Am Ctr Voters rghts acvr

not to be confused with ed rogers?

oops, see rogers, pat

==

http://truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/70042:joel-bleifuss--the-fraudulence-of-voter-fraud

Joel Bleifuss | The Fraudulence of Voter Fraud

Tuesday, 17 April 2007 23:41 by: Anonymous

The Fraudulence of Voter Fraud

    By Joel Bleifuss

    In These Times

    Wednesday 18 April 2007

The Bush administration purged US attorneys for failing to prosecute crimes that didn't occur.

On April 6, 2006, in Washington, D.C., Karl Rove gave a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association and issued this dire warning:

We are, in some parts of the country, I'm afraid to say, beginning to look like we have elections like those run in countries where the guys in charge are, you know, colonels in mirrored sunglasses. I mean, it's a real problem, and I appreciate all that you're doing in those hot spots around the country to ensure that the ballot - the integrity of the ballot - is protected, because it's important to our democracy.

When Rove talks about protecting "ballot integrity," that is shorthand for disenfranchising Democratic Party voters. Over the last several years, the Justice Department, with the help of White House operatives, has sought to boost GOP electoral fortunes by orchestrating a national campaign against voter fraud. But the administration overreached on Dec. 7, when President George W. Bush fired eight U.S. attorneys, a political scandal that some say could become this president's Watergate.

    When Republicans talk about voter fraud they are referring to illegal voting by individuals, as opposed to vote fraud - systematic attempts to steal an election by an organized group of partisans. This emphasis on voter fraud has convinced eight states to pass laws requiring voters to present official photo identification in order to cast a ballot - laws that studies have shown suppress Democratic turnout among voters who are poor, black, Latino, Asian-American or disabled.

    Understanding that one way to win closely contested elections is to keep Democratic voters away from the polls, the Republican Party has tried to stoke public fears of voter fraud. On Feb. 15, 2005, the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee issued a report, "Putting an End to Voter Fraud," which said, "Voter fraud continues to plague our nation's federal elections, diluting and canceling out the lawful votes of the vast majority of Americans." To remedy the situation, the Senate Republicans advised Congress to "require that voters at the polls show photo identification."

    But voting experts maintain that voter fraud is not a national problem. In March, Lorraine C. Minnite, a professor of political science at Columbia University, released "The Politics of Voter Fraud," a report she prepared for Project Vote, an advocacy group based in Arkansas. She writes:

The claim that voter fraud threatens the integrity of American elections is itself a fraud. It is being used to persuade the public that deceitful and criminal voters are manipulating the electoral system.... The exaggerated fear of voter fraud has a long history of scuttling efforts to make voting easier and more inclusive, especially for marginalized groups in American society. With renewed partisan vigor, fantasies of fraud are being spun again to undo some of the progress America has made lowering barriers to vote.

This is borne out by a study from the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, which found that in the 2004 election, voters in states that required documentation of identity were 2.7 percent less likely to vote than voters in states where documentation was not required. Specifically, the study, commissioned by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, found that Latinos were 10 percent less likely to vote, Asian-Americans 8.5 percent less likely to vote and blacks 5.7 percent less likely to vote.

    What's more, despite GOP claims to the contrary, voter fraud is a very rare occurrence. In 2002 the Justice Department established the Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Initiative to ferret out fraudulent voters. On Oct. 4, 2005, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, with great fanfare, proclaimed, "We've made enforcement of election fraud and corrupting offenses a top priority." Yet according to an April 12 New York Times article, only 120 people have been charged with the crime over the past five years, leading to 86 convictions. Furthermore, the Times noted, federal attorneys say that most of the transgressions have been mistakes by immigrants and felons who simply misunderstood eligibility requirements.

    The extent of voter fraud is further complicated by the fact that earlier this year the Election Assistance Commission changed the conclusions of a report it had commissioned. The original report by outside election experts concluded, "There is widespread but not unanimous agreement that there is little polling place fraud." The commission deleted that sentence and replaced it with, "There is a great deal of debate on the pervasiveness of fraud."

    Rep. Jos Serrano (D.-N.Y.), who chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the commission, is disturbed by this apparently politically motivated substitution. He told In These Times:

This possibly could be another Watergate. We have to ask the questions, "Why was this report doctored, and how does this play into the larger picture of voter suppression and intimidation?" By directing public attention to voter fraud you divert attention from the fact that Americans in certain communities are not able to cast their votes properly and that their votes are not being counted. Is this something that this small new agency thought of by themselves or did they get marching orders from somewhere else, perhaps as far up as the White House?

Firing Prosecutors

    It appears that, under Rove's direction the White House has been planning to use U.S. attorneys to fan national fears of voter fraud. In his speech to the GOP lawyers, Rove listed 11 states that would play a pivotal role in the 2008 elections. Since 2005, Bush has appointed new U.S. attorneys in nine of those states: Florida, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, Arkansas and New Mexico.

    What's more, the firings of U.S. attorneys in New Mexico, Arkansas and Washington appear directly related to this Republican plan to exploit the issue of voter fraud and suppress Democratic turnout.

    In Arkansas, Bush fired a sitting U.S. attorney in order to appoint Rove prot g Tim Griffin. (See "The Talented Mr. Griffin" by Greg Palast on page 31.)

    In Washington, fired U.S. Attorney John McKay had refused to prosecute alleged voter fraud in the 2004 Washington governor's race, in which Democrat Chris Gregoire beat Republican Dino Rossi by 129 votes.

    On March 6, McKay testified before the Senate that after the election Republicans pressured him to open an investigation. He said his office had examined the allegations of voter fraud and decided there was not enough evidence to pursue a case.

    "Had anyone at the Justice Department or the White House ordered me to pursue any matter criminally in the 2004 governor's election, I would have resigned," McKay told the Seattle Times. "There was no evidence, and I am not going to drag innocent people in front of a grand jury."

In New Mexico, David C. Iglesiaswas equally suspect in the eyes of the GOP. Recall that in 2000, Gore beat Bush by 377 votes in New Mexico. Consequently, in 2004, Democrat-affiliated groups initiated voter registration campaigns in New Mexico. As a result, two boys, age 13 and 15, received voter cards in the mail. Iglesias responded by setting up a bipartisan task force to investigate. This didn't satisfy attorney Mickey D. Barnett, who represented the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign in New Mexico. He told Iglesias he should bring federal charges against a canvasser who forged their signatures, which he refused to do.

    In a New York Times op-ed, Iglesias wrote:

What the critics, who don't have any experience as prosecutors, have asserted is reprehensible - namely that I should have proceeded without having proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The public has a right to believe that prosecution decisions are made on legal, not political grounds.

Manufacturing Voter Fraud

    The issue of fraudulent voters undermining American democracy did not spontaneously erupt. To promote national concern about voter fraud, in March 2005 GOP operatives with ties to the White House established a 501(c)4 organization called the American Center for Voting Rights Legislative Fund (ACVR). The group went public by establishing a Web site, ac4vr.com. (The site has since been taken down for unknown reasons.)

    According to its 990 tax forms, ACVR is based in Midlothian, Va., and its executive director is Robin DeJarnette, who is also the founder and executive director of the Virginia Conservative Action PAC. However, according to the registration form for its Internet domain name, the group's address is a mailbox at a UPS Store in Dallas. The chairman of ACVR is Brian Lunde, a former Democratic National Committee official from Texas, who in 2004 was head of Democrats for Bush.

 ACVR specializes in issuing studies that purport to document a host of voter fraud cases, like the report titled: "Democrat operatives far more involved in voter intimidation and suppression in 2004 than Republicans."

    On March 21, 2005, four days after ACVR went public, Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), then chair of the Committee on House Administration, opened hearings on 2004 election irregularities. One person who testified was ACVR National Counsel Mark "Thor" Hearne II, who described himself as "a longtime advocate of voter rights and an attorney experienced in election law." In the aftermath of the 2000 presidential campaign, Hearne wasdispatched to Florida as a Republican observer in Broward County's manual recount, and in 2004 he worked as the national general counsel for Bush/Cheney '04 Inc.

    In his testimony, Hearne described ACVR as "committed to defending the rights of voters and working to increase public confidence in the fairness of the outcome of elections." And he submitted to the committee a copy of the ACVR's "Ohio Election Report," of which he was the lead author. That report read in part:

This [Democratic] voter registration effort was not limited to registration of legal voters but, criminal investigations and news reports suggest, that this voter registration effort also involved the registration of thousands of fictional voters such as the now infamous Jive F. Turkey, Sr., Dick Tracy and Mary Poppins. Those individuals registering these fictional voters were reportedly paid not just money to do but were, in at least one instance, paid in crack cocaine.

And in testimony on Dec. 7, 2006, the same day the prosecutors were fired, Hearne told the Election Assistance Commission: "Recent press reports suggest that voter registration fraud remains a significant issue in the recent mid-term elections."

    The press contact for ACVR is Jim Dyke, who was the communications director of the Republican National Committee during the 2004 election. In the fall of 2005 he was working in the White House trying to get Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court, before moving on to work in Vice President Dick Cheney's office. Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com reported that according to internet records, Dyke registered the ACVR Internet domain name, ac4vr.com, in December 2004. Those records have since disappeared from public view. (The source of ACVR's funding is also mysterious. According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "When asked to name any contributors to his nonprofit, Hearne claimed he did not know but said Lunde did. When Lunde was asked, he claimed he did not know but said Hearne did.")

Dyke is a good friend of his fellow Arkansan Tim Griffin, the new U.S. attorney in Arkansas. In 2004, both worked at the Republican National Committee helping Bush get re-elected. Dyke has been a vocal defender of Griffin's appointment as U.S. Attorney. "He has a real passion for the law," Dyke told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

    Rounding out the GOP operatives is Pat Rogers, who sits on the board of ACVR. An attorney for the Republican Party in New Mexico, he has been a vocal critic of fired U.S. Attorney Iglesias. According to the Albuquerque Tribune, Rogers is on the short list to replace Iglesias.

    Rove's Role

    Minnite, who did the study on voter fraud, has read through the reports prepared by ACVR and presented by Hearne at various official hearings. She noticed that the claims follow a predictable script. "It all starts to look the same," she says. "There is a pattern in the way the documents that claim to show voter fraud are put together. It is usually a compilation of news reports on allegations. There is no follow up, no research done, no analysis."

    "As I delved into it, I was faced with the question: 'Why do people think there is a lot of fraud when there isn't any real evidence?' I think people are being manipulated by politics, which takes the form of these reports that are dumped on the public. It is as if you get a big enough pile maybe you will convince people that the volume of fraud is quite large and that we have a serious problem."

    Wisconsin provides a case in point. At a March 13 press conference, White House Counsel Dan Bartlettidentified Wisconsin as one of the states from which the White House had "received complaints about U.S. attorneys."

    In 2005, U.S. Attorney Steve Biskup, who was appointed by Bush, investigated these allegations of voter fraud and reported that he found no evidence on which to press charges.

    It turns out that early in 2005, Republican officials in Wisconsin prepared a report titled "Fraud in Wisconsin 2004: A Timeline/Summary." The document, which was found in White House and Justice Department records released by the House Judiciary Committee, was written by Chris Lato, the former communications director for the state Republican Party, on orders from Rick Wiley, the party's executive director. The 30-page report, which covers Aug. 31, 2004 to April 1, 2005, contains 65 entries detailing voter fraud. The final example is titled: "RPW [Republican Party of Wisconsin] News Release: Evidence of Election Fraud Piles Up."

    The information contained in this Wisconsin compilation, made its way into a 78-page report released on July 21, 2005, by ACVR: "Vote Fraud, Intimidation & Suppression in the 2004 Presidential Election." In the introduction, the ACVR's Hearne and Lunde wrote that the report "documents hundreds of incidents and allegations from around the country.... [T]housands of Americans were disenfranchised by illegal votes cast on Election Day 2004 ...[P]aid Democrat operatives were far more involved in voter intimidation and suppressionactivities than were their Republican counterparts.... [R]equiring government-issued photo ID at the polls ... will help assure ... that no American is disenfranchised by illegal votes."

    And who was behind this trail of misinformation? On April 7, Daniel Bice, a columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, reported that a source familiar with the document told him, "The report was prepared for Karl Rove. Rick [Wiley] wanted it so he could give it to Karl Rove."

    On April 6, 2006, in Washington, at the aforementioned speech to Republican Party attorneys, Rove began with a joke: "I ran into [AVCR's] Thor Hearne as I was coming in. He was leaving; he was smart, and he was leaving to go out and enjoy the day." Rove then told the assembled party lawyers, "We have, as you know, an enormous and growing problem with elections in certain parts of America today."

    Rove should know. He helped grow the problem.

    Joel Bleifuss is the editor of In These Times, where he has worked as an investigative reporter, columnist and editor since 1986. Bleifuss has had more stories on Project Censored's annual list of the "10 Most Censored Stories" than any other journalist.

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http://bradblog.com/?p=5789

We 've been on the road for the last several days, so haven't been able to keep you up to date with some of the latest beats in the NM GOP/Rep. Heather Wilson "Vote-Buying" story, since our on-air audio interviews with some of the key players on Friday. (see our Special Coverage Page here for the full background.)

New Mexico journalist and TV host Dennis Domrzalski --- who broke the story in the blogosphere first, including the not-insignificant detail that coverage of the original allegations had been spiked by NM's largest news/talk radio outlet KKOB-AM 770, leading to the resignation of their award-winning news anchor, Laura MacCallum, who had originally both witnessed and aired the charges --- has been advancing it smartly over the last several days. As The BRAD BLOG reported exclusively in detail last week, KKOB's news director Pat Allen has been having a difficult time keeping his stories straight about why exactly he spiked the stories after the Wilson campaign contacted him to complain about them several times.

Domrzalski will have a guest blog for us here shortly on the latest latest, but to quickly catch you up with notable developments over the last several days...

On Sunday, Eye on New Mexico, co-hosted by Domrzalski on Albuquerque's NBC affiliate, featured both NM's former Republican David Cargo, one of the several elected officials to make the vote-buying allegations against Rep. Heather Wilson (who is vying for the GOP nomination to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Pete Domenici), and Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White (who is vying for the GOP nomination to run for the seat Wilson is vacating to run for Domenici's), and GOP operative Pat Rogers. You can watch the show online right here: Part 1, Part 2.

Rogers is likely best known to the national audience for having inappropriately pressured NM's former US Attorney David Iglesias on behalf of the GOP front group calling themselves "American Center for Voting Rights" (ACVR) to bring phony "voter fraud" charges before the '04 and '06 elections in the state. The BRAD BLOG has covered the ACVR extensively since we originally outed the "non-partisan" voting rights group, and their direct White House/GOP ties beginning in early 2005. Iglesias will be testifying on Wednesday to a Senate panel on the fraudulent "voter fraud" matter and its ties to the U.S. Attorney Purge to which Iglesias fell victim.

Rogers continued his work over the weekend as an unapologetic operative/stooge by making an ass out of himself on the show, attempting to run interference as swiftboater-in-chief hoping to deflect the damage of the Vote-Buying Scandal. On the show he attempted to distract from the actual charges in the case, by producing what Cargo has now called a "magical invoice," from four years ago, alleging someone in the party had previously paid the former Governor's registration fee to a past GOP event. Oddly enough, the invoice was dated last week! Clearly, the GOP swiftboaters are losing their touch.

Further, Rogers has now been forced to retract additional claims made on the show, alleging that Cargo, a two-term GOP governor, instrumental in building the party in the state over the last 3 or 4 decades, had donated only to Democratic candidates. Facts mean little, political power means all, to slimers like Rogers.

Earlier in the weekend, Domrzalski also offered a nice round-up of Wilson's "horrible week," asserting that she has only herself to blame for her campaign's horrible handling of this PR fiasco.

There's your quick catchup. See all of those links for many more details. And we'll have the latest by Domrzalski himself posted here at The BRAD BLOG shortly...

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/img-src-http-www-talkingpointsmemo-com-images-pat-rogers-muck-jpg-vspace-5-hspace-5-align-left-nm-gop-lawyer-pushing-voter-fraud-it-s-single-greatest-wedge-issue-ever

Yesterday we told you about Pat Rogers, the New Mexico Republican lawyerwho, according to reports, is deeply involved in the state party's effort to make an issue out of voter fraud -- despite essentially no evidence that such fraud is occurring. As we noted, Rogers also played a central role a few years ago in pressuring former U.S. attorney David Iglesias to bring politically motivated voter-fraud cases. Iglesias' reluctance to bring such cases led to his firing in 2006.

But it's worth paying a bit more attention to Rogers, to see how the Justice Department's new nationwide investigation into ACORN, in which New Mexico seems to be a crucial focus -- appears to represent the very same politicization of DOJ that was exposed in the scandal over the US attorney firings.

As we noted yesterday, Rogers' role in pressing Iglesias to pursue voter fraud prosecutions was extensive. According to the OIG report on the firings, Rogers set up a lunch meeting with Iglesias, and met with an FBI agent -- among many other activities -- to push the issue.

Perhaps most damagingly, the report contains a September 2004 email sent to Iglesias and several staffers for New Mexico's GOP congressional delegation, in which Rogers admitted that he was interested in the issue in large part for its potential to help the GOP:

I believe the [voter] ID issue should be used (now) at all levels - federal, state legislative races and Heather [Wilson]'s race ... You are not going to find a better wedge issue ... I've got to believe the [voter] ID issue would do Heather more good than another ad talking about how much federal taxpayer money she has put into the (state) education system and social security ... This is the single best wedge issue, ever in NM. We will not have this opportunity again ... Today, we expect to file a new Public Records lawsuit, by 3 Republican legislators, demanding the Bernalillo county clerk locate and produce (before Oct 15) ALL of the registrations signed by the ACORN employee.

But Rogers is no mere local player on the Republican voter fraud team. He was on the board of the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR), a fake think-tank which was little more than an effort by GOP operatives to offer an intellectual gloss to politically motivated claims of voter fraud -- and which abruptly closed down operations in 2007.

ACVR was run by Mark "Thor" Hearne, who served as national election counsel to President Bush's 2004 reelection campaign. Jim Dyke -- who was the communications director of the Republican National Committee during the 2004 election, and went on to work for both the White House and for Vice President Cheney -- was also involved.

Writing in Slate last year, election-law expert Rick Hasen described ACVR's modus operandi:

Consisting of little more than a post-office box and some staffers who wrote reports and gave helpful quotes about the pervasive problems of voter fraud to the press, the group identified Democratic cities as hot spots for voter fraud, then pushed the line that "election integrity" required making it harder for people to vote. The group issued reports (PDF) on areas in the country of special concern, areas that coincidentally tended to be presidential battleground states. In many of these places, it now appears the White House was pressuring U.S. attorneys to bring more voter-fraud prosecutions.

Here's Rogers, on behalf of ACVR, telling CNN back in 2004 about the need for "safeguards to make sure that citizens only are voting."

And now this is the guy who's involved in pushing voter fraud claims in connection with an investigation in which the FBI is already involved.

Rogers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It's also worth keeping in mind that New Mexico -- which went for Al Gore in 2000 by just 365 votes, and President Bush in 2004 by around 6000 -- is crucial for John McCain's chances. Today, MSNBC.com quotes an RNC official saying: "[T]he numbers -- public and private -- in the [south west] have swung wildly. We believe the possibility of NV or NM breaking at the last minute is likely and we have our dominos lined up to knock down the win at the last minute."

It looks like one of those dominoes is Rogers' effort to use bogus claims of voter fraud as "the single best wedge issue ever."

==

palast bbb:

The Hysteria Factory...

Oops. He’s telling a United States attorney to indict citizens, and attacking his failure to “move” when the senator tells him too.

I asked the prosecutor if Rove had him removed as punishment for not bringing the fake cases. “If his intent was, ‘look what happened with Iglesias,’ if that was his intent, he’s in big trouble. That is"obstruction of justice, one classic example.”

Iglesias was screwing them bad. The captain and eight other prosecutors were getting all precious about bringing bogus cases. That was undermining the GOP’s attempt to obtain new voter ID laws. The failure to find illegal voters put the lie to their campaign to prove the nation’s top voter registration organization, ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), had registered fraudulent voters. Getting ACORN was Republican operative Pat Rogers’ obsession, which he made into a national cause of the GOP and other politicians in the White Caucus as lawyer for the “nonpartisan” American Center for Voting Rights. It should have been called, American Center Against Voting. Everything the group proposed would cut the number of citizens voting by millions.

I wanted to ask Rogers why he brought in Rove and why he had Captain Iglesias gunned down. But Rogers didn’t want to answer my formal request for BBC TV. But I figured he couldn’t pass up the free champagne they would pour at a GOP victory party. At the soiree to which I obtained press credentials under another name, I caught Rogers in half-sip with an unseen microphone that captured his personal reviews of my reporting skills. “He’s an asshole,” he told a crony before greeting me warmly as the cameras rolled.

“Iglesias was not capable in his job.” Which was, apparently, hunting ACORN.

“ACORN hired a collection of people who fraudulently registered persons who are not eligible to vote. ACORN is working for the Democratic Party,” said Rogers. (He wore a flag lapel pin the party handed to all the champagne sippers. They gave me one of the Republican freebie flags. I still have it in the wrapper. Take a look: Made in China.)

Had Rogers unmasked a conspiracy between ACORN and the Democratic Party��covered up from them by US Attorney Iglesias, a Republican? Wow!

"Conspiracy,” said Rogers mysteriously," is a loose word.” Rogers is fond of loose words. He’d recently held a press conference waving a list of a half-dozen fraudulent voters registered by ACORN. With his full house of illegal voters, Rogers made a huge splash in the papers. Then Iglesias made a total ass out of Rogers, by not busting even one.

What the hell, even a jerk reporter like me will give Rogers a chance. I checked out all six of these ne'er-do-wells, these fugitives from justice. I began at a diner in Cerritos where I tracked Melissa Tais, notorious for allowing another voter with another signature to use her name so she and her confederate could vote twice.

Actually, what she’d done was fill out one registration form at an ACORN table, but never received the receipt. So, following the law’s requirements, she reregistered, this time signing while holding the form in her hand so the signature was a little shaky—resulting in two admittedly different-looking signatures.

So, did she vote twice? No. County officials hauled her into a hearing and it shook her up so much she wouldn��t vote at all. And that’s what they wanted.

But Iglesias wouldn’t play and ACORN continued to register Hispanic and low-income voters until 2009, when Andrew Breitbart (who has since returned to the bosom of Satan) blew up some cockamamie sting which had nothing to do with voting—and put ACORN out of the registration business. (ACORN’s one-time lawyer, Barack Obama, averted his gaze as the media jackals savaged the poor folks’ group, then paid for his pusillanimity in 2010 when Congress flipped color from Blue to Red.)

The US attorney firings occurred just in time for the 2008 election. Iglesias wasn’t alone, of course. Tom Heffelfinger, Republican US attorney for Minnesota, was on the hit list for defending Native American voters from an attack by the GOP’s Minnesota secretary of state. Iglesias called his buddy in Arkansas who was taken down for similar pangs of conscience, but agreed to step aside without a fight so his friend, President Bush, could make his own choice.

And Bush’s choice was...Tim Griffin.