targeting of political opponents.
Gonzales is now being investigated by an Independent Counsel for the firing of 9 US attorneys, allegedly because they refused to participate in politically motivated prosecutions. There are reports of evidence linking Gonzales, his staff and the firings to what maybe trumped up prosecutions of dubious “voter fraud” allegations. In Florida, in the year 2000, hundreds of thousands of voters were erased from registration rolls, due only to the Governor’s office requesting a “purge” of suspicious names, with the pretext of “preventing voter fraud”. In Ohio, in 2004, the same was one on a massive scale.
Recently, FOX News and the Republican National Committee have combined forces to promote the idea that there is a nationwide campaign by “radical” liberal organizations to falsify voter-registration records. They have targeted the community activist organization ACORN, specifically, citing allegations that volunteers for the group has in isolated cases presented “incomplete” or “inaccurately” filled-out registration cards for voters. To date, the group has never been found responsible for any attempt to manipulate the vote.
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A shadowy group known as the American Center for Voting Rights —whose leadership were linked not only to Republican party campaigns but also to the infamous and discredited Swiftboat Veterans for Truth organization, which admittedly launched an ad campaign to smear Sen. John Kerry’s military service record in order to help Pres. George W. Bush win his second term— was formed immediately in advance of corrupt former Ohio Congressman Bob Ney holding hearings on the phony “voter fraud” issue.
According to Source Watch, ACVR was “the only ‘Voting Rights’ group called to testify before congressional hearings held by the now-disgraced Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) on what went wrong in Ohio’s 2004 Presidential Election.” This, despite being in existence for only a few weeks at the time of the hearings. Source Watch also notes that “The ACVR, founded in February 2005, established its website on March 17, 2005, and was scheduled to testify on March 21, 2005, in Columbus, OH, at the U.S. House Committee on House Administration “hearing on the mess otherwise known as the 2004 Presidential Election in Ohio.”
Across the US, this year, efforts to clear voter-registration rolls of “suspicious” registrations has perhaps hit an all-time high. In the state of Georgia alone —population: 9 million— an estimated 2 million names from state voter registration rolls were cross-referenced against the Social Security database, in an anti-voter-fraud “purge”. Alabama has checked over 1 million names, Ohio over 700,000, and the state of North Carolina over 395,000. And, it is illegal to delete voters’ registrations less than 90 days prior to the election, except in case of death or confirmed mental infirmity.
The New York Times is reporting that the “purge” process used in at least 6 “battleground states” appears to be illegal, could violate voters’ civil rights, and could affect the election outcome. The New York Times reported in April 2007 that “Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews.”
One of the fundamental problems with the “voter fraud” mythology is that questionable registrations do not amount to ineligible votes: this means that eliminating legitimate voters’ names from registration rolls can prevent their casting votes they have a right to, but leaving them does not sway elections. In most cases, the only effect of an individual accidentally filing the same registration card twice is that two applications exist and one voter is registered once for a single precinct.
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[...] effort to question or counter the right of newly registered voters to cast ballots on election day. The Republican party had sought to repeat its efforts in the 2004 election, which led to 300,000 voters being denied the vote, in a state Bush carried by just 190,000 votes, [...]
[...] ‘Voter Fraud’ Issue Linked to Efforts to Reduce Voter Participation, Elect Republican Candidates The state of Ohio was ground zero in the 2004 presidential election for the controversial “voter fraud” issue, which Republican officials in numerous states and in the Bush administration Justice Department used to target organizations that work with underprivileged and minority voters, and to “purge” voter registration lists of names they believe may not favor Republican candidates. Investigations are ongoing in several states and at the federal level, including an Independent-Counsel review of [...]
[...] ‘Voter Fraud’ Issue Linked to Efforts to Reduce Voter … ‘Voter Fraud’ Issue Linked to Efforts to Reduce Voter Participation, Elect Republican Candidates The state of Ohio was ground zero in the 2004 presidential election for the controversial “voter fraud” issue, which Republican officials … [...]