voter fraud

Voter Fraud -- Or Just A Case Of Mistaken Identity?

Rachel Slajda | November 3, 2009, 4:33PM

Some conservatives are proudly showing off what they claim is a real live case of voter fraud today. Election Journal and Red State are both trumpeting this 30-second video of a young voter in New Jersey telling the tale of his stolen vote.

Election Journal, which last year released a widely-played video of the New Black Panthers supposedly scaring voters from the polls, posted the video this afternoon under the title "Concerns over absentee ballots realized."

In it, the voter says he gave his name to election officials, only to find that he had already voted.

"I walk in there, tell them my name and it says that I have a mail thing, someone sent it in the mail. But I never sent mine in the mail, so I had to file a provisional in order to be able vote," says the voter, who identifies himself as Mark Allen of Galloway, N.J.

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Topics: ACORN, John Fund, NJ-GOV, voter fraud

David Iglesias

Watch: Maddow Interviews Iglesias On GOP's Anti-ACORN Campaign

Zachary Roth | September 29, 2009, 11:39AM

One point that often gets overlooked in the current freak-out over ACORN, is that the US attorney firings were, in part, a different manifestation of the same Republican-driven campaign to discredit and sideline the group that we've seen recently.

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow last night interviewed David Iglesias, and reminded us that Iglesias was fired in large part for not pursuing bogus voter fraud cases tied to ACORN. The New Mexico GOP, along with Karl Rove, understood that hampering the registration of poor and minority voters was crucial to boosting Republicans' chances in the minority-heavy state. And that pressuring law enforcement to bring voter fraud cases implicating ACORN, despite the lack of evidence, was the best way to do it.

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Topics: ACORN, David Iglesias, Karl Rove, U.S. Attorneys, Voting, voter fraud

Voting

Texas Republicans Pushing Voter Suppression Law

Zachary Roth | March 11, 2009, 5:08PM

We don't usually write about state-level legislative wrangling, but in this case, we think you'll agree that there's good reason.

Before the election, we wrote a lot about the Republican effort to make it harder for poor and minority voters to cast ballots. In several states, the GOP took advantage of restrictive voter ID laws, passed in recent years, to try to force election officials to purge voters from the rolls.

A well-organized campaign by voting rights groups and Democrats helped mitigate the damage. But that doesn't seem to have deterrred the GOP...

In fact, Texas Republicans have doubled down on the strategy, "pushing a bill to require voters to show a photo ID -- a requirement that, studies show, would hit poor and minority voters, who vote disproportionately Democratic, particularly hard. As usual, the stated rationale for the bill is to protect against voter fraud -- and as usual, Republicans have produced no actual evidence that such fraud is occurring.

Similar laws exist in Indiana and Florida, Republican election officials in both states sought to use those laws to make it harder to vote.

The bill passed the GOP-controlled Texas Senate today, on a party-line vote, reports the Dallas Morning News -- but not before some noteworthy developments during Senate hearings.

First, in an sign of how the movement for this bill ties in to broader GOP efforts to make voting harder, Republicans wheeled out arch voter suppression guru and TPMmuckraker fave Hans Von Spakovsky to testify about the dangers of voter fraud.

Then, the hearing, run by Republicans, ended up dragging on from Tuesday morning all the way until this morning. Some citizens who had been called by Democrats to testify did not get to speak until 6am this morning.

Reported the DMN:

One woman who waited all night sobbed during her testimony, saying she had no idea she would have to wait more than 20 hours to speak.

The bill is expected to face a much tougher time in the closely divided House. And Democrats have said they plan to challenge the bill's legality in court, under the Voting Rights Act.

Meanwhile, in Washington, the Senate Rules committee, chaired by Chuck Schumer, released an MIT study finding that up to 7 million voters were prevented or discouraged from casting votes in the November election, thanks largely to barriers to voter registration.

As Republicans understand, making voting harder can make a difference in a close election. And the terms of battle for 2010 and 2012 are already being drawn...

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Topics: Voting, voter fraud

Bradley Schlozman

Schloz-Backed Voter Fraud Lawsuit Bites The Dust

Zachary Roth | March 6, 2009, 10:47AM

Another nail in the coffin for those bogus GOP claims of voter fraud...

Remember how Todd Graves was fired as US Attorney for the western district of Missouri, after he wouldn't go along with a Bradley Schlozman-backed effort to sue Democratic state officials for failing to purge ineligible voters from the rolls, alleging that this failure could open the door to rampant voter fraud? The Bushies then moved Schlozman himself into Graves' position as US Attorney so that he could push the case personally.

Well, the case has quietly dragged on, after being dismissed by one court, then reinstated by another. But yesterday, lawyers for the Obama Justice Department asked a judge to drop the suit.

There wasn't much doubt by this point about the suit's bogusness, especially given what we've learned about Schlozman's politically motivated approach to his work both at main DOJ and as US Attorney. But now it's more or less official.

Another Republican claim of voter fraud bites the dust.

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Topics: Bradley Schlozman, Justice Department, U.S. Attorneys, Voting, voter fraud

Senate Judiciary Committee

Senate GOPers On US Attorney Firings: Voter Fraud, Voter Fraud!

Zachary Roth | November 18, 2008, 2:21PM

Election-law expert Rick Hasen picks out an interesting passage from the minority section of the Senate Judiciary Committee's just-released report into the US Attorneys firings.

Some members of the committee's Republican minority -- including senior senators like McCain pal Lindsey Graham, new NRSC chair John Cornyn, and ex-presidential candidate Sam Brownback -- strenuously disagreed with the findings of the Majority (and with an internal report produced by DOJ's Office of the Inspector General) that the White House helped engineer the firings, and that several of the dismissals were made for inappropriate political reasons.

Instead, they used the report as a chance to bang the drum on "voter fraud" one more time. But they continue to willfully confuse voter registration fraud with voter fraud -- even though numerous experts have now pointed out that there's no evidence that fraudulent voter registration forms lead to fraudulent votes being cast.

The dissenting Republicans wrote:

Perhaps the most Orwellian aspect of the Majority report is its repeated insistence that there is no vote fraud in this country that is ever worth investigating. At one point, the Majority even places scare quotes around the term, lest anyone receive the impression that the Majority believes that voter fraud could ever be a real problem. Yet during the federal elections just concluded, the American public saw numerous examples of serious attempts to commit voter fraud in this country.

Most of these incidents involved the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a group that actively promotes voter registration in many cities across the nation. ACORN tends to target areas where it believes that it can register Democratic voters, such as parks, public-assistance agencies, and liquor stores, ACORN's history is littered with claims and convictions of fraud. and generally hires part-time workers who are paid for each registered name to canvas these areas. In this election cycle, many different groups, from journalists to the GOP, strongly criticized the integrity of the organization's registration methods. As early as September, state officials reported fraudulent voter registrations submitted by ACORN, and as of October 6th, the New York Times reported that about 400,000 ACORN filings had been rejected by authorities as duplicates, incomplete, or fraudulent. After comparing their voter registration rolls, Georgia, Florida, and Ohio found 112,000 duplicate voters registered in two states, and authorities have rejected ACORN applications attempting to register such "voters" as Mickey Mouse and the Dallas Cowboys' offensive line.

Notice that the Republicans stop short of saying voter fraud was actually committed. They do say flatly, however, that faulty registration forms submitted by ACORN amount to "serious attempts" to commit voter fraud.

But they don't offer a single piece of evidence to support even this reduced charge.
Not one citation given -- most of which are to columns by conservative opinion columnist John Fund, or to posts on the conservative blog Powerline -- leads to an example that contains any evidence whatsoever of an effort to actually commit voter fraud.

It's one thing for Fund or Sean Hannity to try to muddy up these distinctions in an effort to confuse people into believing that voter fraud actually exists in significant numbers. But it's pretty shocking when Senate Republicans do so.

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Topics: Justice Department, Karl Rove, Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. Attorneys, Voting, voter fraud

Karen Handel

Georgia's "Non-Citizen" Voting Controversy: A Recap

Zachary Roth | November 12, 2008, 11:34AM

So let's briefly look back at what appears to have happened in the controversy over voting in Georgia this election cycle.

First, GOP Secretary of State Karen Handel, based on an interpretation of federal election law, purged around 50,000 newly registered voters from the rolls, based on discrepancies between the information on their voter registration form and that in state databases. About 5000 of those voters were purged because the state found that they had checked a box on their drivers license application indicating that they're non-citizens.

Voting-rights groups sued Handel, claiming that the purge violated federal voting laws, and that the procedure for identifying non-citizens was flawed. For instance, the plaintiff in the case, Jose Morales, had applied for his drivers license while a non-citizen, but had become a naturalized citizen before the election. Since the drivers database is not automatically updated in such cases, he was still flagged as a non-citizen.

Ultimately, a judge required Handel to send a letter to the voters flagged as non-citizens, informing them that their status was in question and notifying them that they could cast a provisional ballot. But if they didn't provide election officials with documents proving their citizenship, within a few days after the election, their ballots would be thrown out.

Many such voters -- in some counties, about two thirds -- did return with the correct documentation. But of course, many didn't, and some counties began throwing out ballots this week.

And the fact that so many did provide documentation only served to bolster the contention of voting-rights groups that the process for flagging voters had been badly flawed. That claim was further strengthened by the fact that the system now seems to have flagged not only naturalized citizens like Morales, but also U.S. born voters whose citizenship has never been in question. One of these voters, a veteran of the U.S. military who received Handel's letter telling her that her citizenship was in question, spoke to TPMmuckraker yesterday.

It's still not clear how many voters were wrongly flagged, and either had their ballots thrown out or were discouraged by Handel's letter from voting in the first place. The question is not academic, because a runoff vote in Georgia's U.S. Senate race, between Republican Saxby Chambliss and Democrat Jim Martin, is scheduled for December 2nd, after neither man gained 50 percent last week. The vote is expected to be extremely close, and voters who have been designated as non-citizens, correctly or incorrectly, will presumably be barred from casting conventional ballots once again.

Handel's office has said it's working on compiling those numbers, though it appears to be in no rush. We'll keep you posted on what we hear...

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Topics: Karen Handel, Voting, voter fraud

ACORN

Before Recount, GOP Smearing Minnesota Sec Of State

Zachary Roth | November 11, 2008, 5:00PM

The recount in the Minnesota Senate race hasn't even begun yet, but already the GOP is working to delegitimize it in advance, by smearing the man who will run it as a partisan Democrat.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) has been distributing to reporters a three-page "backgrounder" that attacks Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, a Democrat, for having spoken at the Democratic convention this summer, and for having "led a voter registration coalition that included ACORN," among other alleged sins.

In the first vote count, Republican incumbent Norm Coleman currently holds an edge of around 200 votes over Democratic challenger Al Franken, though that number may continue to dwindle as more votes are counted. Either way, the margin is easily close enough to require a recount under state law, which will begin next week under Ritchie's supervision.

Despite the backgrounder's sometimes hysterical compilation of anti-Ritchie greatest hits -- it claims that "the Communist Party USA Wrote Encouragingly Of His Candidacy," citing an unsourced line from a report in the Minneapolis Star Tribue -- there's no evidence that Ritchie has ever used his role as the state's top elections administrator to advantage Democrats.

But that likely misses the point of the GOP gambit, which appears to be to cast public doubt on the integrity of the recount process, thereby bolstering Coleman's claim that's he's the rightful winner and that a recount is unnecessary -- just the strategy pursued by George Bush's campaign in Florida in 2000.

Indeed, Coleman's shrinking lead in the first count has already prompted him to try to question the ongoing vote counting. A lawyer for the campaign yesterday told The Politico: "We're not going to sit idly by, while mysterious, statistically dubious changes in vote totals take place after official government offices close."

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Topics: ACORN, NRSC, Norm Coleman, Voting, voter fraud

Voting

Is Voting Reform On The Horizon?

Zachary Roth | November 11, 2008, 3:07PM

It looks like the battle over voter registration didn't end with the election.

Of course, Republican-driven fears of rampant voter fraud perpetrated by ACORN proved unfounded. (So, we should note, did Democratic fears of an election stolen through massive purges of valid voters -- though that was thanks partly to the vigilance of voting-rights groups who brought lawsuits in some states in the weeks before the election.)

But, reports the Los Angeles Times, advocates of election reform still think there's a whole lot of room for improvement. They're talking up the idea of "universal registration," which would have the government take the initiative on voter registration, as is done in other major democracies.

The specific proposals for a universal system differ, but they all aim to address the fact that nearly 1 in 4 American adults is not on the rolls. Most would do things like ensuring that when voters move, states would update their rolls, and some would automatically add teens to the rolls when they turn 18, and to add people .

Perhaps most far-reaching is a proposal to have Congress create a national voter registration database modeled on the Social Security database. But other plans would put registration in the hands of the states.

One benefit of universal registration is that it would take groups like ACORN -- which was criticized, mainly by Republicans, for submitting large numbers of bogus registration forms, wasting time and resources for election officials -- out of the voter registration equation.

And that would prevent the GOP from using ACORN as a boogeyman for fears of systematic voter fraud -- as the party tried to do this year -- thereby making it harder to justify efforts at voter suppression.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, a leading voting-rights group, Hillary Clinton has said she plans to introduce legislation for a federal version of the system, and officials in a handful of states have also expressed interest in passing similar state laws.

It's too soon to know whether the bitter fights over ACORN and voter suppression that we saw this year are a thing of the past. But it's encouraging that people are still paying attention to the problem.

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Topics: Voting, voter fraud

voter fraud

Georgia Can't Say How Many Eligible Voters It's Currently Disenfranchising

Zachary Roth | November 10, 2008, 5:37PM

This morning we told you that election officials in Georgia are throwing out ballots cast by new voters who couldn't prove their citizenship, on the orders of the Republican secretary of state, Karen Handel.

And now Handel's office says it can't say how many of those disqualified ballots were actually cast by eligible voters.

A spokesman for the office insisted to TPMmuckraker that most of the voters originally identified through the state's system for finding non-citizens had self-identified as being such. But voting-rights groups argue that that system -- which checks registrations against state drivers records -- is flawed, and could lead to be eligible voters being included through data entry errors and other administrative errors.

Handel's office couldn't yet say how many mistakes had been made, though the spokesman added that the information would soon become available as information from individual counties came in.

In other words, the office can't say how many eligible voters cast ballots that are now being thrown out.

The dispute began back in October, when voting-rights groups including the ACLU sued the state over an effort by Handel to purge from the rolls newly registered voters whose citizenship was called into question by the state's database.

A judge ultimately ruled that the state must allow the voters whose citizenship was in question -- around 5000 -- to cast provisional ballots, and must inform them of the challenge to their eligibility. The voters would then have to show documents proving their citizenship, either on Election Day or in subsequent days, in order for their ballot to be counted.

As we wrote earlier today, many voters did so, but in some counties, around a third did not, causing their some of their ballots to be disqualified starting today. But it now appears almost certain that some ballots cast by eligible voters who were mistakenly flagged, and who then failed to provide election officials with the necessary documents after the fact, are being wrongly thrown out.

We'll continue to keep you posted as more information becomes available...

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Topics: Karen Handel, Voting, voter fraud

ACORN

Ohio and Minn. Sec Of States: No Reports Of Voter Fraud

Zachary Roth | November 6, 2008, 2:39PM

Since we're rounding up the evidence (or lack thereof) of voter fraud taking place yesterday, it's worth also noting what the top election officials in Ohio and Minnesota told us on Tuesday night.

Ohio secretary of state Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, said in a statement released toTPMmuckraker the night of the election: "We have received no reports of election irregularities in Ohio today - and we have been on the lookout for any hint of illegal voting or voter suppression."

And her counterpart in Minnesota, Mark Ritchie, also a Democrat, told TPMmuckraker in an interview that his office had received no reports of voter fraud.

In both states, Republicans or their allies had raised concerns about the possibility for fraud. Brunner had reportedly received death threats after she fought a GOP lawsuit aimed at cracking down on voter fraud. The Supreme Court sided with Brunner.

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Topics: ACORN, Jennifer Brunner, Voting, voter fraud

voter fraud

PA: No Voter Fraud Issues, Despite GOP Suit

Zachary Roth | November 6, 2008, 11:53AM

In Pennsylvania, where the state Republican party had filed a grab-bag of a lawsuit related to concerns over the integrity of the vote, there were no such problems yesterday.

Voting did not always go smoothly, reports the Associated Press. Fox News showed footage of a man in Black Panther attire holding a nightstick at the doorway of a polling place. There were long lines at many other locations. And according to voting rights groups, some voters whose names were missing from registration books were sent away without being given provisional ballots, as required.

But none of these problems related to voter fraud. That issue had been the major underlying concern of a lawsuit filed late last month by the GOP. It sought, among other things, to force ACORN air public-service announcements reminding first-time voters that they must bring identification to the polls, and to compel the state to provide more provisional ballots.

A judge rejected the suit.

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Topics: ACORN, Voting, voter fraud

voter fraud

NV: GOP Voting Fears Unfounded

Zachary Roth | November 6, 2008, 11:36AM

In Nevada, where the state GOP had raised concerns about possible voter fraud if election officials didn't take a more restrictive approach to voting -- and where authorities had raided an ACORN office -- everything seems to have gone smoothly.

Robert Walsh, a spokesman for Secretary of State Ross Miller, told the Associated Press: "We've been preparing for virtually every possibility we could imagine. But to this point, none of those scenarios have come to pass.

Walsh added that no formal complaints were filed with the state's election office. And the AP confirms that state and federal court officials reported no election-related lawsuits.

Late last month, the chair of the state Republican party wrote to Miller, a Democrat, arguing that voters who had to correct discrepancies in their voter registration at the polls should be forced to cast provisional ballots.

Miller quickly responded with an interpretation of state law that rejected the GOP argument.

And earlier last month, state authorities raided the Las Vegas office of ACORN, as part of an investigation into voter registration fraud.

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Topics: Voting, voter fraud

Voting

IN: Despite GOP Warnings of Voter Fraud, "It Was a Good Clean Election."

Zachary Roth | November 6, 2008, 10:58AM

In Indiana, Republican fears of voter fraud appear to have been unfounded.

Before the election, GOP secretary of state Todd Rokita, a fast-emerging TPMmuckraker favorite, had called on law enforcement authorities to investigate ACORN, claiming he had found evidence of widespread registration fraud perpetrated by the group.

And the Lake County Republican party had filed suit, unsuccessfully, to shut down early voting "satellite" centers in three Democratic cities in the northern part of the county. The GOP argued, among other things, that allowing early voting at the satellite centers, rather than limiting it to the county seat, which is in a more Republican area of the county -- could increase the chances of fraud.

But yesterday, the man who led the Republicans' legal effort in Lake County, party chair John Curley, told the Chicago Tribune: "The election is over and it was a good clean election."

Curley even added, according to the paper, that early voting "might be the wave of the future."

The final margin of victory for Obama in Indiana was just 22,986 votes -- close enough that Republicans might have been expected to raise concerns over fraud if such evidence had existed.

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Topics: Todd Rokita, Voting, voter fraud

ACORN

Minnesota Sec of State: No Reports Of Voter Fraud

Zachary Roth | November 4, 2008, 8:45PM

Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie says that his office received no reports whatsoever of fraudulent voting occurring today.

Ritchie, a Democrat, told TPMmuckraker that one young man did attempt to sell his vote on eBay(!), but he was quickly apprehended and charged with a felony. No one voted fraudulently in his name.

Minnesota Majority, a conservative group, had raised concerns about voter fraud in recent weeks.

Earlier tonight, we posted a statement from Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, saying she also had received no reports of illegal voting in her state.

Ritchie said his office would conduct a review of the state database in the coming weeks, and that it was possible that they would find a very few cases of ineligible voters casting ballots.

But he stressed that, in his experience, genuine voter fraud "does not happen."

He added: "The specter of this is raised as a political strategy," by losing candidates, to explain their losses. Ritchie called the strategy "despicable."

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Topics: ACORN, Voting, voter fraud

Jennifer Brunner

Ohio Sec of State: No Reports Of Illegal Voting

Zachary Roth | November 4, 2008, 8:24PM

A statement from Jennifer Brunner, the Ohio Secretary of State:

"We have received no reports of election irregularities in Ohio today - and we have been on the lookout for any hint of illegal voting or voter suppression.

Republicans in the state had raised fears of voter fraud after the Supreme Court rejected their lawsuit against Brunner, over discrepancies in some voters' registration information.

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Topics: Jennifer Brunner, Voting, voter fraud

Voting

Security Assigned To Ohio Dem Sec of State

Zachary Roth | November 4, 2008, 7:05PM

Security has been assigned to Ohio's Democratic secretary of state Jennifer Brunner, reports the Toledo Blade.

Brunner was sued by the state Republican party over a dispute about discrepancies in the registration information of newly registered voters. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Brunner last month.

Brunner has reported receiving death threats after the ruling, and her office was the target of a security breach.

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Topics: Jennifer Brunner, Voting, voter fraud

Voting

RNC Ready To Sue Over Computerized Voter Fraud?

Zachary Roth | November 4, 2008, 6:36PM

Is the GOP now laying the groundwork for claims of computerized voter fraud?

The computer forensics company Forensicon just sent out the following press release:

Republican National Committee Prepares for Computerized Voting Fraud Legal Battle

CHICAGO, IL--(Marketwire - November 4, 2008) - Forensicon, Inc., a Chicago-based computer forensics company, was contacted last Thursday by a security firm lining up vendors to assist the Republican National Committee with consulting related to potential allegations of computerized voter fraud. It has been widely reported that electronic voting machines in many states are vulnerable to hacking by anyone with the right equipment and a few minutes' access to the voting machine.

Yesterday, noted Chicago resident Oprah Winfrey attempted to cast her vote for her candidate, but the vote failed to register correctly.

It has been widely reported that electronic voting machines in many states are vulnerable to hacking by anyone with the right equipment and a few minutes' access to the voting machine with a handheld computing device. The lack of printed voting receipts in many of these systems leaves the election ballots in many areas vulnerable to rampant fraud and abuse.

"If the election returns vary significantly from the polled numbers in any precincts that proves crucial to the election outcome, I expect that a legal struggle over the validity of the election results will ensue," said Forensicon's President, Lee Neubecker.

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Topics: Voting, voter fraud

ACORN

No Restraining Order For Rogers -- Voter Intimidation Suit Continues

Zachary Roth | November 4, 2008, 3:27PM

A judge declined today to grant a temporary restraining order against Pat Rogers, the New Mexico GOP lawyer who is being sued by MALDEF for alleged voter intimidation.

Nina Perales, a lawyer for MALDEF, told TPMmuckraker that despite the judge's decision, her organization believed it had achieved its goals, because Al Romero -- the private investigator hired by Rogers -- testified under oath that he would not go back to the home of one of the plaintiffs, Dora Escobedo, to question her about voting.

Romero's visits to Escobedo and another Hispanic woman in Albuquerque -- during which he questioned them about their right to vote -- triggered the lawsuit.

The visits were reported last month by TPMmuckraker and others.

Perales said MALDEF's lawsuit against Rogers and Romero continues, and will move to the discovery phase.

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Topics: ACORN, Election 2008, Pat Rogers, Voting, voter fraud

voter fraud

Fox Desperately Stokes Fears of Flawed Election

Zachary Roth | November 4, 2008, 2:22PM

Check out FoxNews.com's frantic effort to lay the groundwork for the claim that Obama's expected win is illegitimate, the product of a chaotic and fraud-prone election system and voter intimidation carried out by violent African-Americans.

At one polling site in Vermont, voters could maybe even look over and see each other's ballots! The election is ruined!

Not to pooh-pooh the importance of a secret ballot, but this is really grasping at straws.

In a way, you can't blame Fox. In stoking fears of an illegitimate election, it's only following John McCain's lead.

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Topics: Election 2008, Fox News, John McCain, Voting, voter fraud

voter fraud

Hoax Email Tells Virginia Students To Vote Tomorrow

Zachary Roth | November 4, 2008, 10:23AM

Hackers broke into the email account of the George Mason University provost in Virginia, early this morning and sent out the following email:

Subject: Election Day Update To the Mason Community:

Please note that election day has been moved to November 5th. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Peter N. Stearns
Provost

According to Dan Walsh, a spokesman for the university, the hoax message went to the entire student body -- more than 30,000 students -- and about 5000 faculty and staff.

Stearns himself quickly sent out a followup message assuring recipients that it was a hoax, which was being investigated.

Walsh said the university had contacted campus police, who are working with outside law enforcement to look into the hoax.

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Topics: Election 2008, Voting, voter fraud

ACORN

No Ruling Yet On Restraining Order For Rogers

Zachary Roth | November 4, 2008, 8:47AM

The court hearing the lawsuit filed by MALDEF against New Mexico GOP lawyer Pat Rogers did not rule yesterday on the plaintiffs' request for a restraining order to be placed on Rogers, reports the Albuquerque Journal.

The plaintiffs, two Hispanic voters in Albuquerque, want Rogers and Al Romero, the private investigator and ex-FBI agent hired by Rogers, prohibited from intimidating the plaintiffs or challenging their ballots.

The judge, William P. Johnson, questioned lawyers for the plaintiffs skeptically, reports the paper, but said the hearing will continue this morning.

Rogers' attorneys argued that Rogers had hired Romero not because he wanted to intimidate voters, but because he wanted to investigate ACORN for a possible lawsuit. ACORN had registered the plaintiffs to vote. Romero's visits to one of the plaintiffs, Dora Escobedo, and to another voter, were reported last month by TPMmuckraker and the New Mexico Independent.

But Escobedo told the court that Romero came to her home and intimidated her about her right to vote, adding that he "not only threatened me, but he made fun of me."

Romero's lawyer said Romero didn't threaten Escobedo, and that he had good reason to visit her because her voter registration form contained discrepancies.

After the hearing, Rogers told reporters: "This (lawsuit) is clearly a strategy to distract Republican lawyers from the duty at hand, which is getting out the vote."

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Topics: ACORN, Election 2008, Pat Rogers, Voting, voter fraud

ACORN

More Use Of P.I.s By GOP In New Mexico?

Zachary Roth | November 3, 2008, 5:00PM

Is the Republican National Committee, too, turning to private investigators to help make it harder to vote in New Mexico?

David O'Niell, a P.I in the state, has told the New Mexico Independent that he was contacted by Todd Stefan of SETEC investigations, who told O'Niell he was recruiting P.I.s to advise poll challengers on election day, and was working on behalf of the Republican National Committee.

Stefan declined to confirm to the Independent that he was working for the RNC, but said: "I was told to see if there were some individuals, people with investigative experience, IT [information technology] experience... to advise attorneys and make sure that everything goes smoothly."

Voting- and civil-rights groups last week filed suit against the New Mexico GOP and Pat Rogers, a lawyer associated with the party, after the Independent and TPMmuckraker reported that Rogers had hired a private investigator who questioned several Hispanics in Albuquerque about their right to vote.

No evidence has yet emerged tying the national GOP to that alleged scheme.

In Wisconsin, the Republican Attorney General has called for law enforcement agents to serve as poll-watchers.

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Topics: ACORN, Pat Rogers, Republican National Committee, Voting, voter fraud

ACORN

Restraining Order For NM GOP Lawyer?

Zachary Roth | November 3, 2008, 2:36PM

A hearing is scheduled for this afternoon in the suit filed last week by MALDEF against New Mexico GOP lawyer Pat Rogers. The suit, triggered by reporting from TPMmuckraker and others, alleges that Rogers hired a private investigator, Al Romero, to intimidate Hispanics in Albuquerque about their right to vote. Romero is also named as a defendant.

MALDEF, which is bringing the suit on behalf of two of the voters in question, wants an injunction blocking Rogers from conducting further alleged intimidation of the plaintiffs, and from challenging the plaintiffs' right to vote.

The hearing will occur at 3pm EST today, before U.S. District Court Judge Martha Vázquez in Albuquerque. We'll keep you posted on what happens.

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Topics: ACORN, Election 2008, Pat Rogers, Voting, voter fraud

ACORN

McCain Camp Can't Give Example Of Registration Fraud Leading To Voter Fraud

Zachary Roth | November 2, 2008, 11:33AM

A member of John McCain's "Honest and Open Election Committee" has admitted that he can't give a single example of voter registration fraud leading to actual voter fraud.

In an interview with Pro Publica, which was also published on Politico.com, Ronald Michaelson, a veteran elections administrator, acknowledged:

"Do we have a documented instance of voting fraud that resulted from a phony registration form? No, I can't cite one, chapter and verse."

The Honest and Open Election Committee was set up by the McCain camp to provide a veneer of expertise and non-partisanship to the campaign's efforts to stoke fears about voter fraud. In a September conference call, one of the committee chair's, ex-Missouri senator John Danforth, highlighted reports of faulty registration forms in Michigan, Colorado, and other states, and tried to link ACORN to Barack Obama.

Michaelson also admitted, in Pro Publica's words, that "an election-rigging scheme starting with phony application forms would not make much sense." But he argued that the mere perception of fraud can do damage to the integrity of the election.

Of course, the McCain campaign and other Republicans have been the foremost creators of that perception. Earlier this month in a presidential debate, McCain warned darkly that ACORN -- the community organizing group that Republicans have tried to turn into a voter-fraud boogeyman -- "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."

Pro Publica adds that a McCain campaign spokesman couldn't do much better than Michaelson:

Asked for specifics about the dangers of fake registration, Ben Porritt, a spokesman for the McCain campaign, provided links to 13 news clips and a 2003 Missouri state auditor's report. Eleven of the cases did not involve registration fraud. Two recounted how felons appeared to have cast illegal votes under their own names. The lone example of a forged registration leading to an illegitimate vote comes from The Wall Street Journal's John Fund, who in April 2006 wrote that a community organizer had improperly registered a noncitizen, and then "someone eventually voted in [the noncitizen's] name."

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Topics: ACORN, Barack Obama, John McCain, Voting, voter fraud

Department of Homeland Security

Conyers on Obama Aunt Leak: "Very Disturbing"

Zachary Roth | November 1, 2008, 12:54PM

Rep. John Conyers, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, has responded to the Bush administration's leak of information on the immigration status of Obama's aunt.

In a hastily written letter, Conyers makes the same connection that we did with the administration's leaking of information on the FBI's nationwide investigation of ACORN. Both leaks went to the Associated Press, and appear to have been done for political purposes.

There's some other news in the letter in regard to that leak about ACORN. Conyers writes:

[I]n recent weeks law enforcement sources leaked information about an alleged investigation of a community services organization, a leak that the Department of Justice informs me is now under investigation by the Department's Office of the Inspector General and Professional Responsibility.

So, two internal DOJ offices are looking into the ACORN leak. That's certainly worth keeping an eye on.

The full text of the letter follows after the jump...

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Topics: ACORN, Barack Obama, Department of Homeland Security, Justice Department, Voting, voter fraud

ACORN

Von Spakovsky and Co. Urge DOJ To Keep Probing Voter Fraud

Zachary Roth | October 31, 2008, 6:15PM

Five ex-DOJ officials have written to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, urging him to keep investigating whether ACORN committed voter fraud in its registration efforts, Roll Call reports.

The group, led by leading voting-rights foe Hans Von Spakovsky, wrote:

"We hope that you will assure the American people that your Department intends to investigate and prosecute any and all instances of voter registration and other fraud occurring in the days leading up to the election, and that you will enforce all of the federal voting rights laws that are important to preserving the fairness and security of the election process..."

The other members of the group, according to Roll Call, are Former Assistant Attorney General William Bradford Reynolds and former Deputy Assistant Attorneys General Roger Clegg, Michael Carvin and Robert Driscoll.

Earlier this month, sources leaked to the Associated Press that the FBI had launched a naitonwide investigation into ACORN. Since then, few details about the probe have emerged. DOJ has declined to confirm its existence on the record, and ACORN recently said it had not been contacted in connection to the investigation.

Von Spakovsky was nominated for a seat on the Federal Elections Commission last year, but the Democratic Senate refused to confirm him. TPMmuckraker reported in August that he had been given a temporary appointment at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

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Topics: ACORN, Hans von Spakovsky, Justice Department, Michael Mukasey, Voting, voter fraud

Voting

Conyers To Boehner: Enough With The Voter Fraud!

Zachary Roth | October 31, 2008, 5:51PM

House Judiciary Chair John Conyers has released a statement in response to Republican leader John Boehner's various recent efforts to get the Justice Department to pay more attention to voter fraud, despite scant evidence of such fraud.

Writes Conyers:

This endless campaign to press the Department into pursuing phantom claims of 'voter fraud' must end. So-called "voter fraud" is vanishingly rare and every time this subject is given a careful look it is found to have essentially no concrete impact in our elections. Indeed, according to Justice Department data, out of almost 200 million votes cast in federal elections since October 2002, only 102 individuals have been convicted of federal voter fraud offenses. Thus, Republican agitation on this issue is both unnecessary and costly, as Department resources are needed to combat serious matters of voter suppression. Fliers distributed in Virginia this week using state letterhead to mislead Democrats and Independents about the date of the election and recent reports of violence and intimidation against citizens working to register and turnout voters are real-world problems that directly impact citizens' right to vote. It is also disconcerting to see Members of Congress criticizing career personnel of the Department for their private political activity, which intrudes deeply upon their privacy and appears to have no bearing on their job performance.

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Topics: John Boehner, John Conyers, Justice Department, Michael Mukasey, Voting, voter fraud

Michael Mukasey

DOJ's List Of Counties For Election-Day Monitoring Looks On The Level

Zachary Roth | October 31, 2008, 5:01PM

As we noted earlier, the Department of Justice yesterday released a list of counties across the country to which it will send teams of federal observers to monitor polling places, as it does every election year.

Given DOJ's mixed record in recent years in protecting voting rights, and its efforts to push voter fraud cases despite a lack of evidence, we asked some experts whether the list of sites selected seemed appropriate.

Both Gerry Hebert, a former acting head of DOJ's voting-rights section, and Rick Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and a leading authority on voting law, said that it did.

Hebert, however, questioned the decision to send monitors to Noxubee and Wilkinson counties in Mississippi.

Hebert noted in an email to TPMmuckraker that in Noxubee, DOJ brought a controversial, though ultimately successful, suit on behalf of white voters in 2006, representing the first time that the Voting Rights Act had been used on behalf of whites.

"What interest would they have in sending federal observers now,?" Hebert asked.

As for Wilkinson county, Hebert wrote: "It's hard to see why DOJ would send poll watchers to a county where the issues seem to be among two factions of black voters and not alleged discrimination by whites."

Still, these concerns aside, it sounds like there's little reason to believe that DOJ's list skews inappropriately toward making hay out of swing-state voter-fraud claims at the expense of a focus on voter intimidation.

The complete list follows after the jump...

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Topics: Justice Department, Michael Mukasey, Voting, voter fraud

voter fraud

Another Court Rejects GOP Bid To Shut Down Indiana Early-Voting Sites

Zachary Roth | October 31, 2008, 4:33PM

The Indiana Republican Party just lost what looks like its last chance to shut down early voting centers in three heavily Democratic cities in Lake County.

A state appeals court judge has ruled, as expected, that the centers can stay open -- backing an earlier ruling by a county court.

County Republicans had sued to shut down the centers, arguing that a unanimous vote - rather than a simple majority -- of the county election board was required to open them.

The centers at issue are located in the cities of East Chicago, Gary, and Hammond, all of which are heavily Democratic, and crucial to Barack Obama's hopes of victory in the state.

Early voting has been proceeding at the centers for the last few weeks.

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Topics: Voting, voter fraud

Voting

Boehner: DOJ Politicized ... In Favor of Dems!

Zachary Roth | October 31, 2008, 3:41PM

At last, a high-ranking Republican has admitted what many Democrats and independent observers have maintained since the scandal over the US Attorney firings -- that, under President Bush, the Department of Justice has been inappropriately politicized.

But according to John Boehner, the House GOP leader, that politicization was actually carried out ... by Democrats.

Boehner today released a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, in which he complained about the department's decision no longer to include federal prosecutors in its teams of election observers, as it has done in previous years.

He also cited recent reports that some top officials in the department's voting-rights section had contributed to Barack Obama's campaign.

Writes Boehner:

Frankly, the real motive behind the Department's decision is undeniably suspect given that Obama partisans in key positions at the Department of Justice may well have played a pivotal role in making it.

Earlier this week, DOJ announced that it would decline a request by Boehner -- forwarded by the White House -- to intervene in a voting dispute in Ohio, on behalf of state Republicans.

Yesterday, the department released a list of the polling places to which it will send its team of observers. We'll have more on that shortly.

Boehner's full letter follows after the jump...

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Topics: Barack Obama, John Boehner, Michael Mukasey, Voting, voter fraud

ACORN

Penn Judge Rejects GOP Suppression Bid

Zachary Roth | October 31, 2008, 9:21AM

Add Pennsylvania to the list of states where GOP voter suppression efforts are going down in flames.

A state judge yesterday declined to support a grab-bag of a lawsuit filed by the party, which had sought to require ACORN both to turn over a list of the 140,000 voters it says it has registered, which could have made it easier for the GOP to challenge voters at the polls.

The suit also sought, among other things, to force ACORN air public-service announcements reminding first-time voters that they must bring identification to the polls, and to compel the state to provide more provisional ballots.

According to the Associated Press, the judge, Robert Simpson Jr., said "he was not convinced that the party and its fellow individual plaintiffs can ultimately prove their allegations that ACORN is fostering voter-registration fraud and that the state's election system lacks the safeguards to stop it."

Another one, apparently, bites the dust.

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Topics: ACORN, Voting, voter fraud

Voting

Rogers Denies Breaking Law, But Not Hiring P.I.

Zachary Roth | October 30, 2008, 4:19PM

We're late to this, but Pat Rogers -- the lawyer tied to the New Mexico GOP, who has been accused in a federal lawsuit of being behind a plan to intimidate voters -- has denied that he broke the law.

"I have not violated any law and Mr. Romero has not violated any law," Rogers said yesterday evening when reached by the Associated Press.

Rogers was referring to Al Romero, a private investigator. According to a lawsuit filed earlier this week by MALDEF, a group that advocates for the rights of Hispanics, Romero went to the homes of several Hispanic voters in Albuquerque to question them about their right to vote. The daughter of one of the women has said that Romero told her he was working for Rogers.

The visits were reported last week by TPMmuckraker and others.

Speaking yesterday to the AP, Rogers continued: "The lawsuit contains serious accusations that have no basis in law or fact. The suit is filed and advertised before the upcoming election for obvious purposes." He did not elaborate.

It's noteworthy that Rogers did not deny hiring Romero to contact voters about their eligibility -- as he did not when asked last week by the New Mexico Independent.

Reached this afternoon by TPMmuckraker, Rogers declined to discuss the case, saying he was too busy working on the election.

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Topics: Pat Rogers, Voting, voter fraud

Voting

GOP Voter Suppression: More Miss than Hit

Zachary Roth | October 30, 2008, 1:10PM

Yesterday we posted a quick round-up of the various voter-suppression schemes being pushed by Republicans in swing states around the country. And after looking at the list, one thing quickly becomes clear: most of the efforts have failed.

There's no one grand unifying theory for why that's true.

In some cases, the courts have rejected GOP efforts to make voting harder:

• In Indiana, for instance, a Superior Court judge declined to support a GOP bid to shut down early voting centers in Democratic-leaning cities in Lake County, and the state Supreme Court chose not to immediately intervene.

• In Wisconsin, a suit brought by Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen -- which he later admitted had been requested by the Republican Party -- seeking to force the state election board to re-confirm all newly registered voters was thrown out by a county court.

• In Michigan, a federal appeals court today blocked the Republican secretary of state, Terri Lynn Land, from throwing 5,500 newly registered voters off the rolls because their registration cards were returned as undeliverable, after voting-rights groups sued.

In other states, Democratic state officials or voting-rights advocates have held the line:

• In Nevada, Secretary of State Ross Miller denied a request from the state GOP to require voters to cast provisional ballots if they fixed mistakes in their voting information at the polls.

• In Colorado, a bid by Republican Secretary of State Mike Coffman -- who himself is running for a seat in the U.S. House -- to purge 14,000 voters from the rolls was only partially successful. After voting-rights groups sued, a settlement was reached yesterday allowing the voters to cast provisional ballots. According to the Rocky Mountain News, those ballots would "be presumed to be valid unless state and county officials prove otherwise." A lawyer for the voting-rights groups called the deal "a win-win."

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Topics: ACORN, Jennifer Brunner, Michael Mukasey, Voting, voter fraud

Voting

Conservative Group Intimidating Voters in Minnesota?

Zachary Roth | October 30, 2008, 11:05AM

Here's what could be the latest Republican voter intimidation scheme:

Larry Johnson of St. Paul, Minnesota, says that he received a phone call from a woman who claimed to be from the secretary of state's office working on voter fraud, reports the Associated Press. The woman asked about his voting record, said Johnson.

In a sworn affidavit, Johnson said the woman then told him she was working with Jeff Davis, who runs a socially conservative group, Minnesota Majority, that has been stoking fears of voter fraud lately.

Mark Ritchie, the state's Democratic secretary of state, said he has asked county and federal prosecutors to look into the call as possible voter intimidation.

In a statement posted on Minnesota Majority's website, Davis denied the claims of intimidation, but admitted:

Minnesota Majority has been conducting research into what appear to be inconsistencies in Minnesota's voter rolls. Voters with apparent duplicate registration records have been contacted by Minnesota Majority volunteers with a simple request to confirm the accuracy of their voter registration information. We believe these research activities to be in complete compliance with all state and federal laws.

The Department of Justice is currently looking into claims of voter intimidation in New Mexico, allegedly engineered by a lawyer connected to the state Republican Party.

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Topics: Voting, voter fraud

Voting

DOJ, Bucking White House, Won't Intervene in Ohio Voting Case

Zachary Roth | October 30, 2008, 9:09AM

Looks like the most high-profile of the various Republican voter-suppression schemes is faring no better than many of the others.

The New York Times reports that the Department of Justice will not require Ohio's Democratic secretary of state, Jennifer Brunner, to provide local election officials with lists of new voters who have mismatches in their registration information.

Late last week, in an unusual intervention, the White House had passed on a request by Republican House leader John Boehner that DOJ take action on the issue -- triggering outrage from voting-rights groups. But according to the Times:

The Justice Department has been in contact with Ohio election officials since early October and this week its lawyers determined they would not pursue litigation before the election, according to the sources familiar with the discussions.

The state Republican party had sued to force Brunner to hand over the information. Voting-rights advocates feared that it could allow the Republicans to launch a slew of voter challenges at the polls, and the Supreme Court rejected the GOP bid earlier this month.

Still, the Ohio Republicans are trying to make maximum political hay out of the dispute. They released a radio ad earlier this week accusing Brunner of "concealing evidence."

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Topics: Jennifer Brunner, Michael Mukasey, Voting, voter fraud