Feingold to Van Hollen: No voter intimidation at polls

[undeterred]

October 31, 2008

The Honorable J.B. Van Hollen
Attorney General
State of Wisconsin
Wisconsin Department of Justice
P.O. Box 7857
Madison, WI 53707-7857

Dear Mr. Attorney General:

I am writing to express my strong concern about your October 28 announcement that 'as part of election integrity efforts the Wisconsin Department of Justice will be sending assistant attorneys general and special agents from the Division of Criminal Investigation to various locations around the state on Election Day ... to ensure compliance with state laws governing elections.' I am unaware of any specific criminal investigation to which these efforts pertain.

I appreciate that your office must be prepared to respond to incidents, if any, that may arise on Election Day. But the announcement and execution of your plans may have the effect of discouraging legitimate voters from attempting to cast their votes, and I urge you to reconsider your decision. If, however, you decide to proceed with these plans, I ask that you provide detailed information about how Department of Justice employees will be deployed, including the locations to which they will be deployed, how those locations were chosen, and a detailed description or copies of the instructions these employees will be given.

In order to try to ensure that legitimate voters are not discouraged or intimidated by your actions, I also encourage you to ensure that criminal law enforcement personnel are not deployed at polling stations. It is widely acknowledged that the presence of criminal law enforcement personnel at polling stations may discourage and intimidate legitimate voters -- even where the intent may be to facilitate voter access. Wan J. Kim, who served as assistant attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division from 2005 to 2007, has observed that '(federal) prosecutors being involved in voter access issues would lead to intimidation at the polls.' As a precaution against any possibility or appearance of intimidation, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on September 23 that the federal government employees deployed to polling stations this Election Day will not include criminal prosecutors.

I appreciate your immediate attention to this request and look forward to your prompt response.

Sincerely,

Russell D. Feingold
United States Senator

[goddess40]

1. I'll be there watching the poll watchers

I'll let DU know if I see anything. It probably won't be until the next day unless I'm lucky enough to be in one of the schools that have WiFi.

[undeterred]

2. I wonder how many other attorney generals are pulling this shit.

I doubt van hollen will have his goons in the Republican areas. They'll all be in Democratic cities.

[Dinger]

3. Good One You Russ!

vanhollerin' is a PUNK! (who just got punked)

[goddess40]

4. I just e-mailed a thank you to Russ

If I'm going to grouse when he mis-steps I should thank him when he's right.

[midnight]

6. Thank you.

[midnight]

5. Watched the news last night. Saw one of the state Sen.

being accused of talking in line and wearing something blue to the polls. Anyone else see this info. about Lena Taylor? Not sure about the info. It was so quick and vague.