Joe Conason: A Selective Definition of Voter Fraud

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_selective_definition_of_voter_fraud/

A Selective Definition of Voter Fraud

Posted on Apr 19, 2007

By Joe Conason

Even as Alberto Gonzales rehearses his excuses for the strange dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys, which he will perform in public at a Senate hearing this week, he is looking like a marginal player in this scandal. In keeping with his presidential nickname “Fredo,” the attorney general probably never understood the broader plan originating in the Bush White House.

Developed by political chief Karl Rove, that scheme was evidently designed to advance his objective of discouraging minority and other voters with the bad habit of supporting Democrats. In Republican parlance, such attempts to hamper registration, intimidate citizens and reduce turnout in targeted communities are lauded as “combating voter fraud.” Several of the fired U.S. attorneys had angered party operatives, including Rove, because they had shown so little enthusiasm for trumping up fraud cases against Democrats.

Following the 2004 election, David Iglesias, then serving as the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, set up a task force to investigate Republican allegations of fraud. Those accusations boiled down to a single case of a woman who had created a few phony registrations for financial gain. When Iglesias declined prosecution, local Republicans sought a more pliable and partisan replacement—a demand eventually fulfilled by Rove and President Bush.

In Wisconsin, by contrast, U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic prosecuted voter-fraud allegations regardless of merit, winning big headlines when he indicted 14 black Milwaukee residents for casting ballots illegally. Nine of those cases were either tossed out or lost in court—an awful result compared with the normal conviction rate of over 90 percent. But at least the mediocre Biskupic managed to remain in the good graces of the White House.

The Republican cry of “voter fraud” is a specious complaint, especially when the most sustained efforts to interfere with orderly elections and voting rights in recent years can be traced to the Republican National Committee.

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[BearSquirrel2]

1. Look over here!!!!

Yes, the fairly rare and insignificant event of voter fraud is the administrations only real concern. Yes they want to scare otherwise eligible citizens from voting. When I went to vote absentee, I sat listening to the clerk tell caller after caller that they could be prosecuted if they tried to vote illegally. It was in a "I have to let you know" as if they really have to take that serious.

What is completely OFF the administrations agenda is ELECTION FRAUD where tens of thousands of voters are disenfranchised on a regular basis. And of course they don't want to prosecute it since they are the architects of COMMITTING it!!!!

[MasonJar]

2. What a legitimate AG would be investigating would be election

fraud in Ohio and Florida and etc. on Deibold and similar fixed election machines. They should be investigating why people had to wait in line for up to 10 hours to vote in 04 in Ohio and why legal voters were purged in Florida in 2000 in numbers surpassing 70,000.