Playing Politics with Voters’ Rights

For over four decades, the Voting Section at the Department of Justice has enforced federal protections of American’s civil rights. Over the past six years, that noble commitment has been usurped by a cynical campaign to use the infrastructure of voter protection for partisan gain. Similarly, the Election Assistance VoteCommission (EAC), which was created under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to provide unbiased guidance related to elections, has devolved into a tool to pass partisan disenfranchising policies like restrictive photo identification requirements.

Click here for an overview

The National Campaign for Fair Elections has been working to expose the entirety of the plan. Below is information about the politicization of:

Election Assistance Commission
Civil Rights Division/Voting Section
U.S. Attorneys

Two key architects of the plan are:

Bradley Schlozman
Hans von Spakovsky

Election Assistance Commission

One of the principle roles of the EAC under HAVA is to research and report on issues critical to the election process. In 2006 the EAC commissioned two such reports. One combined research and reporting on voter fraud and voter intimidation, and the other report researched the impact of voter identification on turnout. The findings of both reports directly conflict with proponents arguments that restrictive voter identification and proof of citizenship laws are necessary to preserve the integrity of the electoral process – that there is a rash of voter impersonation corrupting electoral outcomes. The reports not only found little evidence of fraud at the polling place, but also that structural barriers and voter intimidation play a significant role in elections. Furthermore, one of the studies concluded voter ID laws drive down voter turnout particularly among traditionally disenfranchised voters.

Instead of releasing this critical information, the EAC suppressed the reports for months. During that time Congress was debating a number of proposals to impose voter ID and proof of citizenship requirements on voters across the country. Also, state legislatures were debating and passing restrictive voter identification provisions and restrictions on the rights of voter registration groups to register voters. All of these efforts were rationalized by fears of voter fraud.

Click here to learn more about the politicization of the EAC.

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Civil Rights Division/Voting Section

The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice and its Voting Section has gone through an historic politicization depleting the Section and the Division of Flag and gavelthe ability to successfully guard against civil rights violations. Since taking office, this administration has shifted the Section’s traditional enforcement priority away from protecting minority voters, especially African-Americans. Not a single Section 2 – the Voting Rights Act’s national discrimination prohibition – case was brought on behalf of African-American or Native-American voters during a five year period. At the same time, the Section brought the first prosecution for alleged discrimination of white voters by African-American officials in Noxubee, Mississippi.

Lawyers’ Committee Project Director, and 37 year veteran at the Department and a former Voting Section chief, Joe Rich, has been actively involved in exposing the politicization of the Division.

In March, 2007, Rich testified at a House oversight hearing of the Civil Rights Division. Read his testimony here.
Also in March, Rich wrote an Op-Ed about his experiences in the Los Angeles Times, Bush’s long history of tilting Justice.
Rich also assisted with the compilation of the Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights’ report The Erosion of Civil Rights. Chapters 1&2 and Chapters 3-7 are of particular importance.

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U.S. Attorneys

The controversial firing of eight U.S. Attorneys is just another example of how federal law enforcement has been politicized.

It seems now that three of the nine dismissed U.S. Attorneys were let go, at least in part, because they failed to bring politically charged voter fraud prosecutions - David Inglesias in New Mexico, John McKay in Washington state, and Todd Graves in Missouri. Another, H.E. (Bud) Cummins, III in Arkansas, was dismissed to make way for a close White House ally, Tim Griffin who has since had to resign his position because of revelations of his political past. Griffin is a Republican Party operative who is intimately familiar with manipulating the election process, including organizing the "caging" campaign for the Republican Party in 2004.

 

Often overlooked is the interim appointment of Bradley Schlozman as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri in March, 2006. One week before the 2006 Election, and in the midst of the heated McCaskill/Talent U.S. Senate race, Schlozman initiated indictments against three ACORN workers. These indictments went against long established DOJ policy that voter fraud cases should not be brought before an election is decided because such prosecutions have the potential to influence election outcomes.

Lawyers’ Committee’s Jonah Goldman and Common Cause’s Barbara Burt provide further details about the U.S. Attorney firings in an Op-Ed in TomPaine.com titled, Who’s Election Fraud?.

A May, 2007 Washington Post article, "Voter-Fraud Complaints by GOP Drove Dismissals," explains the issue further.

McClatchy Newspapers has kept a running diary of all its stories in the U.S. Attorney firings.

See timeline of U.S. Attorney Firings

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Bradley Schlozman

Bradley SchlozmanDuring his tenure as interim U.S. Attorney in Western Missouri, Bradley Schlozman took the unprecedented action of bringing the weight of the Department of Justice down on four individuals, just a week before the election despite clear Department rules to the contrary. Schlozman’s actions, ignoring the rules set up to protect against voter disenfranchisement and intimidation, extended to his time at Justice when he used senior positions at the Voting Section to politicize federal civil rights enforcement.

Click here for more information about Schlozman’s record.

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Hans von Spakovsky

Hans von SpakovskyHans von Spakovsky, who was recently nominated to the Federal Election Commission, was one of the principle architects of the effort to use federal voter protections for partisan ends. From early in 2003 until December 2005, von Spakovsky was a political appointee, overseeing the Department of Justice’s Voting Section. According to six former career civil servants – who worked under both Republican and Democratic administrations - in a letter to the Senate Rules Committee, von Spakovsky "played a major role in the implementation of policies that injected partisan political factors into decision-making on enforcement matters."

Read the entire letter here.

Following von Spakovsky’s hearing the six civil servants sent a second letter refuting much of his testimony.

Paul Kiel with Talking Points Memo Muckraker has been actively following the von Spakovsky issue.  In a recent article he digs deeper into the inaccuracies in von Spakovsky’s Senate testimony.

A St. Louis Post-Dispatch article, "Local case may trip up FEC nominee," featuring the Lawyers’ Committee’s Jon Greenbaum and Joe Rich, gives a detailed account of some of Spakovsky’s partisan actions while at Justice.

On September 26, 2007, the Senate Rules Committee voted out the four FEC nominees, including von Spakovsky, without recommendation.  This is an unprecedented move due to the strong opposition of Senator Diane Feinstein to von Spakovsky’s nomination.  Prior to the vote, the Lawyers’ Committee sent a letter to the Senate Rules Committee opposing his nomination.  Read the letter here.

On October 3, 2007, the Lawyers’ Committee sent another letter, this time to the full Senate, opposing von Spakovsky’s nomination.  Read the letter here.

The Senate must get to the bottom of this plan by asking von Spakovksy tough questions.

Click here for more information about von Spakovsky’s record.

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