Rigid voter law still being enforced
Posted on Thu, Dec. 20, 2007 BY GARY FINEOUT
TALLAHASSEE --
Despite a federal judge's order, state election officials have told Florida's 67 election supervisors to keep following a controversial voter registration law.

U.S. Judge Stephan Mickle earlier this week ordered state officials to stop enforcing the 2-year-old law that requires information filled out on voter registration forms to match numbers maintained in state and federal databases.

But Sarah Jane Bradshaw, the interim head of the state Division of Elections, told election supervisors to maintain their current procedures for verifying voter registration forms while the state prepares an appeal of the ruling. ''We will advise you as soon as we have determined whether the Supervisors of Elections will need to take any action to comply with this injunction. Please do not change any of your procedures until further notice,'' Bradshaw wrote in an e-mail that was sent out late Tuesday.

A spokesman for Secretary of State Kurt Browning contended that state officials were not defying the judge's order.

''I would disagree with that statement,'' said Sterling Ivey.

Official: Justice Dept. slowed probe into phone jamming
By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers December 19, 2007

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department delayed prosecuting a key Republican official for jamming the phones of New Hampshire Democrats until after the 2004 election, protecting top GOP officials from the scandal until the voting was over.

An official with detailed knowledge of the investigation into the 2002 Election-Day scheme said the inquiry sputtered for months after a prosecutor sought approval to indict James Tobin, the northeast regional coordinator for the Republican National Committee.

The phone-jamming operation was aimed at preventing New Hampshire Democrats from rounding up voters in the close U.S. Senate race between Republican Rep. John Sununu and Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen. Sununu's 19,000-vote victory helped the GOP regain control of the Senate...

Justice's voting chief steps down amid controversy
By Greg Gordon Posted on Friday, December 14, 2007

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department's voting rights chief stepped down Friday amid allegations that he'd used the position to aid a Republican strategy to suppress African-American votes.

John Tanner became the latest of about a dozen senior department officials, including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who've resigned in recent months in a scandal over the politicization of the Justice Department in the Bush administration.

In recent months, McClatchy has reported on a pattern of decision-making within the department's Civil Rights Division, of which the Voting Rights Section is a part, that tended to narrow the voting rights of Democratic-leaning minorities.

Tanner has been enmeshed for months in congressional investigations over his stewardship of the unit that was established to protect minority-voting rights. He drew increased focus this fall after he told a Latino group: "African-Americans don't become elderly the way white people do. They die."...

BLOGGED BY Brad Friedman ON 12/7/2007 6:52PM
ANN COULTER, VOTER FRAUD FELON, GETS AWAY WITH IT
Two Years After Initial Slam-Dunk Allegations First Documented, Reported, Florida Election Commission Decides Two Year Statute of Limitations on Case Has Run Out
Another Republican Vote Fraudster Skates in the Sunshine State...

Blogged by Brad Friedman from the road...

We're too sickened by it to cover the details --- many of which we've covered Exclusively over the last two years --- so we'll refer you to our CoulterFraud Special Coverage page (please pass it on!) for all the disgusting details on dead-to-rights voter fraud felon, Ann Coulter, who knowingly lied about her address on her voter registration form in Palm Beach County, Florida; proceeded to break the law again by knowingly voting at the wrong precinct; then lied about it repeatedly; hired a former Bush attorney to protect her ass; and even called in her FBI ex-boyfriend to save her bacon when it looked like the Palm Beach County Sheriff might actually have the balls to bring charges.

She even had her G-man former beau go as far as to name a BRAD BLOG Guest Blogger as a "stalker", despite any evidence for same, as justification for lying on her voter registration form. This is one sick person. But you likely already knew that....

State: Florida Voting Machines Can Be Hacked By Marc Caputo Tuesday 31 July 2007
Tallahassee - Reversing an unofficial policy of denial, the Florida Secretary of State's office has conducted an elections study that confirmed Tuesday what a maverick voting chief discovered nearly two years ago: Insider computer hackers can change votes without a trace on Diebold optical-scan machines.

The study by Florida State University found that, despite recent software fixes, an "adversary" could use a pre-programmed computer card to swap one candidate's votes for another or create a "ballot-stuffing attack" that multiplies votes for a candidate or issue....

Bush Government to Poor Voters: We Don't Want You to Vote By Steven Rosenfeld Tuesday 17 July 2007
The Justice Department is pressuring 10 states to purge their voter rolls, while states are ignoring laws to help low-income Americans register to vote.

Files show talks on 'vote caging' - Discussions with elections chief were prior to '04 election By J. Taylor Rushing, Capital Bureau Chief 7/7/2007
TALLAHASSEE - Internal city memos show the issue of Republican "vote caging" efforts in Jacksonville's African-American neighborhoods was discussed in the weeks before the 2004 election, contradicting recent claims by former Duval County Republican leader Mike Hightower - the Bush-Cheney campaign's local chairman at the time.

"Caging" is a longtime voter suppression practice by which political parties collect undeliverable or unreturned mail and use it to develop "challenge lists" on Election Day....

ORIGINAL RESEARCH: The Truth about Caging in 2004 by drational Tue Jun 26, 2007
Prevention of "Voter Fraud" is a dominant electoral strategy within the GOP. Although there are numerous examples of REGISTRATION fraud, actual casting of illegal ballots is rare. As such, political manipulation of the DOJ and efforts to enact voter ID laws and other ballot security measures are largely based upon partisan beliefs, rather than facts.

The cost of these “anti-fraud” efforts to our Democracy is disenfranchisement. The side-effect (and perhaps the goal) of these efforts is suppression of voters who traditionally vote for Democrats. When suppression of Democratic voters disproportionately affects minorities, it violates Civil Rights laws and court-ordered consent agreements prohibiting this activity....

Justice Official May Revise Voter-Fraud Testimony, People Say By Robert Schmidt Friday 08 June 2007
A Justice Department lawyer under fire for bringing criminal voter- fraud charges on the eve of the 2006 election may revise his Senate testimony about the case, which angered other U.S. prosecutors, officials familiar with the matter said.

Bradley Schlozman, who as U.S. attorney in Kansas City obtained indictments charging workers for an activist group with submitting fake voter-registration forms, defended the timing of the case to the Senate Judiciary Committee this week by saying he acted "at the direction" of the department's Public Integrity Section....

Senator charges improper political interference in Justice Department By Greg Gordon Jun. 05, 2007
WASHINGTON -Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy angrily threatened Tuesday to issue subpoenas "if the White House continues to stonewall" his panel's investigation into fired U.S. attorneys, and he said he was "deeply troubled" by what he called White House efforts to "manipulate the (Justice) Department into its own political arm."

Leahy, D-Vt., charged that "every week seems to bring new revelations about the erosion of independence at the Justice Department. This administration was willing, in the U.S. attorney firings and in the vetting of career hires for political allegiance, to sacrifice the independence of law enforcement and the rule of law for loyalty to the White House."...

Curious, very few news story's on this on Google News, only 37 published items out of the countless news outlets on the planet. And NOT ONE of them mentions the GOP "Caging List" emails revealed by Greg Palast that apparently prove criminal election fraud and vote suppression tactics by the Bushies....

Ex-aide to Rove resigns amid U.S. attorney flap June 1, 2007
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The former White House aide whose appointment to a U.S. attorney's post helped fuel the furor over the forced resignations of eight federal prosecutors will resign Friday, according to a news release.

Tim Griffin, 38, said in a Thursday statement that he is leaving his position as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas to pursue "opportunities" in the private sector...

US Attorney Tim Griffin Resigns Following Conyers’ Request for BBC Documents By Greg Palast On June 1, 2007
Tim Griffin, formerly right hand man to Karl Rove, resigned Thursday as US Attorney for Arkansas hours after BBC Television ‘Newsnight’ reported that Congressman John Conyers requested the network’s evidence on Griffin’s involvement in ‘caging voters.’ Greg Palast, reporting for BBC Newsnight, obtained a series of confidential emails from the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. In these emails, Griffin, then the GOP Deputy Communications Director, transmitted so-called ‘caging lists’ of voters to state party leaders....

The Scales of Justice By Murray Waas
The National Journal Thursday 31 May 2007
How a Missouri Republican operative interacted with the Justice Department in pursuit of a partisan agenda - In the closing weeks of Missouri's tight 2006 U.S. Senate race, the U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark., took the unusual step of revealing that his office's investigation into possible state government contracting abuses in Missouri had found no evidence of wrongdoing by Republican Gov. Matt Blunt.

Separately, less than a week before Election Day, the interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo., brought voting-fraud charges against four employees of the activist group ACORN, which registers low-income people who typically vote for Democratic candidates. Justice Department guidelines discourage prosecutors from bringing criminal charges so close to an election....

The Goods on Goodling and the Keys to the Kingdom
Special to www.BRADBLOG.com by Greg Palast
This Monica revealed something hotter — much hotter — than a stained blue dress. In her opening testimony yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee, Monica Goodling, the blonde-ling underling to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Department of Justice Liaison to the White House, dropped The Big One….And the Committee members didn’t even know it.

Goodling testified that Gonzales’ Chief of Staff, Kyle Sampson, perjured himself, lying to the committee in earlier testimony. The lie: Sampson denied Monica had told him about Tim Griffin’s “involvement in ‘caging’ voters” in 2004.

Huh?? Tim Griffin? “Caging”???...

emptywheel over at thenexthurrah has done some grade A sleuthing on potential Bushite/ Rovian scamming of the 2008 election (read STEALING) through bogus "voter fraud" complaints initiated through Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Republican lackeys installed as immigration judges by the DoJ...

ICE and the Immigration Judges by emptywheel May 26, 2007
The LAT and the WaPo both have stories reporting that BushCo was illegally using partisan affiliation in the hiring of immigration judges, even before Monica Goodling came along. Here's the LAT:

Over the last two years, U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales has appointed more than two dozen individuals as federal immigration judges.

The new jurists include a former treasurer of the Louisiana Republican Party, who was a legal advisor to the Bush Florida recount team after the 2000 presidential election. There is also a former GOP congressional aide who had tracked voter fraud issues for the Justice Department, and a Texan appointed by then-Gov. George W. Bush to a seat on the state library commission.

One thing missing on many of their resumes: a background in immigration law....