KY Officials Fall for "Voter Fraud" Myth

As republicans across the country ramp up state efforts to use massive disinformation and intimidation to prevent newly-registered Democrats from actually exercising their right to vote, Kentucky's Attorney General and Secretary of State are off on a snipe hunt.

The Commonwealth’s chief law-enforcement official and chief elections officer came together today in the State Capitol to announce that they will once again be working together with agencies across Kentucky as part of a task force to prevent and investigate allegations of voter fraud during the November 4, 2008 general election. Attorney General Jack Conway and Secretary of State Trey Grayson discussed the importance of this year’s elections and how each office is working to protect the election from potential fraud.

Um, boys? BOYS! Listen up: "Voter Fraud" is a myth. It doesn't exist. It's a fairy tale of democratic shenanigans repeated by republicans to distract everyone from the very real and widespread election fraud perpetrated by republicans.

Or as Dahlia Lithwick in Slate puts it:

Believing in vote fraud may be dangerous to a democracy's health.

(More after the jump.)

There is no such thing as vote fraud. The think tank created to peddle the epidemic has evaporated. A handful of cases have been prosecuted. Then why is Sarah Palin shooting off e-mails contending that "we can't allow leftist groups like ACORN to steal this election?" Why is former Sen. John Danforth announcing, all statesmanlike, that the whole 2008 election "has been tainted?" Why is Ted Olson, the Republican National Lawyers Association lawyer of the year, claiming that "[ACORN] acknowledged having to get rid of a thousand people or more who were participating in voter fraud efforts." These people know the difference between registration fraud and vote fraud. Why continue to suggest they are the same thing?

Consider the fact that, as the Brennan Center reported recently, "[E]lection officials across the country are routinely striking millions of voters from the rolls through a process that is shrouded in secrecy, prone to error, and vulnerable to manipulation." Consider the recent New York Times review of state records and Social Security records, which concluded that "[t]ens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law." Consider the case, now on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, in which 200,000 new Ohio voters stand to be bounced off the rolls because, through no fault of their own, their names don't match error-riddled state databases. Consider the indictment this week of former Republican official James Tobin for his 2002 role in jamming Democratic get-out-the-vote calls. Consider the much-ballyhooed Republican challenge to the eligibility of 6,000 Native American and student voters in Montana that backfired first in court, then with the abrupt resignation this week of the official who spearheaded the effort.

SNIP

Consider the fliers and robo-calls designed to spread false information and threats to Hispanic and African-American voters. (According to the Philadelphia Daily News, fliers in minority neighborhoods warned residents that undercover cops would be lurking around the polls on Election Day, arresting anyone with "outstanding arrest warrants or who have unpaid traffic tickets.")

There is wholly implausible vote stealing, and then there is the vote stealing that actually happens. You want to get all crazy-paranoid? I'd worry more about the people who want to rough up their fellow citizen at the polls than people who want to risk jail time for voting twice.

But it appears repug Grayson has thoroughly bamboozled Democrat Conway into ignoring repug intimidation of poor and minority Democrats trying to vote legitimately in order to beat the bushes for wholly imaginary fake voters.

Even though the same attempt to track down "voter fraud" during the primary in May and 2004 election turned up a grand total of - wait for it - zero cases.

During the primary, the Office of the Attorney General’s Election Fraud Hotline received 59 calls on election day from 28 counties. There were no complaints of vote-buying. The majority of calls dealt with informational questions or complaints about electioneering within 300 feet of polls and exit-polling violations.

The last Presidential election in 2004 resulted in 52 pre-election complaints, 123 Election Day complaints and 26 post-election complaints. Seventeen of those complaints were referred for review or investigation. There were no charges filed.

Keep your eyes peeled and ears sharp at the polls this year. Be ready to report immediately any suspicious activity, like anyone trying to prevent someone from voting by questioning their identification, or their address, or their citizenship, or anything else.

But don't bother to call the Fraud Twins Trey and Jack. Call the Kentucky Democratic Party's Election Protection Hotline staffed by attorneys an volunteers. You can call 888-4KYVOTE to learn more about your rights, report problems or get answers on Election day. If you don't get the help you need immediately, call your local television station or Page One Kentucky.

Cross-posted at Blue in the Bluegrass.

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House Judiciary Committee Chair and Members Ask Gonzales Follow-Up Questions About Todd Graves Firing.

Paul Kiel at TPMMuckraker reports that

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI), along with subcommittee chair Linda Sanchez (D-CA) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) wrote Alberto Gonzales today to press for details about the firing of U.S. Attorney for Kansas City Todd Graves and the subsequent hiring of Bradley Schlozman.

Here is part of the letter. The full text can be found at the link.

Dear Mr. Attorney General:

We are writing to formally restate Chairman Conyers' request at the end of your recent appearance before the House Judiciary Committee for the prompt production of all documents, in unredacted form, relating to the termination of Todd Graves, the former United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, who we now know was the ninth U.S. Attorney forced to resign by the Department in 2006.

This request would also cover all documents relevant to the selection of Brad Schlozman as the interim replacement for Mr. Graves, including documents regarding other candidates considered for this position, if any. As we understand it, this will require a new search by the Department of Justice, in addition to providing unredacted copies of already-produced proposed termination lists.

We also have concerns with your suggestion that Mr. Graves' termination was somehow not part of the same process that led to the other terminations, given the fact that Mr. Graves appeared on Kyle Sampson's proposed termination list that was transmitted to Harriet Miers in January 2006, just weeks before Mr. Graves was asked to resign.

As Representative Lofgren pointed out in her questioning, there are disturbing indications that the decision to fire Mr. Graves was related to his disagreement with a voter fraud lawsuit pushed by Mr. Schlozman, the very person eventually named by you to succeed Mr. Graves as an interim U.S. Attorney. Notwithstanding your assertions, our review indicates that the district court decision dismissing that lawsuit focused on much more than the procedural defect of naming the wrong defendant....

Given these troubling circumstances, in addition to receiving the requested documents, we also request that you promptly explain your understanding of the facts regarding this termination and replacement, including but not limited to who placed Mr. Graves on the termination list and why, who was consulted on his termination and on his replacement by Mr. Schlozman, and who made the final decisions. In addition, please identify all current and former Department employees with information on this issue so that they may be interviewed, just as we have interviewed present and former Department personnel on the other eight terminations. Finally, please inform us whether any other United States Attorneys were terminated or asked to resign during President Bush's second term and, if so, who they were and the Department's basis for the termination or requested resignation.

I wonder if he is going to answer? Probably not. Given his performance the other day, it is pretty obvious he holds the committee in contempt. He won't worry about the letter until the committee starts talking about impeachment.

I wonder if the letter will be reported in the Star? Nah. Why would the Star report something involving the Kansas City US Attorney scandal? We Red State people can't handle the truth. Yes, Steve Kraske I am taunting you.

UPDATE: I have added the last substantive paragraph to give a little more flavor.

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Kansas may be getting caught up in the US Attorney scandal & more

When the Kansas Legislature goes back into session Wednesday, we may well see how the long arm of the Bush Administration reaches out from Washington, D.C., to meddle in voting in Kansas.

At issue is a proposed Kansas law requiring voters to bring identification to polling places. Such a bill looks sensible at first blush. Unfortunately, the measure is (1) aimed at a problem that doesn't exist in Kansas, and even the bill's supporters admit that, and (2) could potentially limit voting by the poor who don't have easy access to drivers licenses or other IDs.

Muckraker.com does a good job today of showing how the firings of US Attorneys and a long-time Bush Administration attempt to purge voting rolls all fit together.

Has Kansas gotten tangled up in a long-armed attempt to undermine elections by limiting turnout among Democratic constituencies? In October, I wrote about some disturbing voter registration and polling problems in this state. Were these more than just simple goofs?

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Republican Justice Department Scandals--The Next Generation

Underlying the Gonzales 8 scandal is the fear that the Bush Administration has improperly used the Justice Department to influence election outcomes. This morning Greg Gordon of McClatchy Newspapers has published an in depth look at the issue. He suggests that

For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Justice Department political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates.

The Justice Department disputes his conclusion that the Justice Department has been politicized to help Republicans and hurt Democrats at the polls, but his evidence is broad and deep. This might be where the Justice Department scandal is heading. Gordon reports that:

Former department lawyers, public records and other documents show that since Bush took office, political appointees in the Civil Rights Division have:

-Approved Georgia and Arizona laws that tightened voter ID requirements. A federal judge tossed out the Georgia law as an unconstitutional infringement on the rights of poor voters, and a federal appeals court signaled its objections to the Arizona law on similar grounds last fall, but that litigation was delayed by the U.S. Supreme Court until after the election.

-Issued advisory opinions that overstated a 2002 federal election law by asserting that it required states to disqualify new voting registrants if their identification didn't match that in computer databases, prompting at least three states to reject tens of thousands of applicants mistakenly.

-Done little to enforce a provision of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act that requires state public assistance agencies to register voters. The inaction has contributed to a 50 percent decline in annual registrations at those agencies, to 1 million from 2 million.

-Sued at least six states on grounds that they had too many people on their voter rolls. Some eligible voters were removed in the resulting purges.

Of interest to Blue Girl, Gordon reports that the Missouri effort to suppress minority voters was based in the White House.

In Missouri, where Republican Sen. Jim Talent was fighting to hang onto his seat and hold the U.S. Senate for the GOP, a Republican-backed photo ID requirement cleared the state House of Representatives by one vote in May 2006 after an intense lobbying effort in which backers alleged voter fraud in heavily Democratic St. Louis and Kansas City.

"The White House was heavily involved" in the effort to win passage, state Rep. Bryan Stevenson, the Republican floor leader, said in a telephone interview. Stevenson said he wasn't privy to the details of the White House efforts.

You really need to read Gordon's article.

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