Views > September 27, 2007 > Web Only

Running, With Scissors

The Republican drive to cut off voters is the sleeper issue of 2008

By Hans Johnson

When Senators soon take up the nomination of Michael Mukasey to be attorney general, they have a special obligation to probe him on abuses of power in the Voting Section of the Department of Justice. Hearings for the would-be boss at DOJ must not pass without a proper accounting of how a Bush-appointed gang of dirty-tricksters, acting under a badge of federal authority and alleging voter fraud, has pressured states to spurn their own policies and erase voters from the rolls. Imagine an election board stacked with Nixon’s Plumbers.

Senators should keep the questions coming. The nominee’s response, better than any White House ballyhoo, will speak to his integrity and independence. And how reporters treat the problems plaguing the unit—as merely another partisan dispute in Washington or as the bending of an oversight body into a tool of selective disenfranchisement that might cost Americans their vote—may determine if the wrongdoing on the public dime will end. Media coverage could also decide if anyone gets held accountable.

How do we know the Voting Section has been misusing its authority? A federal judge, after reviewing the facts of its marquee anti-fraud case, said so. In April, U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey in Missouri ruled that the Voting Section “has sued the wrong parties” in its drive to force the state’s secretary of state to purge voters and reach some number of total registrants that the Feds might deem acceptable. The section conveniently overlooked the fact that cities and counties maintain the lists, not the state. Nor did it plan to deal with people wrongly cut off. Whatever the section’s arguments of phony voters, the judge wrote that it failed to show “that any voter fraud has occurred.”

How did the section stray so far from its mandate? For more than two years under chief John Tanner, it has adopted a definition of fraud that rests heavily on estimates and wishful thinking. The section sued four states and threatened 10 others with legal action due to voter rolls in at least one of every 10 jurisdictions it says contain more names than they should, based on census projections of adult citizens. Observers liken such demands to gathering phone directories then ordering local carriers to shut off phone service to any number not listed in the book.

What other clues indicate that the Voting Section is doing damage, and may fear detection? In July, Tanner refused to testify before a panel of the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. The need to call him as a witness became clear after news reports and Senate hearings revealed that two close colleagues, Brad Schlozman and Hans von Spakovsky, were cherry-picking evidence and pressing dubious cases to discredit Democrats and benefit GOP candidates in tight races.

Both men are central to the unfolding scandal over U.S. attorney firings. Von Spakovsky faces criticism for a number of actions to gut voting rights. Yet he is now a member of the Federal Election Commission. Schlozman, who replaced a terminated prosecutor in Kansas City, has now quit the DOJ. Earlier this month, he admitted to selecting staff there based on ideology, in violation of federal law.

Despite the fact that cities and counties keep Missouri’s voter records, the trio made the state a focus of their drive to cut off registered voters. A couple factors might explain why. First, it is a historic battleground whose election result most reliably indicates the outcome of presidential contests nationwide. Being a highly coveted prize makes the state a highly inviting target.

Second, the Bush Administration is in a long-running feud with the family of the state’s chief elections officer, Robin Carnahan. In 2000, just three weeks after his tragic death in a plane crash, her father Mel, then governor, defeated Senate incumbent John Ashcroft to win a Senate seat. (Robin’s mother, Jean, ultimately took that seat in her husband’s name.) Narrowly defeated amid unprecedented turnout from communities of color and low-income voters, Ashcroft stayed in Washington as Bush’s new attorney general. Both men exulted at the ouster of Jean Carnahan in late 2002. In 2004, Robin’s election as secretary of state, simultaneous with her brother’s ascendance as Dick Gephardt’s successor in Congress, marked the resurgence of the family’s brand of plain-spoken, progressive leadership.

Since 2005, Tanner and the partisans who took over the Voting Section from moderate predecessor Joe Rich don’t appear ready to bury the hatchet. Instead, they have brandished it, and not just toward targets in Missouri.

Democratic election administrators across the nation have felt the impact of the section’s bid to force purges of voter lists. The effect of such purges, similar to the botched purge of Florida rolls by ChoicePoint in 2000, would be to strip thousands of poor, elderly, student, disabled, and infrequent but still registered voters of their voting rights.

Earlier this month, AlterNet published the results of its investigation of state voter registration rolls and the roster of states targeted by Voting Section lawsuits and threatening letters aimed at cutting off voters from local registration rolls. A discernible pattern appears in the actions of the Voting Office: targeting chief state elections officers who are Democrats and excusing those who are Republicans.

For instance, of the four states (Indiana, Maine, New Jersey and Missouri) that the section has sued since 2005 in order to cut off voters from their rolls, three (all but New Jersey) have election chiefs with party affiliations. Two of the three (Maine and Missouri) are Democrats.

And of the 10 states (Iowa, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Vermont) to which the section sent threatening letters seeking to cut off registered voters, nine (all but North Carolina) have election chiefs with party affiliation. Five of them (Iowa, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Rhode Island and Vermont) are Democrats.

Of all these states, two (Missouri and Iowa) are presidential swing states likely to be extremely hard-fought in 2008, when every vote will matter. Both have election chiefs who happen to be Democrats and are in the Voting Section’s crosshairs.

AlterNet also found that voter rolls in four other states appeared to meet the criteria for triggering a threatening letter from the Voting Section to demand a purge of registrants. Of these states (Alaska, Colorado, Illinois and Michigan), three (all but Illinois) have election chiefs with party affiliations, and all three of them are Republicans. Yet, for some reason, they avoided Voting Section scrutiny and pressure to cut off voters. Two of them, Michigan and Colorado, are also ‘08 presidential swing states.

It is not as if even high-ranking Republicans are immune from the perils of voter purging. In August 2004, Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), intending to vote for himself on primary day, found his own name knocked off the registration rolls as he went to cast his ballot in the town of Mexico. His wife, still listed, had to vouch for him before he could have his say in his own reelection. This snafu suggests the larger chaos and frustration that ensues at polling places when massive amounts of cutoffs occur in the midst of a high-turnout election.

The miscarriage in the mission of the Voting Section and its big-footing into local election administration is emblematic of the rot throughout the Bush Administration. Not since the death of J. Edgar Hoover 35 years ago has control of information and federal authority been so tightly concentrated and secretive as in the vast executive branch of George Bush. Yet despite their own embrace of Big Brother, Republicans on the campaign trail have grown skilled at projecting this stigma onto Democrats by invoking state coercion and intrusion. Remember the rifle butts in the rescue of Elian Gonzales, or the scare tactics used to block health-care reform in ‘94?

Democrats in Congress can begin to fix the mess of the Voting Section by getting on-the-record answers and reasserting its purpose: more people properly registered and voting, not fewer. Whether Democrats on the campaign trail succeed in making its partisan manipulations backfire and blow up in the faces of their ‘08 rivals will show how much they have learned from the lost opportunities of the last 20 years.

As for Mukasey, he counts himself a fan of George Orwell, the foe of authoritarianism who coined the name Big Brother. A photo of the author, who conjured a regime where protection meant suppression and agencies did the opposite of their titles, even graces his office wall. If he does become the last attorney general of the Bush era, he will need to muster every ounce of Orwellian insight to navigate the administration he joins.

• subscribe to print magazine

  First Name Last Name Home Address City State Zip Code Email

  2-year, 24-issues, $44.95 1-year, 12-issue, $24.95

• stay in touch with our email newsletter

  Subscribe to our regular weekly e-mail newsletter. It's packed with updates on recent and upcoming stories, events, campaigns and things every progressive should be informed about. Check out a sample.

   

• email this article to a friend

  Your Name Your Email Recipient Email

  Personal message Thought you might be interested in this article from In These Times.

   

  Please help us prevent spam by verifying the word you see in the image above

  Send to multiple recipients. Just separate each email address with a comma.

• Reader Comments

  Nice job on the article.  I’m glad to see that voter purging by the Republicans is being exposed.  Check out this link to read about the Republicans have been doing this for over 50 years

  http://projectvote.org/newsroom/project-vote-news/press-release.html?tx_ttnews&a amp;#x5B;tt_news]=1206&tx;_ttnews[backPid]=75&cHa ash=79393fae39

  Posted by Jean on Sep 27, 2007 at 12:31 PM

  Masterfully articulated, HJ. It’s stimulating to see you tackle an important issue lost in the shuffle. It’s far too often we see ourselves lost in unwavering battles with no evidence and support. Great job!

  Posted by vince on Sep 27, 2007 at 10:05 PM

  The purging of Voter List’s is somewhat troubling.
  Somewhat because by law, certain felons cannot vote.  Some voter’s will have died. And the ones who don’t vote...well, what difference does that make.
  I’d be concerned when folks complain of showing up to vote and being fully qualified to vote and being turned down because their name had been purged.
  What really concerns me was that in 2000 Florida calmly announced that it usually had around 1500 votes that were unreadable for whatever reason.
  And, by inference, other states had similar situations.
  It would seem that there are too many different types of voting methods, some better than others.
  Any system that regularly produces more than 10 unreadable votes needs to be changed.
  And no system should be allowed that does not print out a paper copy showing which candidate or issue was voted for (or against for issues), allowing the voter to see that the selections are what the voter intended. That paper copy would be deposited with Election Judge and be the basis of any recount.
  Plus,and equally important, is the abolishing of the Electoral College.
  One Man. One Vote. Regardless of where you live.

  Posted by farmer on Oct 4, 2007 at 7:22 PM

  As we approach this year’s election day next Tuesday, November 6, it’s a good time to recall that even now, almost 7 years after the debacle of the 2000 election, there are still major problems with stealth voter suppression efforts. 

  * A nominee for a permanent spot on the Federal Elections Commission, Hans van Spakovsky, is still being considered for that post despite extensive evidence that he manipulated oversight and implementation of the Help American Vote Act while a manager at the Department of Justice in order to suppress votes in the 2004 election.

  * The city of San Francisco’s ethics commission rejected the effort by “Chicken John” Rinaldi, a candidate for mayor, to get public funding despite more than enough signatures and contributions, based on a bogus rule that requires voter registrations and drivers licenses to match (a classic voter suppression technique used, among others, by Republicans in Michigan, leading to the narrow election of Rep. Mike Rogers to Congress in 2000).  San Francisco, one of the most liberal cities in the country, nonetheless has politicians who want to protect their position—in this case, the mayor, Gavin Newsom.  Rules that may have no overt connection to voter suppression still function in that way.

  * Republican operatives have revived the effort to put on California’s ballot next year a proposal to split the state’s presidential vote in the Electoral College rather than the traditional winner-take-all.  The effort to force this through in California, which is likely to vote Democratic in 2008, but not in Republican-leaning states, is another effort to dilute voter power for partisan reasons.  Since most other states will retain winner-take-all, this would suppress the vote of all Californians in terms of affecting the presidential outcome.

  Woody Guthrie probably didn’t have voter fraud in mind when he wrote “The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd,” but the sentiment applies:

  Yes, as through this world I’ve wandered
  I’ve seen lots of funny men;
  Some will rob you with a six-gun,
  And some with a fountain pen.

  Posted by Fred Heutte on Oct 29, 2007 at 3:26 AM

• register a new account »Posting Security

  To participate in our forums, please register for a free account.

  Username Password

    Remember me
  

  Retreive lost password »

Member Login

Also by Hans Johnson

• Demolition Crew Butts In Where Deft Organizers Need To Tread
  
• The Next Gay Moment?
  
• Primary Importance
  For leaders of interest groups and social movements, power comes from being able to show elected officials that you know who, where, and how numerous these hell-or-high-water voters are within your ranks, and within their districts, at all times
• Running, With Scissors
  The Republican drive to cut off voters is the sleeper issue of 2008
• God--And Progressives--Save This Honorable Court!
  The Supreme Court's recent decisions further underscore the dire need to beat back the right's threats to basic fairness.
• The Administration Goes For Broke
  The cost of Iraq adds new dangers to the GOP's anti-tax pledges

Your financial support of In These Times is critical, because as a non-profit, we rely on donors like you who know that In These Times will never cede the debate to the right and its corporate allies.

Donate now and get a Kurt Vonnegut mug or t-shirt!