for those who need help with the concept of voter fraud versus election fraud:
BY the way, NOT one instance of voter fraud in GA -- except for one white man who may have voted both here and in Florida. He's not an illegal alien.... so there goes that big theory.
Much "debate" about whether there are any problems voting in this country, particularly in Georgia.
Apparently, there are some people who still don't believe there are any problems. I have no idea what they made of Gen Inspector Fine's findings at the DoJ re illegal election tampering via investigations brought on by Republicans against Dems, but I come to offer assistance on smaller matters.
I've complied a bunch of research here. The Brad Blog entries mostly link to other sources, so if you have a problem with Brad and or blogs, you should follow the links to the original source. Frankly, Brad's blog did the work of our civil liberties unit at the DoJ and he deserves a big thank you from all of us...but that's just my opinion.
Hang on, it's going to be a bumpy ride:
A quote from the WaPo re GA changing it's voter ID requirements:
"The staff memo noted that the records were riddled with errors, including the unexpired licenses of dead people, and were "of a quality far below what we are accustomed to using in the Voting Section." And other sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau, showed that Georgia blacks were much less likely than whites to own vehicles and also less likely to have photo IDs, the memo said."
Now, when you go to vote and their records suck, so your name doesn't match exactly or your address has changed and now you can't vote... some say that is a wee bit discouraging. As for provisional ballots, please. That would really be great, wouldn't it? IF only there were MORE votes NOT counted...instead of people who have earned the right to vote getting to vote.
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An opener:
"With his usual devious mastery, Rove has seized upon the national outrage sparked by his electoral larceny and used it as smokescreen while he makes the American electoral system even MORE unfair, and even EASIER to rig. Thus the administration has fired federal attorneys when they would not participate in a nationwide campaign to deny minorities and the poor their access to the polls. It has spent millions of taxpayer dollars to install electronic voting machines that can be "flipped" with a few keystrokes. And under the guise of "reforming" our busted electoral system, it is setting us up for another presidential theft in 2008.
Thus it should come as no surprise that our exclusive investigations into the firings of eight federal prosecutors who refused to execute Rove’s plans for massive disenfranchisement of Democratic voters reveal a pattern of illegalities and fraud aimed at reducing the number of minority, poor and young voters at the core of Democratic support. In the wake of major news breaks, two felony convictions have come from the rigging of the illegal Ohio 2004 vote count and recount that gave George W. Bush a second illegitimate term. Stunning new admissions from county election boards that illegally destroyed voter records will almost certainly lead to new convictions. And the multi-million-dollar electronic voting machine scam that made possible the biggest electoral frauds in US history is under massive new attack, with key states moving to scrap the machines altogether in a desperate attempt to restore American democracy – but with the job far from done.
http://www.bradblog.com/?cat=156so, it exists. It's on a federal level. It's being investigated for 2004. DoJ complicit in helping GOP win votes.
(as well as 2006, 2008 -- but on different levels)
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Here's a bit from Dec 08 -- Brad Blog
"Arnebeck alleges a racketeering scheme to "to corrupt elections in the United States over the course of this decade" and, according to the letter, is now also looking into election shenanigans in Georgia during the 2002 election as part of that conspiracy.
The plaintiffs have been focusing on the activities of GOP IT guru Michael Connell, who was previously described by the Ohio attorneys as a "high tech Forrest Gump" for his proclivity to be "at the scene" of so many troubling elections since 2000, and even at the heart of the "lost" White House email scandal via one of several computer firms that he heads up.
Despite his attempts to quash his subpoena, Connell was forced by the judge in the case to give a sworn deposition to the attorneys on November 3rd, just one day before this year's general election."
Note: Connell is now DEAD, after seeking protection after threats were made by Rove to him and his family. Small airplane crash during the time when he was testifying. He had given one dep but wasn't finished.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6696__________
New Photo ID problems (you know, we have so many problems with illegal aliens voting here...ooopsie, nada one arrest or prosecution? true...but still, better safe than sorry..better that hundreds of thousands of people be inconvenienced and lose their right to vote than ONE illegal alien vote!):
Today's primary is the first major test of Georgia's new Photo ID restriction at the polling place (O.C.G.A § 21-2-417), which mandates voters must show a government-issued photo identification card in order to be allowed to vote. Pollworkers use computers to check each voter's eligibility against the voter rolls as listed on their screens. These electronic polling systems are yet another step away from the transparent, accurate and verifiable elections our democracy requires, subjecting yet another part of the election system to the frailties of computer security and the electrical grid, among other problems. Until this election, Georgia pollworkers checked voters' registrations on paper printouts of the voting rolls.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5654______________________________
A page one story in today's Washington Post reports that a 51-page memo obtained by the paper, shows Dept. of Justice staffers had rejected a controversial new Photo ID requirement law for voters in Georgia, but that their recommendations were overruled and the measure was approved anyway by the Bush appointed Attorney General.
Georgia's new law was recently rejected as unconstitutional by two Federal Courts who equated it to a "Jim Crow-era poll tax" after its approval by the DoJ despite the recommendation against it by 4 out of 5 staffers in the DoJ's Voting Rights Act division.
The law would have required all voters to present a Photo ID at the poll, available for $20 to those who did not have one. The measure, which, like all such measures currently being pushed around the country by Republicans, is alleged to be disproportionately disenfranchising to minority (read: Democratic-leaning) voters.
Despite a complete dearth of evidence to demonstrate that Photo ID requirements are useful in combatting the non-existent epidemic of "Voter Fraud" in America, Republican legislators in Georgia and other states are attempting to ramrod such measures through their state legislatures. Even the creators of the Georgia law were unable to cite a single example of fraud in the state which would have been held off by the new legislation.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=2033_______________________________
State Rep. Tyrone L. Brooks Sr., a Democrat and president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, said he was not surprised by the Justice Department's position in the case.
"Some of my colleagues told me early on that, because of politics in the Bush administration, no matter what the staff recommendation was, this would be approved by the attorney general," Brooks said. "It's disappointing that the staff recommendation was not accepted, because that has been the norm since 1965."
Wash Po
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/16/AR2005111602504_pf.html_______________________
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled today that the requirement of presenting state issued picture identification in order to vote will continue to be in effect. Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel is confident that the law significantly decreases the likelihood of vote fraud. The Democratic Party of Georgia had sought to block the law, believing that it led to voter disenfranchisement. <1>
Jim Crow, anyone???
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Georgia_supreme_court_upholds_ID_law______________________
10/15/2008
The Department of Justice believes that the State of Georgia is acting in violation to the voting rights act by cross referencing voter registration data. The state of Georgia has been cross-referencing data from the Department of Driver Services database and the U.S. Social Security database. If any information is found to be conflicting, then the registration is flagged for further review. The Department of Justice believes that Georgia has made significant changes to the voting process by implementing this system, without predeclaring it to the Department of Justice, in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.<1>
Recently many citizens whose status has been challenged under this process, and the ACLU have challenged this process, stating that it amounts to "intimidation and illegal purging." <1>
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Georgia_in_violation_of_voting_rights_act___________________________
Oct 08
UPDATE: All of that comes on top of late news that GA has illegally purged and/or flagged nearly 5,000 voters from their registration databases, incorrectly identifying them as "non-citizens".
UPDATE FROM BRAD 10/29/08: RAW STORY has video of voters waiting 8 hours to vote in GA. Thank you to those voters who were willing to hang in there! Shame on you to those officials who set up this system that can't even accommodate the limited numbers of early voters!
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6581________________
purging some more - is it legal? Not 90 days before an election.
September 30, 2008 CBS News Issued a report that Ohio is one of nineteen states according to a report by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York Law School has claimed that Ohio is ignoring a law that prohibits states from "purging" voters 90 days before an election.<1>
Past voter purges
For example, in Muscogee County in Georgia, the Brennen Center reports, a county official purged 700 people from voter lists for criminal convictions. Many of the people who received letters informing them of the purge, however, had never even received a parking ticket. In Mississippi, a local election official recently discovered that another official had wrongly purged 10,000 voters “from her home computer.”<2>
Another study, by the group U.S. PIRG, released last week, also looked at the issue of voter purging and discovered that 19 states are ignoring a federal law banning systematic purges within 90 days of a federal election. The 19 states include battleground states of Colorado, Ohio and Nevada.<3>
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Ohio_One_of_19_States_Doing_Massive_Voter_Roll_Purges________________________
In addition to the problems in Florida, there are now reports that longtime GOP "voter fraud" hoaxster Pat Rogers (also known for his involvement in the U.S., Attorney Purge Scandal for the bogus "voter fraud" allegations he filed in 2004, and as a board member of the now-defunct and fully-debunked GOP astro-turf group, "American Center for Voting Rights," or ACVR),is apparently using private investigators to intimidate voters in New Mexico.
Details on those stories and many more --- pre-election litigation over polling place photo I.D. restrictions in Georgia and Ohio, absentee military ballots in Virginia, GOP efforts to close early voting polling places in Indiana, GOP calls for the Dept. of Justice to investigate ACORN just days before a federal election --- from across the country, all follow in the detailed round-up below...
10,000 absentee ballots in Gwinnett are flawed...
Computers at the North Fulton Government Center and other county polling places lost their connection to the state's database, officials told CBS 46's Joanna Massee. That glitch created a big headache for election workers and long waits for voters.
But more disturbing to civil rights attorneys is the Department's silence on what voting rights lawyers say are myriad voter suppression tactics by partisans in the campaign's final weeks. These efforts include attempts by Republicans to disqualify legal voter registrations, unlawfully purge voters, threaten individual voters with polling place challenges, fabricate barriers to student voting and abuse prosecutorial authority by investigating 2008's early voters.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6561__________________________
MO as example of problems with new voter ID laws:
Gordon traces the early moments of Hearne's emergence on the scene back to an incident during the 2000 Election in St. Louis which would eventually feed the entire national GOP-backed voter suppression effort........
Republican state Sen. Delbert Scott of Lowry, Mo., chief sponsor of the photo ID bill last year, said Hearne helped draft it and served as a key adviser.
Hearne did not respond to several requests for comment. His organization closed down its Internet site in March and has since disappeared from view.
Again, we encourage you to read Gordon's entire piece (and hope that he, and others who chance upon our coverage here, will peruse our detailed reports and documents on Hearne and the ACVR scam via our Special Coverage Page devoted to the matter). But before we leave you for now, a quote from Missouri's Democratic Rep. William Lacy Clay Jr. in the article sums the entire issue up perfectly.
"The real problem has never been vote fraud," Clay said in a recent interview. "It’s access to the polls. In the last 50 years, no one in Missouri has been prosecuted for impersonating someone else at the polls. But thousands of eligible voters have been denied their constitutional rights … It’s sickening."
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4500______________
The American Prospect's Investigation Into The GOP 'Myth Of Voter Fraud To Purge The
Rolls Of Non-Republicans'
ALSO: The DoJ's John 'Minorities Die First' Tanner Has Found a New Job.....
"Sharrard's cautionary tone was a response to the Republican Party's ongoing nationwide campaign to suppress the low-income minority vote by propagating the myth of voter fraud. Using various tactics --- including media smears, bogus lawsuits, restrictive new voting laws and policies, and flimsy prosecutions --- Republican operatives, election officials, and the GOP-controlled Justice Department have limited voting access and gone after voter-registration groups such as ACORN..."
...
"Unfortunately, the public hasn't heard just how nonexistent the voter fraud epidemic actually is. While progressives have successfully challenged some of the most restrictive laws in court, they're still playing catch-up when it comes to combating the glib sound bites of voter-fraud alarmists. Republicans and the Bush Justice Department have cloaked their schemes under such noble-sounding concepts as "ballot integrity." The GOP's vote-suppression playbook features everything from phony lawsuits to questionable investigations to authoritative-seeming reports, all with the aim of promoting restrictive laws."
http://www.bradblog.com/?cat=156
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Fox tries to push the meme of Illegals voting:
Unconvinced, Cavuto pushes his case by stating that some municipalities might accept the licenses granted to illegals to which Mooney gives in a little. With Mooney back on board, Cavuto proceeds to bottom line the issue:
Cavuto: Bottom line Senator, you could have illegals voting in your state.
Senator Mooney: We could, but it wouldn't make much sense for them to do so, to be perfectly honest, because they would be subject to perjury and other problems. There's other things they'd rather do like be able to drive and have these jobs and, you know, go to schools.
http://www.bradblog.com/?cat=156
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For the naysayers who claim there are so many instances of voter fraud here...
check this out.
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Georgia_vote_fraud
under voter fraud instances in Ga? NONE. NOT ONE.
Oh, wait! Here's one! a White Business man who is suspected of voting twice.
http://www.thehartwellsun.com/articles/2008/11/05/news/news01.txt
He sure looks like an illegal.....NOT.
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October 9, 2008 - A coalition of voting rights groups filed a lawsuit today on behalf of Cherokee County resident Jose Morales against Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, asking a federal court in Atlanta to halt the use of database matching procedures that inaccurately flag United States citizens as non-citizens, jeopardizing their attempts to register and vote. Coalition leaders argue that that these practices violate key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. If they continue to be applied, they could threaten the rights of thousands of eligible Georgia voters.
"Eligible citizens should not be required to jump through impossible hoops to perform the basic right of voting," said Jon Greenbaum, director of Voting Rights Project for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. "These requirements are in clear violation of election law and present a systematic bias against naturalized citizens."
.....
Georgia's record-check process, which relies on the State's Department of Driver's Services ("DDS") database, presents a particularly unfair challenge to new citizens. There is currently no procedure to update the DDS database in order to reflect subsequent naturalization by persons who were legal residents when they obtained their DDS license. This creates a systematic bias against naturalized citizens, needlessly jeopardizing their voter registration status and unduly burdening their right to vote. Over 100,000 people became naturalized citizens in just the past 10 years in Georgia, according to the Department of Homeland Security, so the potential for harm is significant.
"The repeated challenge of the citizenship of voters in Georgia, including Latino voters, appears to be the latest tactic to suppress the right to vote in the State of Georgia. It violates federal law and we are going to court to stop it," said MALDEF Regional Counsel Elise Shore.
The ACLU also weighed in: "The Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act were intended to protect voters from "October surprises," the last minute purging of registered voters on questionable data," said Neil Bradley, Associate Director of the ACLU Voting Rights Project. "Georgia's Secretary of State, whose job it is to maintain accurate voting lists, has changed the rules out of the public eye, avoiding scrutiny of the new voter purge efforts. If the state continues these practices, thousands of eligible voters could be wrongfully removed from the voter rolls and unable to vote in November."
http://www.866ourvote.org/newsroom/press-releases?id=0018
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No problem voting here, huh?
GEE. GA is the POSTER child for voting disenfranchisement and now election fraud.
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