Update: Former AG Lautenschlager: Van Hollen wants to suppress voters
From the Capital Times:
October 31, 2008
The Honorable J.B. Van Hollen
Attorney General
State of Wisconsin
Wisconsin Department of Justice
P.O. Box 7857
Madison, WI 53707-7857
Dear Mr. Attorney General:
I am writing to express my strong concern about your October 28 announcement that 'as part of election integrity efforts the Wisconsin Department of Justice will be sending assistant attorneys general and special agents from the Division of Criminal Investigation to various locations around the state on Election Day ... to ensure compliance with state laws governing elections.' I am unaware of any specific criminal investigation to which these efforts pertain.
I appreciate that your office must be prepared to respond to incidents, if any, that may arise on Election Day. But the announcement and execution of your plans may have the effect of discouraging legitimate voters from attempting to cast their votes, and I urge you to reconsider your decision. If, however, you decide to proceed with these plans, I ask that you provide detailed information about how Department of Justice employees will be deployed, including the locations to which they will be deployed, how those locations were chosen, and a detailed description or copies of the instructions these employees will be given.
In order to try to ensure that legitimate voters are not discouraged or intimidated by your actions, I also encourage you to ensure that criminal law enforcement personnel are not deployed at polling stations. It is widely acknowledged that the presence of criminal law enforcement personnel at polling stations may discourage and intimidate legitimate voters -- even where the intent may be to facilitate voter access. Wan J. Kim, who served as assistant attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division from 2005 to 2007, has observed that '(federal) prosecutors being involved in voter access issues would lead to intimidation at the polls.' As a precaution against any possibility or appearance of intimidation, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on September 23 that the federal government employees deployed to polling stations this Election Day will not include criminal prosecutors.
I appreciate your immediate attention to this request and look forward to your prompt response.
Sincerely,
Russell D. Feingold
United States Senator
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