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=oops see other node=<a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2021/11/16/alec-academy-featured-a-whos-who-of-voter-suppression-leaders/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2021/11/16/alec-academy-featured-a-whos-who-of-voter-suppression-leaders/</a>
an “Academy” for state lawmakers on voter suppression strategies run by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in July featured a veritable who’s who of the right-wing leaders behind this year’s disinformation campaign about voter fraud and assaults on voting rights across the country, documents obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) show.While the July 26-28 session was ostensibly led by the dark money group Honest Elections Project, it was organized, hosted, and bankrolled by ALEC, despite repeated claims by its CEO, Lisa Nelson, that the group does not work on voting issues.Nelson provided the formal welcome at the conference’s opening session, ALEC staff organized turnout, and ALEC provided two nights of accommodations at the five-star Grand America Hotel, five meals, and a $450 travel reimbursement for attendees. ALEC’s annual meeting was held at the same hotel immediately after the Academy.An invite published by CMD in July stated that “13 legislators from across the country” would be in attendance, but the materials acquired by CMD do not include an attendance list.Rather than email materials to ALEC lawmakers that may be subject to open records laws, ALEC distributed hard copies of the agenda at registration along with a “zip drive containing a resources document and a one-pager on your state’s election policies,” according to an email from Sarah Wall, ALEC’s manager of legislative outreach and coalitions, obtained by CMD. Wall’s email also lists Michael Bowman, president of ALEC Action, as a key contact for the event.Nelson tipped her hand about ALEC’s voter suppression subterfuge in May at a meeting of the far-right Council for National Policy. Video of the event obtained by CMD shows Nelson speaking frankly about ALEC’s work on voting and revealing its plans to outsource model policy on the controversial topic to avert the spotlight. “We don’t have model policy. We will be developing that at the Honest Elections Project [Academy], through them,” Nelson said.Honest Elections Project, the group ALEC chose to carry the ball on its voting agenda, is a dark money operation formed in February 2020 to push for voting restrictions and spread baseless and dangerous claims about election fraud, laying the groundwork for Trump’s attempt to overturn the election. It is a project of The 85 Fund, the new legal name for the Judicial Education Project, a group linked to Leonard Leo that played a central role in Trump’s effort to pack the federal judiciary with right-wing judges.Speakers at the Academy featured many of the key strategists and leaders on the Right spreading misinformation around voter fraud, promoting Trump’s lies around the 2020 election, and pushing sweeping new voting restrictions.Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita gave the keynote address. A proponent of Trump’s Big Lie that the election was stolen, Rokita recently testified in front of the U.S. Senate against strengthening the federal Voting Rights Act.Rokita was one of only four state attorneys general to not sign a National Association of Attorneys General letter condemning the Jan. 6 violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and is a member of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA). RAGA was a member of the “March to Save America” coalition that organized the Jan. 6 rally, and its policy arm, Rule of Law Defense Fund, sent out robocalls urging supporters to “march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal.”
Agenda Focused on Election LegislationMost of the Academy sessions focused on legislation, giving legislators a chance to discuss bills to restrict voting that have already been introduced and passed in their states this year and hear from Republican-aligned leaders about what more they think needs to be done.By the time ALEC held its voter suppression Academy in July, 18 states had already passed 30 laws this year making it harder to vote, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.The Honest Elections Project’s Executive Director Jason Snead, who worked with ALEC to organize the event, laid out “priorities for election integrity across the states” and polling results in a breakfast session and appeared on another panel on how to “shore up” legislative control over election processes with Jason Torchinsky and Lee Goodman.The Honest Elections Project has aggressively promoted a radical legal theory called the “independent state legislatures doctrine,” which holds that state courts don’t have the authority to review state election laws and would empower heavily gerrymandered state legislatures to determine election outcomes.Republican legislators have already introduced and passed bills in 2021 “interfering with nonpartisan local election administration and consolidating power to administer and determine elections results themselves,” the Voting Rights Lab reported.Snead is a former senior policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation where he developed its Election Fraud Database, which the Brennan Center for Justice says “grossly exaggerated” the extent of voter fraud. Torchinsky is general counsel for the National Republican Redistricting Trust and has been defending ALEC against CMD’s state complaints alleging that ALEC illegally gave sophisticated voter management campaign software linked to the Republican National Committee to its legislative members.Goodman is an elections attorney and a former Republican chairman and commissioner of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) between 2013 and 2018.Jessica Anderson, the executive director of Heritage Action, and Ken Blackwell, executive director of the MAGA voter suppression center at America First Policy Institute led another legislative session on “securing absentee ballots.” Anderson bragged to Heritage donors in April that policies, “severely restricting mail ballot drop boxes” and “preventing election officials from sending absentee ballot request forms to voters” were among recommendations Heritage gave Georgia for its massive voter suppression bill.Blackwell’s Center for Election Integrity recently published a “Top 25 Common-Sense State Election Integrity Reforms” fact sheet that includes these Heritage recommendations alongside other extreme voter suppression wish-list items, such as eliminating no-excuse absentee ballots and requiring an affidavit for absentee applications.Blackwell also moderated a panel at the Academy with state legislators “discussing election challenges they’ve faced in their own states.”Another panel over breakfast covered “things to consider with implementation of laws” related to election day voter registration, “election observer protections,” and organizing seniors to work the polls. Chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission Donald Palmer, a Trump appointee, and Cleta Mitchell, chair of the Conservative Partnership Institute’s Election Integrity Network, led the session.Mitchell is a Big Lie fueler and Trump legal advisor who lost her job at Foley & Lardner following news that she participated in a January call in which Trump asked Georgia election officials to “find” enough votes to make him the winner of the state’s electoral votes.“On Dec. 30, Cleta Mitchell wrote to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and offered to send some 1,800 pages of documents purporting to support claims of election fraud,” The Washington Post Magazine reported. Meadows is now a colleague of Mitchell’s at the Conservative Partnership Institute.Three Republican secretaries of state, Tennessee’s Tre Hargett, Kentucky’s Michael Adams, and West Virginia’s Mac Warner, spoke on a panel about “what policies the states need to employ to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat.”“Easier to vote and harder to cheat” has been a favored talking point of Republicans in recent years.All three are active in the Republican Secretaries of State Committee (RSSC), with Hargett serving as chair and Adams as vice chair. Republican secretaries of state produced a report on “Best Practices for Making It Easier to Vote and Harder to Cheat” for the Republican State Leadership Committee, obtained by CMD. The RSSC holds monthly calls that Commissioner Palmer often attends. Secretary Warner and Palmer also participated in an “off-the-record” Election University session on June 21 as part of the U.S. House GOP’s “Faith in Elections Project,” as first reported by CMD.
ALEC Lawmakers Consider LitigationALEC’s Academy featured two panels on litigation. The first dealt with “anticipating challenges to the Voting Rights Act in Arizona,” legal challenges mounted by Democratic voting rights attorney Marc Elias, and redistricting fights, and was led by with Republican lawyers Torchinsky, Michael Thielen, and Brian Barnes.Thielen is the executive director of the Republican National Lawyers Association and served on the national board of Lawyers for Trump in 2020. Barnes was involved in legal challenges to changes in voting procedures in North Carolina and Pennsylvania last fall.Goodman and Utah’s former Solicitor General Tyler Green led the second panel on “operationalizing litigation challenges.” Noted in the description of the panel are “ways to challenge the scope of litigation attacks on new election integrity legislation (defense) as well as advance the ball on election integrity (offense).”As of Oct. 3, “at least 43 voting cases have been filed in 12 states, and Georgia and Texas lead the way with ten new lawsuits each in 2021,” the Brennan Center reports.
Training Sessions on “the Left”Two trainings focused on “the Left” filled out the remaining agenda at the ALEC Academy. Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow and manager of the Heritage Foundation’s “Election Reform Initiative,” and Ken Cuccinelli, former Trump staffer and chairman of the Election Transparency Initiative, led a session focused on “the Left’s attack on our election system” through “state-level attacks on election integrity legislation” and HR 1, the sweeping voting rights and campaign reform bill pending in Congress....Spakovsky, who was appointed by Trump to his voter fraud myth from the Right for well over a decade.president of the  Scott Walter gave the keynote for a “Mapping the Left Lunch.” Walter and CRC received funding from the Bradley Foundation... ;inspired by CMD’s SourceWatch, called “Influence Watch.” The site was “constructed in partnership with Berman and Company,” run by PR spin doctor Richard Berman, and in collaboration with ALEC.<div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div></div><div>an 220</div><div>no lnx
GOP doesn’t want to hear about Russian interference. It’s too busy wrecking American elections on the ground level
Written by Sophia Tesfaye / Salon February 24, 2020Ever since the 2016 election, the U.S. intelligence community has consistently claimed that Russia and its agents continue to work to undermine American elections. When intel officials returned to Congress on Feb. 13 to warn — as required by law — that Russians are already interfering in the 2020 election to aid President Trump, several Republican lawmakers pushed back against the assessment before rushing to the White House to complain.
“I’d challenge anyone to give me a real-world argument where [Vladimir] Putin would rather have President Trump and not Bernie Sanders,” Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, told The New York Times after the briefing before the House Intelligence Committee. According to reports, the intelligence community’s top election security official told committee members that multiple agencies have concluded that Russia wants President Trump re-elected to serve the Kremlin’s interests. Days later, Trump booted the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, and replaced him with Richard Grenell, a political lackey who lacks any relevant experience.
This rinse and repeat of Republican corruption and cover-up at the expense of our elections is nothing new. Recall that Robert Mueller’s investigation concluded the Russians had hacked both the Democratic and Republican national committees. The DNC’s information was released ahead of the 2016 election, while the RNC’s information was withheld — presumably to control the GOP. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Republican leader in the Senate, then threatened President Obama that if his administration went public with information about Russian interference, he would tell the voters that it was Obama who was interfering with the election.
At least a dozen Republican congressional campaigns went on to use materials stolen from Democrats by Russian hackers during the 2016 election. The GOP coverup continued within hours after Mueller’s testimony about foreign election interference before the House Intelligence Committee in 2019, when the Republican-controlled Senate moved to block four separate bills to defend the U.S. democratic process.
In a clear demonstration of the principle that rampant corruption always begins at the top, the RNC announced plans this week to support the downriver ripples of Republicans’ long-term war against democracy.
Republican lawmakers across the country, faced with losing the popular vote by greater margins election after election, have responded by restricting access to the ballot before elections — and then crippling the power of winning Democratic opponents after an election. In Kentucky, a GOP supermajority in the state legislature just voted to strip some executive powers from newly-elected Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat. Beshear won a closely contested election in which Republican incumbent Matt Bevin, who initially refused to concede.
It’s a move replicated by Republicans in North Carolina after losing the governorship in 2016, in Wisconsin after the 2018 defeat of Republican Gov. Scott Walker, and in Michigan, where Democrats swept every statewide office in 2018’s midterm elections. Now the RNC, along with Trump’s campaign, plans to spend millions to defend the GOP’s nationwide efforts to thwart democracy ahead of the 2020 election.
As Politico first reported, RNC chair Ronna McDaniel has committed to spend $10 million in legal fees this cycle to defeat what she called “the Democrats’ voter suppression myth” and to defend Republican legislation that imposes draconian restrictions on voter behavior, like Michigan’s potential 90-day prison sentence for anyone found guilty of providing transportation to the polls for a person who is able to walk — even a legally blind voter who cannot drive.
“These actions are dangerous, and we will not stand idly by while Democrats try to sue their way to victory in 2020,” McDaniel said of lawsuits challenging Michigan voting laws. McDaniel pledged to use the RNC’s resources to “aggressively defend the integrity of the democratic process and support the right of all eligible voters to cast an effective ballot.”
Republicans in battleground states like Florida are already gearing up for Election Day voter challenges on citizenship and residency grounds, as evidenced by a new GOP bill that allows the political parties to assign poll watchers from outside a given district. In 24 states, any citizen can challenge a voter without documentation to prove his or her eligibility. In Indiana, Republicans are again advancing a bill that would allow county election officials to kick voters off the rolls immediately without notice, even after two federal courts found such a practice violates voters’ rights. Republicans in several states have introduced a new crop of voter ID bills ahead of the 2020 elections.
So while Republicans in Congress openly act to support Russian interference in our elections, Republicans in state legislatures across the country are determined to limit the number of Americans who can actually vote. Without these twin assaults on democracy, they know they can’t win.
Sophia Tesfaye is Salon’s Deputy Politics Editor and resides in Washington, D.C. You can find her on Twitter at @SophiaTesfaye</div><div></div><div>That said, there are some glaring omissions in Bradley’s applications. Bradley failed to mention her involvement in the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA), even though the application asks for the candidate’s partisan or nonpartisan political involvement. <a href="https://www.rnla.org/about/default.asp" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" border="border" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">According to its website</a>, the RNLA “builds the Republican Party goals and ideals through a nationwide network of supportive lawyers who understand and directly support Republican policy, agendas and candidates.” In addition, these lawyers come to the party’s aid during elections. The group’s website states that it “provides election law training from preeminent election law professionals.” <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/153435/republican_lawyers_group%27s_own_study_undercuts_vote_fraud_claims/" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" border="border" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">The Republican Party and the RNLA argue that there’s widespread voter fraud, a belief that has been thoroughly debunked,</a> of course, but it’s led to restrictive voting regulations around the country, including Wisconsin’s GOP-backed voter ID law.</div><div>=</div><div></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/how-republicans-have-a-coordinated-attack-to-assure-an-electoral-victory-in-2020">https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/how-republicans-have-a-coordinated-attack-to-assure-an-electoral-victory-in-2020</a></div><div>
</div><div><div>no lnx</div><div>
</div><div>How Republicans have a coordinated attack to assure an electoral victory in 2020</div><div>
</div><div>Written by Terry Schwadron / Raw Story, DC Report December 31, 2019</div><div>
</div><div>Set aside the would-be political boomerang effects of impeachment or even of having a presidential reelection candidate who seems to draw sustenance from public insults and personal boasts.</div><div>
</div><div>If you’re the Republican Party, apparently it is not enough to use the power of incumbency for reelection, or the argument that you cut taxes or that Donald Trump has been “keeping promises”—at least in a sort-of manner.</div><div>
</div><div>Republicans have tagged a coordinated attack on the voter rolls to try to assure electoral victory. Rather than celebrate the fact that more voters may want to join the 40% of us who troop loyally to the polls on all sides, Republicans repeatedly seems to be targeting those who might vote against them.</div><div>
</div><div>In Wisconsin, a judge appointed by a Republican governor recently used an extreme and malicious interpretation of a Wisconsin state voting law to throw about 234,000 voters off state rolls. The decision on a case brought by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law &Liberty, to force the state elections commission to keep voting rolls up to date and drop voters within 30 days of not answering a letter of confirmation from the elections panel.</div><div>
</div><div>In Georgia, it was the Republican Gov. Brian Kemp himself, the former secretary of state who had overseen voter operations and elections, who summarily disqualified 300,000 voters, overwhelmingly black and rural, from being able to vote. It was Kemp who used similar voter suppression techniques to defeat Stacey Adams, the former black Speaker of the House for governor. Adams has struck back with state and nationwide campaigns to foster voter registration.</div><div>
</div><div>In Washington, Republicans stuck together to form enough opposition to kill what is called HR 4, a bill to reinstate various portions of the defunct Voters Rights Act to ensure balance in voter registration. The background here is that a decade ago, the U.S. Supreme Court had held the Voters Rights Act of 1965 no longer needed because it was adjudged by a majority of the court that states had stopped much of its history of voter suppression by race.</div><div>
</div><div>There are other cases as well, in Ohio and Texas, for example, but the trend is clear. The insurance policy Republicans seek is to limit the numbers of people who might vote, particularly in a situation where the thought is that new voters, like college students at a particular campus, or immigrants, might lean Democratic in registration and voting.</div><div>
</div><div>Republicans seek to limit the numbers of people who might vote, particularly in a situation where the thought is that new voters, like college students at a particular campus, or immigrants, might lean Democratic.</div><div>
</div><div>Meanwhile, Democratic efforts on voter registration are organized around finding new voters using guns, same-sex issues, and family economics as lures. The new Democratic governor in Kentucky, Andy Bashear, has added 140,000 to voter rolls by re-enabling felons who completed their sentences, something tried and squashed in Florida. Local campaigns have focused on campuses around the country.</div><div>
</div><div>Add to this the idea of the growing number of court challenges to partisan, gerrymandered districts, including those in North Carolina this year, and you have the outlines of a coordinated campaign. Each of the actions is local, but the overall impact will be felt in national elections.</div><div>
</div><div>A National Public Radio has noted, since the 2010 elections, 24 states have implemented new restrictions on voting. Alabama now requires a photo ID to cast a ballot. Other states such as Ohio and Georgia have enacted “use it or lose it” laws, which strike voters from registration rolls if they have not participated in an election within a prescribed period of time.</div><div>
</div><div>Mother Jones journalist Ari Berman, author of “Give Us the Ballot, ”has said that many of the restrictions are part of a broad, continuing Republican strategy to tighten access to the ballot — an effort that was bolstered in 2013 by the Supreme Court’s ruling.</div><div>
</div><div>In Georgia, the state moved to block would-be voters if their voter registration application names on the voter registration did not exactly match other state databases, these voters were sent a letter telling them that their applications were pending and they needed to provide more information to election officials. Previously, these voters could show up and vote at the polls with the correct ID, but not vote by mail. If you got a letter in the mail that said there was a problem with your registration, you probably would think that you weren’t eligible to vote.</div><div>
</div><div>The Associated Press reported that Justice Clark, a senior political adviser and senior counsel to Trump’s reelection campaign, was caught discussing 2020 voter suppression efforts while at a Wisconsin chapter meeting of the Republican National Lawyers Association, though Clark denies it and says he was discussing “false accusations” that the GOP engages in voter suppression.</div><div>
</div><div>Clark can be heard on tape at the event saying, “Traditionally it’s always been Republicans suppressing votes in places. Let’s start protecting our voters. We know where they are.</div><div>
</div><div>Let’s start playing offense a little bit. That’s what you’re going to see in 2020. It’s going to be a much bigger program, a much more aggressive program, a much better-funded program.”With all the talk about Russian attempts to influence the election, perhaps we should be looking closer to home for who’s trying their best to rig election results.</div><div>
</div><div>Personally, I wish we could all get behind the idea fundamental to the nation’s values – that everyone should be voting, and that each vote should count.</div><div>
</div><div>Let’s Make America Fair Again.</div></div><div>
</div><div></div>But Kobach is not the only person pushing these two interconnected issues. There is an entire political industry devoted to it, from sophisticated election attorney networks like the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.rnla.org/votefraud.asp&source=gmail&ust=1485606452208000&usg=AFQjCNHfuM8aPq0o0je2YGnqgmVDl-6Tlw" href="https://www.rnla.org/votefraud.asp" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Republican National Lawyers Association</a> to grassroots organizations like <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2012/jan/27/true-vote/true-vote-says-eric-holder-supports-naacp-request-/&source=gmail&ust=1485606452208000&usg=AFQjCNHFXEXjO0KQYrUA7uK83rrhuZhhXA" href="http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2012/jan/27/true-vote/true-vote-says-eric-holder-supports-naacp-request-/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">True the Vote</a>. And there are certain “experts” who have been around for a long while, pushing the issue whenever the opportunity presents itself.ref off bs:
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr valign="Top"><td style="line-height: 18.2px;"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td background="https://www.rnla.org/images/pgs_fade_bg_03.jpg" style="line-height: 18.2px;"><h1>Vote Fraud News</h1>1/25/2017: 42 reports of voter fraud in Tennessee in 2016
A breakdown of the 42 reports provided by Secretary of State’s office shows the following, which were collected over all of 2016, which includes the March SEC primary, August state office elections, and the November general: 18 instances of felons voting, 9 instances of double voting, 9 instances of residential issues, 2 instances of fraudulent voter registration, 2 instances of voters who are currently under investigation, 1 instance of fraudulent absentee voting, and 1 instance of non-citizens voting <a href="http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/25/there-were-42-reports-voter-fraud-tennessee-2016/97038324/" style="text-decoration: none;">42 reports of voter fraud in Tennessee in 2016</a> The Tennessean, Jan 25, 20171/8/2017: Ohio woman pleads guilty to 13 counts of voter fraud
She was paid canvasser for a liberal activist group that was involved in voter registration efforts in the southern part of the county during the months leading up to the November 2015 general election. Among the other irregularities uncovered during the investigation was the case of the 11-year-old boy who had been registered to vote. She pleaded guilty to 13 of the 32 charges for falsely registering someone to vote and one of the three charges for forging someone’s signature on a voter registration form. The other charges were dismissed as part of a plea deal reached. <a href="http://www.reviewonline.com/news/local-news/2017/01/el-woman-pleads-guilty-to-13-counts-of-voter-fraud/" style="text-decoration: none;">EL woman pleads guilty to 13 counts of voter fraud</a> The Review of East Liverpool, Ohio, Jan 8, 20171/6/2017: 23 convicted of Iowa voter fraud in last 5 years
Of the 23 convictions from 2012 through 2016, 15 were for felony charges of election misconduct and eight were for misdemeanors. This list does not include pending voter fraud charges. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, which started looking for potential election misconduct crimes in 2012, reported in February 2014 the agency had found evidence 117 illegal votes had been cast out of 238 investigations statewide. Alleged violations included felons and noncitizens voting, as well as people voting in more than one state, according to the report. <a href="http://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/government/23-convicted-of-iowa-voter-fraud-in-last-5-years-20170106" style="text-decoration: none;">23 convicted of Iowa voter fraud in last 5 years</a> The Gazette of Cedar Rapids, Jan 6, 20171/3/2017: Man sentenced to 30 days in jail & $500 fine for voter fraud
A Dexter, Wisconsin man pleaded guilty to voting twice in the spring presidential and local election and received 30-day jail sentence. A few years ago, a Wood County, Wisconsin had a couple of races that were decided by one vote, Brazeau said. <a href="http://www.wisconsinrapidstribune.com/story/news/2017/01/03/man-gets-30-days-jail-voter-fraud/96127798/" style="text-decoration: none;">Man gets 30 days in jail for voter fraud</a> Daily Tribune of Wisconsin Rapids, Jan 3, 20171/1/2017: Laramie County Clerk’s office flags 27 possible cases of voter registration fraud in Wyoming
The potential fraud was discovered earlier this month as clerk employees submitted Election Day registrations to the Wyoming Secretary of State’s statewide voter database. That database is synced to other databases maintained by agencies like the Department of Transportation and the Department of Corrections, and flagged registrations as they were entered. Of the 27 cases, 11 were flagged for potentially being felons, while 16 were flagged as potential non-citizens. <a href="http://www.wyomingnews.com/news/new-clerk-s-office-flags-possible-cases-of-voter-registration/article_ec9ed51a-d076-11e6-bca3-dbd4dbe84154.html" style="text-decoration: none;">NEW: Clerk’s office flags 27 possible cases of voter registration fraud in Laramie County</a> Wyoming Tribune Eagle, Jan 1, 201712/15/2016: Developer and His Associates Stand Accused of Voter Fraud in New York
Prosecutors allege the three men developed a plan to falsely register numerous people who didn’t live in Bloomingburg, New York to vote in village local elections. He would pay the individual $500 for every vote he procured and paid over $30,000, according to the indictment said. Prosecutors say the defendants attempted to cover up their conspiracy to register voters who did not live in the village by creating false and backdated leases and staged apartments with toothbrushes and snacks to make it appear that the purported voters lived there. <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/real-estate-developer-and-his-associates-stand-accused-of-voter-fraud-1481840234?mod=e2tw" style="text-decoration: none;">Real-Estate Developer and His Associates Stand Accused of Voter Fraud</a> The Wall Street Journal, Dec 15, 201611/2/2016: 8 Key Instances of Voter Fraud in 2016, and It’s Not Even Election Day Yet
This article highlights instances of voter fraud that have occurred in: California, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New York, and Virginia (including some of the stories highlighted below). Some of the new stories include: In May, another TV station found at least 265 dead voters in Southern California, most of them from Los Angeles County voted from beyond the grave. In September, a Denver TV station conducted a broad voter fraud investigation that found numerous cases of dead voters and people voting more than once. In October, the station added that it had several cases of voters casting more than one ballot in the same election, but in the same state and in different states. <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2016/11/02/8-instances-of-voter-fraud-in-2016-and-its-not-even-election-day-yet/" style="text-decoration: none;">8 Instances of Voter Fraud in 2016, and It’s Not Even Election Day Yet</a> The Daily Signal, Nov 2, 201610/31/2016: 33 Voter Registrations Flagged for Fraud
The Newport News Commonwealth's Attorney is looking at 33 potentially fraudulent voter registration forms that “indicators” pointing to a particular voter registration outfit. At least one registrant used a fraudulent address for his voter registration. Putting false information on a voter registration form is a class 5 felony in Virginia, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. That has not stopped some people this cycle. <a href="http://www.dailypress.com/news/politics/dp-nws-registration-fraud-nn-2-20161031-story.html" style="text-decoration: none;">Commonwealth's attorney reviewing 33 voter registration forms</a> Newport News Daily Press, Oct 31, 201610/25/2016: Local TV Station Investigation Finds People Voting Twice
In six of the new cases, voting records show the same people voting twice in Colorado elections. In another six cases, people are suspected of voting in Colorado and another state during the same election cycle. “You’d be surprised how often people double vote,“ said Kansas Secretary of State. “Two of the cases are serial double voters. I think people discover they can get away with it and keep doing it.” <a href="http://denver.cbslocal.com/2016/10/25/cbs4-investigation-finds-people-voting-twice/" style="text-decoration: none;">CBS4 Investigation Finds People Voting Twice</a> CBS4 Denver, Oct 25, 201610/2016: Former Alexandria, Virginia man charged with voter registration fraud
A former Virginia resident has been charged with felony voter registration fraud after prosecutors say he fabricated voter registration forms by “inventing” false applicants. He is accused of fabricating records this spring while working for a Democratic-aligned voter registration group, according to Alexandria Commonwealth’s Attorney. <a href="http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/article_3b67df1f-3258-50b4-8571-8002ec513ed6.html?mode=jqm" style="text-decoration: none;">Former Alexandria man charged with voter registration fraud</a> Richmond Times-Dispatch, Oct 20169/29/2016: 19 Deceased Virginians Registered to Vote
The FBI and local police are investigating how at least 19 dead Virginians were recently re-registered to vote in this critical swing state. All 19 were initially registered as voters in the Shenandoah Valley city of Harrisonburg, although a clerk double-checking the entries later raised questions about one. She happened to recognized one of the names. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/he-fought-in-world-war-ii-he-died-in-2014-and-he-just-registered-to-vote-in-va/2016/09/29/5e0bffee-8670-11e6-ac72-a29979381495_story.html" style="text-decoration: none;">He fought in World War II. He died in 2014. And he just registered to vote in Va.</a> The Washington Post, Sept 29, 2016.9/24/2016: Dead people Voting in Colorado 
Local officials in Colorado acknowledged "very serious" voter fraud after learning of votes cast in multiple elections under the named of recently-deceased residents. El Paso County Clerk and Recorder called the situation a “very serious” pattern of people mailing in ballots on behalf of the dead. It's not clear how many fraudulent ballots have been submitted in recent years. A local TV station reported that it “found multiple cases” of dead people voting around the state, revelations that have provoked state criminal investigations. <a href="http://http//www.washingtonexaminer.com/dead-people-voting-in-colorado/article/2602775" style="text-decoration: none;">Dead people Voting in Colorado</a> Washington Examiner, Sept 24, 20168/22/2016: Texas Prosecuted 15 Illegal Voting Cases 
Only 15 voter fraud cases have been prosecuted by the Texas Attorney General's office between the 2012 primary election and July 2016. Eleven of those are cases in which “politiqueras” collect and mail ballots for elderly voters. One “volunteer” was paid to harvest mail-in ballots for candidates. Mail-in ballot fraud long has been the most prevalent form of election fraud. Records from the 2004 primary election show the agency opened 93 cases of election violations, with almost half involving violations of mail-in ballot procedures. <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2016/08/22/texas-prosecuted-15-illegal-voting-cases-none-invo/" style="text-decoration: none;">Texas Prosecuted 15 Illegal Voting Cases, None Involving Impersonation</a> The Texas Tribune, Aug 22, 20168/22/2016: The Threat of Vote Fraud is Real
Appearing on MSNBC during the 11 a.m. ET hour on Monday, attorney and former Republican National Committee counsel Mark Braden denounced an attempt by anchor Tamron Hall to dismiss claims of voter fraud as “extraordinarily rare” and “minuscule.” He also called her out for citing statistics from liberal “advocacy group” that she labeled “nonpartisan.” <a href="http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/kyle-drennen/2016/08/22/election-lawyer-blasts-lunacy-msnbc-denying-voter-fraud" style="text-decoration: none;">Election Lawyer Blasts ‘Lunacy’ of MSNBC Denying Voter Fraud </a>MRC News Busters, Aug 22, 20166/14/2016: Election Fraud in Kentucky. 
Keith Justice, 50, of Pikeville, was indicted by a Franklin County grand jury and charged with four counts of intimidating an election officer and one count of interfering with an election involving a precinct in Pike County on May 17th, according to a release on Tuesday by the Attorney General's office. <a href="http://www.wymt.com/content/news/Pike-County-man-indicted-election-fraud--382981201.html" style="text-decoration: none;">Pike County man indicted for election fraud</a> WYMT, Jun 14, 20166/3/2016: One person, two votes. 
An investigation is underway into three Comanche County residents who voted twice in last week's Presidential Preferential Primary. <a href="http://www.kswo.com/story/31430630/3-under-investigation-for-voter-fraud" style="text-decoration: none;">3 under investigation for voter fraud</a> ABC 7, Jun 3, 20165/4/2016: Florida Shenanigans. 
Two men stood accused of unlawfully handling four other people’s mail-in ballots in the 2013 Homestead mayoral election, filling at least one of them for precisely the candidates the voter didn’t want to vote for. Miami-Dade County investigators had a palm print and fingerprints, phone records, and suspicious stories from the defendants. <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article75565152.html" style="text-decoration: none;">The South Florida voter-fraud case that went nowhere</a>Miami Herald, May 4, 20165/4/2016:Kobach gets another conviciton.
Secretary of State Kris Kobach on Wednesday secured his fourth voter fraud conviction in a case against a Wichita man accused of double voting in Kansas and Colorado at least twice – and Kobach said he plans to file more cases soon. <a href="http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article75545277.html" style="text-decoration: none;">Wichita man pleads guilty in Kansas voter fraud case</a> The Wichita Eagle, May 4, 20164/28/2016: Another double voter. 
According to a news release, Michael L. Hannum received the maximum fines for violation of Kansas voting laws. Hannum pleaded guilty on Thursday to one count of advance voting unlawful acts and two counts of voting without being qualified. He was fined a total of $5,500 for the misdemeanor violations. <a href="http://www.wibwnewsnow.com/98900-2/" style="text-decoration: none;">Kansas Man Convicted for Double Voting</a> WIBW News Now, Apr 28, 2016...</td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table>

HHShe represented the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_State_Committee_of_Pennsylvania" title="Republican State Committee of Pennsylvania" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Republican State Committee of Pennsylvania</a> in their voter fraud lawsuit against <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Community_Organizations_for_Reform_Now" title="Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">ACORN</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Heidelbaugh#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[1]</a> In 2009, she testified before the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Committee_on_the_Judiciary" title="United States House Committee on the Judiciary" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">United States House Committee on the Judiciary</a> regarding her work on the ACORN lawsuit.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Heidelbaugh#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[2]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Heidelbaugh#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[3]</a>She is a member of the executive board of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_National_Lawyers_Association" title="Republican National Lawyers Association" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Republican National Lawyers Association</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Heidelbaugh#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[4]</a>==

cns bs

<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“There is a push in Minnesota to get so many people in the mail process,” Braden, former chief counsel for the Republican National Committee, said during an election law panel at CPAC.   Because of local government resources there, cities rejected less than 1 percent of absentee ballots, while rural areas rejected more than 10 percent, Braden said.   “This is a clear violation of the equal protection clause,” Braden said. “More mail-in votes results in many disenfranchised voters.”   The Minnesota Senate race is likely headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. But beyond that single state, the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) also poses a threat to clean elections, said<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Heather Heidelbaugh, vice president of the Republican National Lawyers Association<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, which brought suit against ACORN in Pennsylvania.  Heidelbaugh said ACORN will probably get money to help conduct the 2010 Census.   “The one thing worse than having Al Franken in the Senate is to have ACORN conducting the Census,” Heidelbaugh said during the CPAC panel.   Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, who supervised that state’s election system, called the effort to move the Census under control of the White House an indicator that “team Obama has its sights set on the greatest accumulation of power we have ever witnessed.” - See more at: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/liberal-groups-are-undermining-voter-id-laws-say-conservative-election-experts#sthash.4ESbnbsy.dpuf

== Chief Counsel to the Ohio Elections Commission and Election Counsel for

the Secretary of State in Ohio. He was a principal lawyer in two of

the largest recounts in our political history--governors' races in New

Jersey and Illinois.

<h3 class="r"><a href="https://www.bakerlaw.com/emarkbraden">E. Mark Braden | BakerHostetler</a></h3><div class="s"><div><div class="f kv SWb" style="white-space:nowrap"><cite class="Rm">https://www.bakerlaw.com/emarkbraden</cite></div></div></div><div class="g"><div class="rc" data-hveid="29"><div class="s"><div><div class="f kv SWb" style="white-space:nowrap"><div class="crc"><div class="crl" data-async-context="res:0;ri:;site:bakerlaw.com" data-async-trigger="cra-0-filled" data-ved="0ahUKEwiGkf_3qdrNAhVK5yYKHV5xDTkQ5CsIIjAA">BakerHostetler</div></div></div>Mark Braden concentrates his work principally on the law of the political ... Mark spent 10 years as Chief Counsel to the Republican National Committee prior to ... of George Washington University and former Special Election Law Counsel to ...
BS

<div class="showbiobody wb-content">Mark Braden concentrates his work

principally on the law of the political process, including work with

election and campaign agencies, voting issues, redistricting, and ethics

and lobbying regulations—areas in which he has substantial knowledge

and unusual experience. He provides effective, and often highly

innovative, legal guidance when representing individuals and

organizations in the political arena and counseling some of the largest

PACs and campaigns in the nation. Mark spent 10 years as Chief Counsel

to the Republican National Committee prior to joining BakerHostetler. He

is widely recognized for his knowledge on state election laws, having

served as Chief Counsel to the Ohio Elections Commission and Election

Counsel for the Secretary of State in Ohio. Mark has played a large part

in the redistricting process and has argued at the Supreme Court level

in redistricting litigation and, in campaign finance, was the father of

"soft money" as originally used in national campaigns.

Mark is a member of the adjunct faculty of George Washington

University and former Special Election Law Counsel to the United States

House of Representatives' Administration Committee. He has testified

before congressional committees and the Federal Election Commission and

his experience in the legal and political arena has resulted in

invitations to lecture at universities and institutes nationwide.

Recently, he has authored International Election Principles: Election, Chapter: Early and Absentee Voting (ABA Publishing, 2009) and Election Reform in the United States after Bush v. Gore, ed. Grofman & Alvarez, Chapter: "Entering the Political Thicket" (Cambridge University Press, 2013).</div>
<div style="display: block;" class="sharedrollupbody">

                </font><div class="showbiosidesection wb-content"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><ul><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Republican National Committee: Chief Counsel </span></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></li><li><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ohio Elections Commission: Chief Counsel </span></li><li><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Secretary of State, Ohio: Election Counsel </span></li><li>Catholic University Joint Political Science and Law School Program faculty </li><li>United States Army Reserve: Captain </li></ul></div>
            </div><span class="st"><br /></span><ul><li><b>Represented Republican members of or candidates for the United

States Senate, United States House, Governors, former Cabinet

Secretaries and Presidential Candidates on campaign financing, and

ethical issues/criminal and civil enforcement. </li><li>Assists trade associations and businesses in participation in

governmental affairs, creation of PACs, state and federal lobbying

regulations, gift rules, and state and local ballot initiatives. Assists

nonprofit organization in such context, advising on issues related to

fundraising restrictions, ethical concerns based on lobbying

requirements, and completed campaign funding issues. Provides

presentations on campaign financing. </li><li>Supervised and directed corporate reorganization of large

nonprofit fraternal organization, involving $500 million plus assets and

1.6 million organization members. </li><li>Lead counsel in redistricting/Voting Rights Acts litigation in

recent cycles in Ohio, Virginia, New York, Wyoming, New Mexico,

Oklahoma, Georgia, Nevada, Maryland, and Connecticut. Has argued at the

U.S. Supreme Court and state Supreme Courts throughout the country, in

which the redistricting at issue was affirmed. </li><li>Has been a principal lawyer in many of the largest recounts in

political history, including recount and contests litigation in Ohio,

Pennsylvania, Indiana, California, North Carolina, Virginia, Illinois,

New Jersey, Washington, and New Mexico. </li><li>Was key negotiator for convention contracts and site city

agreements for the 1980, 1984, 1988, and 1995 Republican National

Conventions. </li><li>Served as international election consultant on a dozen different

national election systems for International Republican Institute (IRI),

International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES), National

Democratic Institute (NDI), and the Organization for Security and *

Cooporation in Europe (OSCE). </li></ul>
</div></div></div></div><div class="g"><div class="rc" data-hveid="35"><h3 class="r"><a href="https://www.bakerlaw.com/news/mark-braden-named-2014-republican-lawyer-of-the-year">Mark Braden Named 2014 Republican Lawyer of the Year ...</a></h3><div class="s"><div><div class="f kv SWb" style="white-space:nowrap"><cite class="Rm">https://www.bakerlaw.com/.../mark-braden-named-2014-republican-la...</cite></div></div></div></div></div><div class="g"><div class="rc" data-hveid="35"><div class="s"><div><div class="f kv SWb" style="white-space:nowrap"><div class="crc"><div class="crl" data-async-context="res:1;ri:;site:bakerlaw.com" data-async-trigger="cra-1-filled" data-ved="0ahUKEwiGkf_3qdrNAhVK5yYKHV5xDTkQ5CsIKDAB">BakerHostetler</div></div></div>Jul 1, 2014 - Of Counsel Mark Braden was named 2014 Republican Lawyer of the Year ... (Past special guests have included former Attorneys General, ... He spent 10 years as Chief Counsel to the Republican National Committee prior to ...</div></div></div></div><div class="g"><div class="rc" data-hveid="42"><h3 class="r"><a href="https://www.rnla.org/bio/BioDetail.asp?MemberID=620">Mark Braden - Republican National Lawyers Association | (RNLA)</a></h3><div class="s"><div><div class="f kv SWb" style="white-space:nowrap"><cite class="Rm">https://www.rnla.org/bio/BioDetail.asp?...</cite></div></div></div></div></div><div class="f kv SWb" style="white-space:nowrap"><div class="crc"><div class="crl" data-async-context="res:2;ri:;site:rnla.org" data-async-trigger="cra-2-filled" data-ved="0ahUKEwiGkf_3qdrNAhVK5yYKHV5xDTkQ5CsIMDAC">Republican National Lawyers Association</div></div></div>Mr. Braden spent ten years as Chief Counsel to the Republican National Committee prior to joining Baker & Hostetler. He has worked intimately with many ...

===

From the time I started blogging about a decade ago I've been writing somewhat frantically about the GOP efforts to suppress the vote. This should not be surprising since I started writing online in the aftermath of the most dubious election result in history: the infamous Bush v. Gore.

Vote suppression has been with us for centuries, of course. Jim Crow was built on it. <a target="blank" href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/09/201191883753799660.html">Very famous and important Americans</a> have participated in it, including former ChiefJustice William Rehnquist. But according to<a target="blank" href="http://www.votelaw.com/blog/blogdocs/GOP_Ballot_Security_Programs.pdf"> a 2004 report by the Center for Voting Rights </a>it wasn't until the Jesse Jackson campaign in the 1980s that the Republicans began to organize nationally:

Democratic activist Donna Brazile, a Jackson worker and Albert Gore's campaign manager in 2000, said "There were all sorts of groups out there doing voter registration. Some time after the '86 election, massive purging started taking place. It was a wicked practice that took place all over the country, especially in the deep South. Democrats retook the Senate in 1986, and [Republican] groups went on a rampage on the premise they were cleaning up the rolls. The campaign then was targeted toward African-Americans." As in the past, Republicans justified the purges in the name of preventing the unregistered from voting. But Democrats charged vote suppression.

</blockquote>

They formed a group called the Republican National Lawyers Association for the purpose of manipulating the voting laws in all 50 states to the benefit of the party. Of course, they said it was for the purpose of stopping "voter fraud" but since there was and is no evidence of voter fraud, vote suppression was the obvious intent. They learned the ins and outs of all local and state voting rules and figured out how to use them for their own electoral advantage. And with the help of other <a target="blank" href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/04/11466/right-wing-operatives-take-alecs-voter-suppression-agenda">conservative groups like ALEC,</a>they set about making it harder to register and harder to vote. They really made their bones in the 2000 recount, when the call went out the morning after the election for their lawyers to descend on Florida. The rest is history. Well, it's deja vu all over again. <a target="blank" href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/florida-gop-takes-voter-supression-to-a-brazen-new-extreme-20120530">Here's Ari Berman:</a>

<blockquote>Back in 2000, 12,000 eligible voters—a number twenty-two times larger than George W. Bush's 537 vote triumph over Al Gore—were wrongly identified as convicted felons and purged from the voting rolls in Florida, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. African Americans, who favored Gore over Bush by 86 points, accounted for 11 percent of the state's electorate but 41 percent of those purged. Jeb Bush attempted a repeat performance in 2004 to help his brother win reelection but was forced to back off in the face of a public outcry.

</blockquote>

<blockquote>Yet with another close election looming, Florida Republicans have returned to their voter-scrubbing ways. The latest purge comes on the heels of a trio of new voting restrictions passed by Florida Republicans last year, disenfranchising 100,000 previously eligible ex-felons who'd been granted the right to vote under GOP Governor Charlie Crist in 2008; shutting down non-partisan voter registration drives; and cutting back on early voting. The measures, the effect of which will be to depress Democratic turnout in November, are similar to voting curbs passed by Republicans in more than a dozen states, on the bogus pretext of combating "voter fraud" but with the very deliberate goal of shaping the electorate to the GOP's advantage before a single vote has been cast.</blockquote>

===

The Republican National Lawyers Association is the "largest association of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Republican" title="Republican" class="mw-redirect">Republican</a> Lawyers in the country with over 2500 members from every state in the union. It provides educational programs on election law and acts to support the judicial nominees of the President. The Association's focused objectives within the legal community are to advance professionalism, election integrity, career opportunity, and Republican ideas." <a href="http://66.218.69.11/search/cache?p=%22Lawyers+for+Bush-Cheney%22%2C+-Roberts&prssweb=Search&ei=UTF-8&fl=0&b=11&u=www.husch.com/public/article_full.asp%3Fid%3D16268&w=%22lawyers+for+bush+cheney%22&d=U1b5Og0DL8ql&icp=1&.intl=us" class="external autonumber" title="http://66.218.69.11/search/cache?p=%22Lawyers+for+Bush-Cheney%22%2C+-Roberts&prssweb=Search&ei=UTF-8&fl=0&b=11&u=www.husch.com/public/article_full.asp%3Fid%3D16268&w=%22lawyers+for+bush+cheney%22&d=U1b5Og0DL8ql&icp=1&.intl=us" rel="nofollow">[1]</a>

<h2>Contact information</h2>

Post Office Box 18965

Washington, DC 20036

Phone: 703-719-6335

Fax: 571-312-0450

Email: info AT republicanlawyer.net

Website: <a href="http://www.rnla.org" class="external free" title="http://www.rnla.org" rel="nofollow">http://www.rnla.org</a>

<div id="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories">Categories</a>: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Lawyers" title="Category:Lawyers">Lawyers</a> | <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Republican_Party_%28USA%29" title="Category:Republican Party (USA)">Republican Party (USA)</a> | <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:United_States" title="Category:United States">United States</a></div>

</div>

===

wiki

The Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) was founded in 1985 and is the national organization of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_%28United_States%29" title="Republican Party (United States)">Republican</a> lawyers in the United States. The RNLA has over 2,500 lawyer and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_student" title="Law student" class="mw-redirect">law student</a> members located in over 40 states.

<h2>Speakers at Past RNLA Events</h2>

<ul>

<li>Senate Republican Leader <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_McConnell" title="Mitch McConnell">Mitch McConnell</a></li>

<li>House Speaker <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boehner" title="John Boehner">John Boehner</a></li>

<li>RNC Chair <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Steele" title="Michael Steele">Michael Steele</a></li>

<li>Former Vice President <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney" title="Dick Cheney">Dick Cheney</a></li>

<li>Former Speaker of the House <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich" title="Newt Gingrich">Newt Gingrich</a></li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Will" title="George Will">George F. Will</a>, Pulitzer Prize Winning Political Commentator</li>

<li>Former U.S. Solicitor General <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Olson" title="Theodore Olson">Theodore Olson</a></li>

<li>Numerous former Attorneys General, including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ashcroft" title="John Ashcroft">John Ashcroft</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Meese" title="Ed Meese" class="mw-redirect">Ed Meese</a></li>

<li>Others Include: All Republican White House Counsels for the last three Republican Presidents {<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan" title="Ronald Reagan">Ronald Reagan</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H.W.Bush" title="George H.W. Bush" class="mw-redirect">George H.W. Bush</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W.Bush" title="George W. Bush">George W. Bush</a>}, political commentators such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Rove" title="Karl Rove">Karl Rove</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_O%27Beirne" title="Kate O'Beirne">Kate O'Beirne</a>, senators including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Kyl" title="Jon Kyl">Jon Kyl</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_DeMint" title="Jim DeMint">Jim DeMint</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cornyn" title="John Cornyn">John Cornyn</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_brown" title="Scott brown" class="mw-redirect">Scott Brown</a>, governors such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Pawlenty" title="Tim Pawlenty">Tim Pawlenty</a>, and leading Republicans such as Mayor <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Giuliani" title="Rudy Giuliani">Rudy Giuliani</a>, Dean <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Starr" title="Ken Starr">Ken Starr</a>, and many more.</li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li>Peter Roff, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://politics.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2009/10/6/acorn-scandal-could-embarrass-obama.html">ACORN Scandal Could Embarrass Obama</a>, U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 6, 2009.</li>

<li>Zachary Roth, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/gop_lawyers_slam_ruling_on_acorn_funding.php#more">GOP Lawyers Slam Ruling On ACORN Funding</a>, TPM, Dec. 14, 2009.</li>

<li>Reid Wilson, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/01/as_seiu_bulks_u.php">As SEIU Bulks Up In MA, GOP Pays Attention</a>, National Journal, Jan. 14, 2010.</li>

<li>Michael Gaynor, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.therealitycheck.org/?p=12497">Though Bankrupt, ACORN Is Succeeding in Its Subversive Mission</a>, The Reality Check, Mar. 20, 2010.</li>

<li>Dino Teppara, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/16/dont-underestimate-scott-brown/">Don't Underestimate Scott Brown</a>, The Daily Caller, April 19, 2010.</li>

<li>Bob Unruh, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=172465">Alito: Supremes endorse 'viewpoint discrimination'</a>, WorldNetDaily, June 28, 2010.</li>

</ul>

<h2>External links</h2>

<ul>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.rnla.org/">Official website</a></li>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://rnla.org/Blogs/blogs/public/default.aspx">The Republican Lawyer Blog</a></li>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php#%21/pages/Washington-DC/Republican-National-Lawyers-Association/58343725617?ref=ts">Facebook Page</a></li>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://twitter.com/thereplawyer">Twitter Page</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

Republicans Boast About Voter Suppression in Tampa, but the Ground Is Shifting

George Zornick on August 29, 2012 - 4:06 PM ET

On the first full day of the Republican National Convention in Tampa Bay, Republicans were not running from their record of voter suppression. At a fundraiser Tuesday afternoon not far from the Tampa Bay Times Forum, GOP superstars lined up to pay their respects to one of the key architects of recent voter-suppression tactics—Cleta Mitchell, a Tampa Bay–based attorney who is head of the Republican National Lawyers Association.

Earlier this year, before the House Judiciary Committee, Mitchell proudly testified that the “burdens” of voter identification laws—that is, some people not being able to vote—were justifiable to prevent non-existent fraud. “Because the purpose of a voter identification, a photo identification, is to ensure and protect the integrity of the election, whatever burden may exist is offset by the need to protect the integrity of the elections,” she testified. And Mitchell is not a newcomer to the voter-suppression game—back in 2008, she was running “training sessions” for GOP poll-watchers so they could fight back against a supposed “long pattern of abuses in registration by groups such as ACORN and their Democratic allies.”

The guest list to her party included six Republican senators, including powerhouses Jim DeMint and Marco Rubio, as well as former presidential candidate Rick Santorum, who would address the convention hours later. (I staked out the entrance to the party and didn’t see the A-listers enter, though they appeared to be coming in through a secure parking garage. I did, however, spot conservative columnist George Will and Grover Norquist coming in).

Later that night, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley got one of the biggest applause lines of the convention so far when she boasted about her voter-suppression achievements back home. “We said in South Carolina that if you have to show a picture ID to buy Sudafed and you have to show a picture ID to set foot on an airplane, then you should have to show a picture ID to protect one of the most valuable, most central, most sacred rights we are blessed with in America—the right to vote,” she said.

But Haley’s timing was awful—the ground beneath voter-suppression efforts is falling away, in her state and elsewhere. On the same day Haley spoke, a trial was underway in South Carolina in which the state is suing Obama’s Department of Justice for blocking the voter identification law. And it isn’t going so well for the state. (Ari Berman has excellent coverage here).

The bill’s author, state Representative Alan Clemmons, took the stand yesterday and admitted he cannot produce a single example of in-person voter impersonation, and also conceded his law wouldn’t really stop a dedicated impersonator anyhow. Then, one lawyer presented racist e-mails sent to Clemmons about voter-identification laws—with which Clemmons agreed. (Someone e-mailed Clemmons to denounce the idea that black voters wouldn’t sign up for photo identification if an incentive was offered, saying “it would be like a swarm of bees going after a watermelon.” Clemmons replied, “Amen, Ed, thank you for your support,” a response he admitted in court yesterday was “poorly considered.”)

And just this morning, in Mitchell’s home state of Florida, a federal judge ruled that he would strike down one of the more pernicious Florida vote-suppression laws—one that restricted the ability of third-party groups to register voters. Republicans in the legislature passed laws that hurt Floridians’ ability to vote, all of which have now been halted: they shortened voting hours (which was blocked by a federal judge this month), attempted to purge voter rolls (also stopped by a court), and now the harsh restrictions on groups like the League of Women Voters and Project Vote have been lifted. These restrictions caused a huge imbalance in partisan voter registration—see this chart from The Rachel Maddow Show

That gap is likely to be closed dramatically now that third-party registration can resume.

And outside the RNC, protesters were closely watching and demonstrating against the voter-suppression policies being trumpeted inside. At what was billed as a “large-scale” rally in Centennial Park, hundreds of young people—mainly African-Americans and undocumented Latinos—marched against voter-suppression tactics. “A lot of us here are undocumented immigrants and DREAMers, and we also have the African-American and Latino community gathered here to let the Republican Party know that it’s time to stop suppressing these communities of minorities,” said Erika Andiola, who traveled to the demonstration from Mesa, Arizona.

“Voter suppression directly affects immigrants. A lot of people ask me ‘What do you care about voter suppression if you can’t vote in the first place,’ and that’s exactly the point,” said Mayra Hidalgo, an undocumented immigrant living in Lakeland, Florida, who helped organize the rally. “Historically DREAMers have been so active in civic engagement and registering other people to vote, so that we can have our voices heard at the polls and elect those pro-DREAM Act and pro-immigration reform politicians. And now all of those voices are being silenced by these voter suppression laws.”

Rev. Charles McKenzie, the Florida coordinator for the Rainbow PUSH coalition, agreed that the demographics of the country are changing, and Republicans can’t suppress new votes and voices forever. “The message for [Republicans] is that there is another demographic in this country that is on the move. We’re watching you, we do not support your core value system, and you’re going to either change or you’re going to have to face the consequence of becoming a party that is out of date with, and out of step with, what America is becoming.”

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<a href="http://truth-out.org/news/item/10981-new-nationwide-study-of-election-fraud-since-2000-finds-just-10-cases-of-in-person-voter-fraud?tmpl=component&print=1">http://truth-out.org/news/item/10981-new-nationwide-study-of-election-fraud-since-2000-finds-just-10-cases-of-in-person-voter-fraud?tmpl=component&print=1</a>

brad f

Exhaustive analysis finds fraud that might be deterred by polling place photo ID restrictions "virtually non-existent."

A new nationwide analysis of 2,068 alleged election-fraud cases since 2000 shows that while fraud has occurred, the rate is infinitesimal, and in-person voter impersonation on Election Day, which prompted 37 state legislatures to enact or consider tough voter ID laws, is virtually non-existent.

In an exhaustive public records search, reporters from the investigative reporting project "News21" sent thousands of requests to elections officers in all 50 states, asking for every case of fraudulent activity including registration fraud, absentee ballot fraud, vote buying, false election counts, campaign fraud, casting an ineligible vote, voting twice, voter impersonation fraud and intimidation.

Analysis of the resulting comprehensive News21 election fraud database turned up 10 cases of voter impersonation. With 146 million registered voters in the United States during that time, those 10 cases represent one out of about every 15 million prospective voters.

</blockquote>

10 cases. 10 cases of in-person voter impersonation that might have been deterred by polling place Photo ID restrictions --- restrictions which, according to study after study, could keep as many as 22 million perfectly legal eligible voters from being able to cast their legal vote.

But, again, the Republicans who have been enacting these laws are doing it for exactly that reason: to keep those who are most likely to lack the type of state-issued Photo ID required to vote under these new restrictions --- the elderly, minorities, the poor and students (read: Democratic-leaning voters) --- from being able to cast their legal vote.

For those in the corporate mainstream media still unaware of what this is called (<a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9448" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">this includes you, NPR</a>), it's called Voter Suppression.

And this exhaustive new study, once again, makes that case crystal clear...

The 'voter fraud' fraud

There is much to take from the new analysis, including a <a href="http://votingrights.news21.com/interactive/election-fraud-database/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">searchable database</a> of all known election fraud cases in the country since 2000, detailing the type of fraud involved.

Here are a few highlights from the study by News21, a program of the Carnegie Corporation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, headquartered at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

In-person impersonation fraud --- the only type of voter fraud that can even possibly be deterred by polling place Photo ID restrictions --- is incredibly rare, and the least likely way to commit voter fraud.

According to the study, of the few cases of voter fraud across the nation since 2000, "fewer than five tenths of one percent of the total cases in the News21 analysis are voter impersonation."

The News21 database shows one of the rare instances of voter-impersonation fraud occurred in Londonderry, N. H., in 2004 when 17-year-old Mark Lacasse used his father’s name to vote for George W. Bush in the Republican presidential primary. The case was dismissed after Lacasse performed community service.

The database shows the nine other voter impersonation cases were in Alabama, California, Colorado, Kansas and Texas. All were isolated and showed no coordinated efforts to change election results.

</blockquote>

Absentee ballot voter fraud

Where voter fraud is a problem, it's almost always done by Absentee Voting. "This is one of the most frequent instances of fraud," the News21 analysis finds [emphasis ours]:

There is more fraud in absentee ballots and voter registration than any other categories. The analysis shows 491 cases of absentee ballot fraud and 400 cases of registration fraud. A required photo ID at the polls would not have prevented these cases. “The one issue I think is potentially important, though more or less ignored, is the overuse of absentee balloting, which provides far more opportunity for fraud and intimidation than on-site voter fraud,” said Daniel Lowenstein, a UCLA School of Law professor.

...

Felons or noncitizens sometimes register to vote or cast votes because they are confused about their eligibility. The database shows 74 cases of felons voting and 56 cases of noncitizens voting.

</blockquote>

We have long argued <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6003" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">against the push for absentee voting and/or Vote-by-Mail</a> that both of the major political parties continue to advocate for, since it allows them to micromanage their own voters to increase turnout, etc. Unfortunately, it makes it makes it much harder for the citizenry to oversee the accurate tabulation of those votes, and also creates striking additional security concerns. Such as it is, however, this report underscores again that where actual voter fraud is a concern in this country, it is by and large via absentee voting that it is accomplished. Republican polling place Photo ID restrictions, however --- passed under the guise of deterring "voter fraud" --- do absolutely nothing about adding security for absentee votes.

Moreover, voting by felons and noncitizens, which is rare, but frequently done accidentally when it occurs --- since the laws for felon voting are different in each state, and noncitizens are occasionally handed voter registration forms when obtaining driver's licenses --- is also not curbed by polling place Photo ID restrictions, since both former felons and non-citizens are usually allowed to obtain state-issued driver's licenses that can then be used for voting purposes.

Insider fraud

As we have also asserted for many years, where election fraud occurs, it is usually not regular old voters who do it --- since the risks of huge fines and long prison sentences make the risk of casting one illegal vote incredibly stupid and virtually worthless. Rather, it is election insiders and campaign officials who are most likely to carry out coordinated schemes to defraud elections. The analysis by News21 "shows 185 election fraud cases linked to campaign officials or politicians involving absentee or mail-in ballots."

Furthermore, the ability to commit fraud via absentee ballot is also much greater than the very risky notion of in-person impersonation, since, as John Fortier of the Bipartisan Policy Center notes in the News21 study, "the person casting the ballot can be pressured or coerced."

Again, the GOP polling place Photo ID restrictions being enacted around the country --- even if we were to pretend they have anything to do with deterring voter fraud (and they do not) --- do absolutely nothing to actual deter fraud and vote buying and selling via absentee ballot. That is no accident. These laws have nothing to do with deterring fraud and everything to do with enhancing the suppression of legal voters.

Republican National Lawyers Association fraud

One last point. We first began covering the voter suppression beat, in earnest, shortly after the 2004 election when we were the first to identify a high-level Republican astroturf group <a href="http://bradblog.com/ACVR" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">calling themselves the "non-partisan" American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR)</a>, as operatives of the Bush White House and the RNC. Specifically, the ACVR was headed up by a man named Thor Hearne who had served as the General Counsel for Bush/Cheney '04, Inc., and as a star of the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA), before pretending to become a "long time voting rights advocate."

The job of the ACVR was to create blatant propaganda to help make the case for the polling place Photo ID restriction we are now seeing in many states. After the ACVR was outed as a GOP voter suppression scam organization, and forced to disband, the RNLA took up much of the slack in creating false "voter fraud" propaganda for incurious wingnuts and Fox "News" fans to eat up.

Often, when Rightwingers are forced to offer evidence for their unsubstantiated claims of "massive Democratic voter fraud", they'll point to <a href="http://www.rnla.org/votefraud.asp" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">the page set up by the RNLA to detail such allegations</a>, even though, if one bothers to read it, it does not contain what it pretends to contain.

That page, you'll be shocked to learn, was also found to be a fraud by the News21 analysis:

<blockquote style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Voter-impersonation fraud has attracted intense attention in recent years as conservatives and Republicans argue that strict voter ID laws are needed to prevent widespread fraud.

The case has been made repeatedly by the Republican National Lawyers Association, one of whose missions is to advance “open, fair and honest elections.” It has compiled a list of 375 election fraud cases, based mostly on news reports of alleged fraud.

News21 examined the RNLA cases in the database and found only 77 were alleged fraud by voters. Of those, News21 could verify convictions or guilty pleas in only 33 cases. The database shows no RNLA cases of voter-impersonation fraud.

</blockquote>

So, in short, the page created by the RNLA to help push for polling place Photo ID restrictions, offers absolutely no evidence of the type of fraud that might be deterred by polling place Photo ID restrictions.

Who coulda guessed it? Oh, yeah. Us. For years.

So we have yet another study, officially finding what we have known, and argued here for years. But it's good to have still more independent corroboration, and the wide breadth of this study, and <a href="http://votingrights.news21.com/interactive/election-fraud-database/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">its very helpful searchable database</a>, are certainly most welcome.

</div>

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

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<h3 style="font-weight: bold;">Mr. Michael B. Thielen</h3>

Republican National Lawyers Association

RNLA Executive Director

Sustaining Member

Office:

<div class="indent" style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px;">P.O. Box 18965

Washington, DC 20036</div>

Phone: (202) 802-0437

Fax: (202) 747-2873

Email: <a href="mailto:thielen@republicanlawyer.net" style=" text-decoration: none;">thielen@republicanlawyer.net</a>

Web Site: <a href="http://www.rnla.org/" target="new" style=" text-decoration: none;">www.rnla.org</a>

Law School: Pepperdine (1993)

<div class="bold" style=" font-weight: bold;">Practice Areas:</div>

<div class="indent" style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px;"><a href="https://www.rnla.org/Bio/PracticeAreas.asp?PracticeID=33" style=" text-decoration: none;">Election Law</a>

<a href="https://www.rnla.org/Bio/PracticeAreas.asp?PracticeID=47" style=" text-decoration: none;">Government Relations</a>

<a href="https://www.rnla.org/Bio/PracticeAreas.asp?PracticeID=84" style=" text-decoration: none;">Gaming</a></div>

</td><td style="line-height: 18.2px; width: 32px;"><img src="/57b27f39-6179-5f1b-9021-16454cbd41b3.gif"/></td><td style="line-height: 18.2px; width: 108px;" align="left" valign="top">

Michael Thielen has served as the Republican National Lawyers Association’s Executive Director since late 2000. He graduated from the University of California Los Angeles (B.A. History, 1989) and Pepperdine School of Law (J.D., 1993). He has helped oversee a twelve-fold increase in the size of the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) and is working on further improving the RNLA for its members and to better advance Republican ideals.

As Executive Director of the RNLA, Michael has organized events both large and small from CLE accredited trainings to major speeches by leading political figures such as Vice President Cheney. Vice President Cheney thanked Michael in 2005 at the RNLA Policy Conference for his work at RNLA when he stated: “I want to thank Harvey Tettlebaum, Bob Horn, Michael Thielen, and their team for making this such a well organized, well run, and effective association.” Even the far left, in a study for the Center for Voting Rights & Protection stated that during Michael’s tenure the RNLA had “professionalized ballot [integrity]…with a cadre of highly trained, aggressive, and mobile lawyers who can go anywhere in the nation on short notice.”

Since coming to Washington, DC in 1994, Michael has had a history of working in Republican and conservative politics. He worked for the Republican National Committee (RNC) from 1994 through the 1996 election. At the end of the cycle, he worked as a Senior Research Analyst for the RNC. In this position, he uncovered the connection between Arief Wiriadinata and the Clinton administration which became the Chinese Campaign Finance Scandal or the John Huang scandal. He also helped to uncover information linking the Clintons to alleged Mafia Union Boss Arthur Coia.

After leaving the RNC, Michael went to work for candidates for elected office in Virginia including candidates for Congress, Attorney General and the Virginia House of Delegates. In the latter, he worked for a candidate who unseated a 22-year incumbent. In addition, Michael has executed independent research projects for candidates for Federal and State office. [odd no names] 1997

Michael has also worked for conservative advocacy organizations. In 1998 and 1999, he worked as Communications Director for a conservative seniors' group, the 60 Plus Association, which has been a leader in the fight to end the Death Tax. He followed his work at 60 Plus by working for CapitolWatch, one of the nation’s oldest taxpayer advocacy groups, first as Communications Director, then as Legislative Director, and finally as Vice President until leaving to work for the RNLA full time.

Michael was also appointed to the 2006 Presidential Rank Review Board which reviews the accomplishments of nominees -- career members of the Senior Executive Service (SES), and Senior-Level (SL) and Scientific and Professional (ST) communities -- for the 2006 Presidential Award of Distinguished Rank.

</td></tr></tbody></table>

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<h1 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(241, 241, 241);">Exhaustive Database of Voter Fraud Cases Turns Up Scant Evidence That It Happens</h1>

<li class="article-author" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; float: left;">BY CORBIN CARSON | NEWS21</li>

<li class="article-date" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; float: right;">PUBLISHED AUG. 12, 2012, 10:41 A.M.</li>

</li></ul>

The specter of widespread election fraud has been the professed reason that 37 state legislatures have passed or considered voter identification laws since 2010. Those claiming that illegal votes threaten free and fair elections generally have cited only anecdotes and individual reports of alleged voter fraud.

As part of the News21 national investigation into voting rights in America, a team of reporters took on the unprecedented task of gathering, organizing and analyzing all reported cases of election fraud in the United States since 2000.

<h2 style="margin: 0px; padding: 1em 0px 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(241, 241, 241);">How big was this effort?</h2>

Over the course of this seven-month investigation, the News21 team sent out more than 2,000 public-records requests and spent nearly $1,800 on fees for records searches and copies of documents. The team also reviewed nearly 5,000 court documents, official records and media reports. The result is the most extensive collection of U.S. election fraud cases ever compiled.

To date, <a href="http://votingrights.news21.com/interactive/election-fraud-database" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">the News21 election-fraud database</a> contains information on 2,068 cases.

Actually, no. The cases reported to News21 from all the public-records requests cover <a href="http://votingrights.news21.com/article/definition-of-terms/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">a dozen different kinds of election illegalities and irregularities</a>. Only one of those categories — impersonation of another voter at a voting place — involves the kind of fraud that Election Day voter ID laws could prevent.

And only 10 such cases over more than a decade were reported to News21 by election officials and prosecutors across the country. During that time, 146 million Americans were registered to vote.

News21 began its data-gathering effort in January 2012 by reviewing the more than 300 cases of alleged voter fraud collected by the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA). For years, the RNLA has been urging strict voter-identification laws on the grounds of massive amounts of voter fraud, and in 2011 the organization released a survey of voter fraud cases in America. However, the News21 analysis showed that the RNLA cases, now totaling about 375 cases, consisted mainly of newspaper articles about a range of election issues, with little supporting evidence of actual in-person voter fraud.

No. Despite the huge News21 public-records request effort, the team received no useful responses from several states — for instance, the lone cases in the database from Massachusetts, Oklahoma , South Carolina and South Dakota all came from the RNLA survey. Even in states where some local jurisdictions responded, others didn’t. In addition, it is possible that some jurisdictions which did respond failed to include some cases. Another problem is that some responses News21 received were missing important details about each case — from whether the person was convicted or charged to the circumstances of the alleged fraud to the names of those involved. Still, with those caveats, News21 is confident this database is substantially complete and is the largest such collection of election fraud cases gathered by anyone in the United States.

News21 is committed to correcting errors or adding details about cases when we learn of them.<a href="mailto:news@news21.com" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Click here</a> to notify News21 about errors or missing cases of which you are aware. Please include details that can be verified by News21 — names, case numbers, jurisdiction, results, etc. Vague allegations — “I heard that people were being paid to vote for Candidate X in the last election” — can’t be verified unless an official authority has investigated and prosecuted or dismissed the case.

You would think so, but one of the lessons News21 learned from this effort is the substantial differences in public-records requirements and responsiveness across the 50 states. Even within a state, where all public officials presumably are operating under the same laws and rules, there often was wide variation in compliance. One county might respond quickly with a list of cases while the next would insist that its public records laws don’t require officials to respond at all.

<h2 style="margin: 0px; padding: 1em 0px 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(241, 241, 241);">How was the News21 public-records effort conducted?</h2>

In early May, the News21 team sent public-records requests to each of the 50 departments of elections or secretaries of state across the nation. The team also sent similar requests under the federal Freedom of Information Act to the District of Columbia Board of Elections, the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI. The request was simple: Please send information about any cases since 2000 involving election fraud, including the name of accused, the charges they are accused of and the disposition of the case.

The first hurdle was that every state runs elections in its own fashion, and many states control the election process through different agencies. After extensive follow-up telephone calls and messages, the News21 team began to receive responses. The most common response was a message saying that the election offices don’t track fraud and directing the request to the state attorney general’s office.

In early June, the News21 team sent requests to all 50 state attorneys general. Many of them in turn responded that they don’t track cases of election fraud and that the requests should go to every county district attorney in the state.

There are 3,145 counties in America. News21 emailed, faxed or phoned every county district attorney office in every state that indicated that was necessary, a total of more than 1,000 such contacts. In many cases, offices were contacted more than once in order to get questions answered and details filled in.

<h2 style="margin: 0px; padding: 1em 0px 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(241, 241, 241);">How responsive were officials to the public-records requests?</h2>

Some states and local jurisdictions responded quickly and efficiently. For instance, the Connecticut State Elections Enforcement Commission sent News21 a CD-ROM containing more than 1,200 files, representing every case the commission had heard since 2000. Most involved technical violations of various laws covering campaign finance reports and advertising, but the comprehensiveness of the response was remarkable and it logged more than 200 election violations.

Hundreds of officials responded with short notes — some handwritten, even coffee-stained — saying they had had no cases of fraud.

When jurisdictions did acknowledge cases of election fraud, the responses came with a level of detail that ranged from complete to deficient. Some responded only with summary data counting the number of cases but without any useful detail. Other jurisdictions sent pages of names but without any charges or results. Some states — California for example — cited laws that made it illegal for prosecutors to give the name of somebody who had been charged but not convicted of a crime.

For nearly all the data News21 received, there would be some vital piece of information that had been requested specifically but that was missing. News21 reporters then called back, seeking more detail as well as searching databases such as Google News and Lexis/Nexis for articles about the cases. Despite this effort, there are cases in the database that contain so little detail that they cannot be properly categorized as one kind of fraud or another.

<h2 style="margin: 0px; padding: 1em 0px 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(241, 241, 241);">What public-records obstacles were encountered?</h2>

Some jurisdictions insisted that their computer systems lacked the capability to search for election fraud cases. They suggested that if News21 would forward the names of the people in the cases of interest, they would find the information; the names, of course, were what News21 was seeking.

Dozens of jurisdictions flatly refused the requests, using variations of the disclaimer that their public-records law does not require them to create a document that does not exist, therefore the request is denied. News21 responded to these denials by arguing that the team was not asking that a new record be created, but rather for copies of existing records of election fraud prosecutions. Even so, some jurisdictions continued to resist giving responsive replies.

Another problem was a pass-the-buck response. The secretary of state or department of elections would refer News21 to the attorney general, who would refer the team to the county district attorneys, who would then refer back to the secretary of state or department of elections. It was similar at the federal level. The Department of Justice responded to a query by pointing News21 to the 93 U.S. Attorney's offices around the country; many of those offices, in turn, referred News21 back to the department.

In some cases, there even was organized resistance to answering the News21 requests. When North Carolina sent a summary without details, News21 queried the 44 district attorneys across the state and got a detailed response from one of them. But almost immediately, an official with the Administrative Office of the Courts intervened and told the others not to respond to the News21 request. Another example was the director of the Minnesota County Attorneys Association, who refused to give News21 the email addresses of those offices, and then wrote an angry email when a News21 reporter used another source to get that contact information.

<h2 style="margin: 0px; padding: 1em 0px 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(241, 241, 241);">Was there any cost to seeking the public records?</h2>

That depends on the jurisdiction. Many places responded without charge. Others insisted on payment in advance of fees that ranged from modest — $10 for copying fees — to the $60,000 that officials in an Idaho county said would be necessary to write a computer program to search their records. (The county then acknowledged that it was unlikely there were any such cases to be found.) News21 paid a total of nearly $1,800 to various jurisdictions, in amounts ranging up to the $800 for programming a search of Iowa’s database. (Iowa added that answering public-records requests was the “lowest priority” for the state.)

Generally, there was little bang for the bucks spent on those statewide public-records searches. The $320 paid to Virginia generated a listing of 77 cases, more than half of which were separate charges against one person. Pennsylvania got $200 for a search that produced seven cases.

<h2 style="margin: 0px; padding: 1em 0px 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(241, 241, 241);">How did News21 organize the responses received?</h2>

A master spreadsheet was created using Google Documents, which allowed team members to enter new cases as the information came in. A spreadsheet is just a table of columns and rows, where the columns are the variables and the rows are the individual cases. In the case of the News21 fraud database, the key variables were name of accused; state; year; type of accused (individual voter, campaign official, third party, etc.); category of accusation (in-person voter impersonation, absentee-ballot fraud, registration fraud, double voting, intimidation, etc.); status of the case (convicted, pleaded guilty, found not guilty, dismissed, etc.); and a short synopsis of the case with whatever details had been gathered.

A second spreadsheet was used to track when News21 sent public-records requests to each federal, state or local jurisdiction, the response and the follow-up.

In addition, News21 set up a Document Cloud site where readers can see all the documents that were gathered during the course of the investigation. Document Cloud is a Web service used by more than 300 journalism organizations to index, organize, annotate and share with the public the documents they gather for investigative stories. <a href="http://votingrights.news21.com/interactive/document-cloud-all" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">The News21 documents can be accessed here.</a>

<h2 style="margin: 0px; padding: 1em 0px 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(241, 241, 241);">How does News21 define the different types of election fraud?</h2>

Inspiration for the News21 database of federal state and local election fraud came from studying earlier efforts by Rutgers University Professor Lorraine Minnite, who built a smaller database of federal cases for her 2010 book “The Myth of Voter Fraud,” and the Brennan Center for Justice, which analyzed a collection of election cases for its 2007 report “The Truth About Voter Fraud.”

A key distinction is between voter fraud and election fraud. News21 started with the definitions offered by Minnite in her book: “Voter fraud is the intentional deceitful corruption of the election process by voters. All other forms of corruption of the electoral process and corruption committed by elected or election officials, candidates, party organizations, advocacy groups or campaign workers falls under the wider definition of election fraud.”

From there, the subcategories in the News21 database grew to include a dozen kinds of illegal election behavior by any of four kinds of participants in elections – voters, election officials, campaign officials or third parties. <a href="http://votingrights.news21.com/article/definition-of-terms/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">See this table for details</a> on how these were defined. The News21 definitions don’t always agree with definitions used by different jurisdictions. For instance, some places call it “voter impersonation” when someone is accused of sending in the absentee ballot of another person; under the News21 definition, that would be “absentee ballot fraud.”

Because so much rhetoric focused on voter ID has proclaimed it the cure for perceived election fraud, News21 paid special attention to verifying any cases that conceivably could have been stopped by strict requirements that would prove a voter’s identity. Such cases would involve someone who goes to a polling place on Election Day and impersonates a registered voter. That is different from, for instance, cases of registering to vote using false ID or filling in an absentee ballot for someone else.

The News21 database includes as many cases as could be found that had reached some level of official action: That is, someone was charged, an investigation was opened, a specific accusation was made against a named person.

Along with official records, News21 reporters looked for news media accounts of such accusations, and then made all efforts to contact elections officials to find out what happened in those cases. In some cases, such as 71 of those from the RNLA survey, no official record could be found beyond a media report; these still were included in the database.

The News21 Election Fraud effort was organized and led by Corbin Carson, who designed the database and kept track of the public-records requests and responses. Sarah Jane Capper and Alex Remington led the research teams, which included Kassondra Cloos, Andrea Rumbaugh, Natasha Khan, Lindsey Ruta, Jeremy Knop and Ethan Magoc. The entire News21 team assisted in entering and fact-checking massive amounts of data.

<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=related:www.theprojectveritas.org/+james+o%27keefe+voter+fraud&tbo=1&sa=X&ei=VELfUdqYIMK-yQH58oDYAQ&ved=0CIIBEB8wCQ" class="fl" wrc_done="true" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px;">Conservative activist James O'Keefe plotted a potential voter fraud sting of the Service Employees International Union in 2010 in Massachusetts — a sting that, had it been carried out, could have been funded by Rick Santorum patron Foster Friess. </a>

The plot is elaborated on and eventually ruled out in an email chain started by conservative writer John Fund, who emailed Republican National Lawyers Association executive director Michael Thielen that the union was "contracting for buses on election day."

"If you're black or brown they'll rope you in and take you to the polls, registration can be worked out," Fund wrote, per his "Boston source." His email was forwarded on to others, forming the basis for the plans.

The email exchange, parts of which may be missing, is below. Read from the bottom. The last email is from James O'Keefe to associates Stan Dai and Nadia Naffe, who later filed harassment charges against O'Keefe.

Others on the thread include Heather Higgins, the founder of the conservative Independent Women's Voice and the late Andrew Breitbart.

Naffe told BuzzFeed she flew to Boston to investigate, but that they never uncovered anything of interest and the project fizzled.

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