By Erin Ferns
This an entry in a series of blogs to keep people informed on current election reform and voting rights issues in the news.
Featured Stories of the Week:
In 5-Year Effort, Scant Evidence of Voter Fraud – New York Times
Panel Said to Alter Finding on Voter Fraud – New York Times
This week, two New York Times stories expose the reality of voter fraud, which has recently surfaced in conjunction with the politicization of the Department of Justice.
On Thursday's front page news, reporters Eric Lipton and Ian Urbina add evidence to the fact that politically motivated policy-making under the guise of combating voter fraud has lead to voter disenfranchisement. On Wednesday, Urbina wrote of the Election Assistance Commission's (EAC) downplaying their voter fraud report findings, which actually showed little evidence of voter fraud.
Not only does the issue of voter fraud prove to be false, but evidence shows the issue of voter fraud is a smokescreen to a greater end: suppressing the vote and shaping the electorate to favor the GOP. It is now evident, due in part to the Times stories - some of which was based on the same research that Project Vote has recently released in our Politics of Voter Fraud report – that the issue of voter fraud is a myth. The scandal surrounding the firing for the eight US Attorneys has helped expose the subversion of institutions that are supposed to protect voting rights into agents of partisan politics. The Times reported on Wednesday that the EAC exaggerated prevalence of voter fraud in a recent report, in spite of the authors' findings.
“Though the original report said that among experts 'there is widespread but not unanimous agreement that there is little polling place fraud,' the final version of the report released to the public concluded in its executive summary that 'there is a great deal of debate on the pervasiveness of fraud,'†the Times reported.
Politics, again, seems to come before fact, even in the Department of Justice, which purportedly fired at least two U.S. attorneys for not rigorously prosecuting voter fraud cases, which they, in fact, investigated but failed to find evidence of wrongdoing. According to the recent testimony of former Chief of the Voting Section of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division Joe Rich, the roles of political appointees and civil servants have blurred since 2002 as politically motivated decisions overruled the recommendations of career staff, as occurred in the Georgia voter ID case (which was ultimately declared unconstitutional). He later referred to is as “fidelity to GOP interests†in an L.A. Times op-ed in March.
From firing US attorneys for not aggressively pursuing voter fraud cases to the EAC rewriting its voter fraud study, to the Department of Justice approving flawed redistricting schemes and state-level voter ID bills, it is obvious that the GOP has politicized every aspect of administering the nations elections and enforcing voting rights. In this context, it is easy to see how “voter fraud†is just a facade to fuel passage of laws and regulations that are, in fact, simply legalized voter suppression efforts.
In Other News:
Restoring Voting Rights for Felons: Florida is the latest state to see the lightâ€â€recognizing that eventually, felons come out of jail, and rejoin society. Everyone wins if they become productive citizens - Newsweek
April 10, 2007 - It is the rare individual whose major concern upon release from prison is whether he or she retains the right to vote. Ex-offenders tend to be more concerned with more mundane mattersâ€â€such as obtaining proper identification, getting a job and finding a suitable place in the post-prison universe. Still, in today’s world the right to vote is inseparable from the right to participate fully in society. And a state cannot forever deny that right without also denying the possibility of redemption and rehabilitation.
Florida's ruling will allow some non-violent ex-felons to restore their voting rights. For more on felon disenfranchisement, visit www.sentencingproject.org.
Ohio county voting head steps down – Associated Press
CLEVELAND - The Republican chairman of the embattled Cuyahoga County elections board resigned Wednesday, days before he was to face a removal hearing.
Read this Project Vote diary on the OH Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner's initial request.
Fulton Voter Registrations Found In Dumpster – CBS 46 News
ATLANTA (CBS 46)--Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel launched an investigation Wednesday, into the dumping of approximately 75,000 active Fulton County voter registration application cards in a dumpster.
Norman Lear targets 18-year-olds with voter-registration drive – Associated Press
WASHINGTON – Television and film producer Norman Lear has joined forces with some of the Internet's most popular sites to encourage 18-year-olds to register and vote in the 2008 presidential campaign.
Erin Ferns is a Research and Policy Analyst with Project Vote’s Strategic Writing and Research Department (SWORD).
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A Serious Threat to Democracy
Democracy depends on people feeling that their votes matter. When people are discouraged from voting, either through deceptive mailings or through "purging" the voter rolls, or doubts about the voting machines, democracy suffers. People become alienated and those in power tighten their grip on government. It is way past time to establish a national, non-partisan agency, along the lines of the GAO, to standardize voting procedures and maintain voting rolls. This agency should be charged with ensuring that the politics of elections are restricted to campaigning, and the mechanics of elections are even-handed and open to inspection.