GOP Voter Suppression and Obstruction Program Are a National Enterprise

- It's the GOP voter obstruction that could be decisive this November in close races across the country. UnAmerican and corrupt, the GOP-Tea Party Alliance works to prevent the wrong Americans from legally voting -

By Michael Leon

Madison, Wisconsin—Not exactly shocking that the Voter Suppression scheme among the Republican Party of Wisconsin, Americans for Prosperity, and Tea Party Groups is under way here in this important swing state. Thanks to the efforts of One Wisconsin Now the program to obstruct minority and college-age voters have been exposed.

GOP operatives like Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen know well that Republicans lose in high-voter turnout elections, thus the top state's top law enforcement official's energetic work in the corrupt stop-the-vote legal case that was tossed out of court in 2008.

See J B Van Hollen vs. Government Accountability Board et al, (Dane County Case Number 2008CV004085); and WI Elect Board Hits DOJ, GOP Voter Suppression; Brennan Center on Wisconsin Van Hollen 2008 Voter Suppression Decision, and Targeting Black Milwaukee Voters, and Black Voters Across the Nation (Andrew Hacker, New York Review of Books, Sept 25, 2008) for background.

Now, the Democratic Strategist reports the national GOP voter suppression efforts continues at crash speed:

Voter Suppression 2010 Style

By J.B. Green

Democrats have plenty to worry about over the next five weeks, but it nonetheless behooves Dems to get up to speed on the latest voter suppression scams. Toward that end, Demos and Common Cause have partnered to present a must-read report on the topic, "Voting in 2010: Ten Swing States: Problematic election laws and policies in ten swing states could impact enough voters to determine election outcomes." (PDF Executive Summary here)

The report profiles ten states (AZ, KY, CO, IL, LA, MI, MO, NV, NC and OH), where close elections are expected. The report focuses on laws and policies built into the structure of state election codes, rather than the illegal suppression practices that popped up in FL and OH during recent presidential elections.

The fact sheet on Kentucky, for example, reveals the obstacles Democratic candidates face in that state, including cutting off registration 28 days before the election, draconian felon disenfranchisement disqualifying 24 percent of African Americans, no legal mandate to disseminate voter information and a poor record of complying with the legal requirement to register people at public assistance agencies.
The report also credits each state for "exemplary voting laws" where applicable.

There are also reports of a voter caging operation underway in Wisconsin. According to Karoli's post, "Voter Suppression in Wisconsin, Courtesy of the GOP and Americans for Prosperity" at CrooksandLiars.com,

Here's how it works: A mailer is sent to registered voters. Any mailers returned by the post office are put in a database and those voters are submitted to be purged from voting rolls. Of course, the targets are never Republican voters. They're Democrats, and generally minority voters in particular....One Wisconsin Now has uncovered this plot with evidence, but don't assume this is limited to Wisconsin. I guarantee you it isn't. They are targeting as many states as they can, but particularly swing states. Expect Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona just to name a few to have the exact same operations afoot.

And here's a recent report on voter suppression in Texas.

In addition to the aforementioned laws and policies, and 'caging,' Dems should be ready for other suppression practices, like switching poll places, intimidation, parking obstruction, misleading and incorrect poll information, inferior computer equipment at polls in minority neighborhood polling places,

Stephen Ansolabehere and Eitan Hersh also have a contribution to the topic in their "Early and Often" post at the Boston Review, in which they note,

Registration problems create barriers to voting and make it difficult for administrators to communicate with voters, identify voters at the polls, and audit elections after the fact. Reforms following the 2000 election sought to improve the accuracy and currency of the voter-registration lists. Most important, all states now have statewide voter files. So how good are the files today?...

This summer the Institute for Quantitative Social Sciences at Harvard University and the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project issued the first comprehensive, nationwide analysis of the quality of information stored on voter registration lists...Nationwide, approximately 1 in 16 entries on the registration lists is unmailable. The magnitude of the problem varies greatly throughout the country. In California, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C., about 1 in 50 entries is problematic, but in Arkansas, that number is 1 in 5.

The authors provide a chart ranking every state. This is not just about incompetence and sloppy registration management. The states are all well-aware of their rankings and the reasons for it, and in most cases it's a matter of political manipulation -- almost always to the detriment of Democrats.

Wisconsin '08 Election Notes

Political writers who in February ridiculed the notion that Obama, flush with a 17-point primary victory here, could in November win substantial blocks of voters among the 'white working class' (WWC), appeal to white voters in Republican strongholds such as Waukesha County, and who crowed that their reading of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) federal election law was spot-on correct, are in a word: Wrong.

Typical among today's brand of Republican commentators, such admissions have not been forthcoming.

White Working Class

As Ruy Teixeira writes: While losing the "white working class" (WWC) vote nationally by 18 points, "(o)n the state level, Obama did stunningly well among WWC voters in four of the five highly competitive states they won in 2000 and 2004 (MI, MN, OR and (Wisconsin)). The average WWC deficit for Kerry in these states in 2004 was 8 points. In 2008, Obama had an average advantage in these states of 6 points, a pro-Democratic swing of 14 points."

Waukesha County

Looking at Waukesha County, Kerry lost by 81,000 votes; Obama lost by some 60,000 votes. That's an improvement in one county of about twice the Democratic nominees' statewide combined winning margins in 2000 and 2004.

Informed (let's be honest non-Republican) observers saw McCain as a long shot here, with prospects dimming with each passing negative ad run.

But the Republican political campaign itself never gave up though its top strategists recalled later that they could read the writing on the wall.

McCain-Palin co-chair Van Hollen, Amen-Corner Know-Nothings

But the campaign soldiered on, including the contemptible attempt by McCain-Palin co-chair and AG J.B. Van Hollen to use the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to force widespread provisional ballot voting, disqualify eligible voters, suppress the black turnout in Milwaukee [where the blacks were getting uppity], and basically sow confusion into the voting process.

They lost that battle too.

And now Republican commentators, facts aside, claim victory: Victory in their arguments—citing the Government Accountability Board's (GAB) recent decision to maintain the Statewide Voter Registration System (SVRS), a voters list, by comparing it with State Department of Transportation data, per HAVA.

Some facts that continue to elude such writers as Waukesha's James Wigderson:

- The text in HAVA mandates that Wisconsin takes due care to see that eligible voters are not thrown off the voter rolls. The GAB has been and is exercising that care. Thus, as the GAB press release reads: "The six-member Board of former judges ruled that a mismatch of voter information contained in the Statewide Voter Registration System (SVRS) with Wisconsin Department of Transportation (DOT) data, in and of itself, shall not result in disqualification of a voter."

- The GAB has said repeatedly that it will implement the cross-checking as Van Hollen, the GOP, and know-nothings like Wigderson screamed was demanded by the "law." But the disagreement was over the timetable, the GAB's versus the GOP's.

As the GAB press release reads: "The Board’s decision prevented potentially thousands of Wisconsin voters from being disenfranchised ... on November 4, solely because the spelling of the voter’s name was not exactly the same in the DOT database and the SVRS database. In its August 27 decision, the Board said that it would revisit its action after the fall election. ... 'Since being directed by the Board at its August 27 meeting, it has been our intention to work with our local election partners after the General Election to identify a protocol that ensures consistency and standards for cross-checking all voters in SVRS with DOT records,' (said) Kevin Kennedy, GAB’s Director and General Counsel, and Wisconsin’s Chief Election Officer. '"

The GAB is revisiting its action now, like it said it would.

So Wigderson says he was right all along, citing the decision of the GAB to do what it said it was going to do, and refusing to disenfranchise voters because bureaucrats' databases do not match.

Republican commentators like Wigderson live in a world undisturbed by facts, replete with an utter inability to comprehend this issue. And they are treated seriously by some--especially in journals that should know better.

Thankfully, the reality-based community will take over both the legislative and executive in America and Wisconsin in 2009 having swept away reality-challenged minds.

- via mal contends

Newest Fool on Voter Suppression Case: Wigderson

What happened to all the voter fraud nonsense from which our intrepid Attorney General was going to protect us?

With the great number of people casting votes that saw Wisconsin at number two in voter turnout in the nation, the GAB reports that the elections were "virtually problem-free."

Now, another rightwinger, Wigderson from Waukesha, plays the fool on the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board's (GAB) maintenance of its statewide registered voter list (SVRS) and the Van Hollen v. Government Accountability Board case.

The GAB, as it said it would, will ask for checks of SVRS against other existing databases, and it is now doing so, per its authority and responsibility and discretion.

The rightwing was right all along, say the know nothings.

Is this ignorance deliberate? It must be, no one can be that dumb.

Unless the GAB makes the database match (between the statewide voter registration list (SVRS) and the DOT, DOR and Social Security databases) a precondition to voting, it is in compliance with Wisconsin’s constitutionally protected right to establish its voter eligibility standards in accordance with existing law, as the text of Judge Sumi's decision to dismiss reads.

The text in HAVA mandates that Wisconsin takes due care to see that eligible voters are not thrown off the voter rolls. The GAB has been and is exercising that care. If it does not exercise that care, we should seek administrative and judicial remedies

For example, the GAB refused to mandate the checks on election day and force widespread provisional voting.

The GOP wanted the GAB to work on the GOP's timeframe, and to see that the checks became determinative to voting, stopping the dreaded "voter fraud." Voter fraud, that's what experts call: Bullshit.

So Attorney General Van Hollen's staff met with GOP politicos and confirmed that it would file the lawsuit.

Though Van Hollen said that the Wisconsin Attorney General was the ultimate decider on administering Wisconsin elections in this case as he sought his writ of mandamus to stop voter fraud and preserve the integrity of the election, his and the GOP's view was panned and the case was tossed.

The problem was that forcing re-registrations on Election Day would have created very long lines, confusion, generally suppressing votes. That's what Van Hollen and the GOP wanted and that's what they did not get.

So again, what happened to all the voter fraud nonsense from which our intrepid Attorney General was going to protect us? Where did voter fraud occur when the GAB was acting outside the law, as Van Hollen said it was?

GOP Writers: Reading Is Bad on Voter Suppression Case

Those wishing that the 2008 election will result in commentary from the rightwing that is not quite so uninformed and dull will be disappointed.

Reading the reaction to the news that the GAB is considering a timetable of its maintenance of its statewide registered voter list (SVRS), one is left with the impression that desire for rightwingers to read before commenting constitutes a lost hope. Hyperbole? I wish.

Regarding the Van Hollen v. Government Accountability Board case, one would believe that those rightwing writers would read the briefs, relevant sections of the HAVA statute and the text of Judge Sumi's decision to dismiss. Sumi’s decision is 22 pages-long and is a quick read.

But rightwingers, like Dad29, show a stubborn resistance to facts. Hey, they were right all along, Dad29 would have you believe.

Writes Dad29 in GAB: "Doh! Van Hollen's Right!",

Van Hollen should bill back the AG's lawsuit-expenses to the GAB for this (news that the GAB is deliberating on HAVA checks dating back to 2006 RE (SVRS)).

Some points:

Citing precedent, Sumi writes in her decision that: "'It is evident that this court has consistently placed a premium on giving effect to the will of the voter.' ... 'the will of the voter in terms of the ability to go to the polls, vested with the franchise' (to vote)."

Sumi means that the disqualification of voters (outside a narrow class) desired by the GOP, or the forced casting of provisional ballots has no compelling basis in case law.

As for the HAVA statute, HAVA mandates the creation of a statewide voter registration list (SVRS), but is careful to leave the maintenance of the list up to individual states’ discretion, in accordance with the states’ existing election law and federal election law, like the Voting Rights Act of 1965—one of the end legislative results of uppity blacks and assorted liberals, including northern liberal Republicans of the time.

As pointed out by Sumi and everyone else who has bothered to read the text of HAVA, except for the GOP: “Neither HAVA nor state law require a database match (between SVRS and the DOT and Social Security databases) as a precondition to voting. … HAVA does not supplant Wisconsin’s constitutionally protected right to establish its voter eligibility standards.”

This means that the GOP’s desired kicking people off the voting list (except for a small class of voters) ain’t going to happen.

The GAB is the proper state agency to administer the voting list.

It has announced repeatedly that it will check the list, SVRS, against the existing databases, and it is now doing so, per its authority and responsibility and discretion.

The GAB will not make a match the basis for casting votes, even provisional ballots, except for a small class of voters, again discounting the expressed wishes of the GOP and Van Hollen who still scream voter fraud.

The GAB is now considering rules for the maintenance of the SVRS. That's the news.

C'mon Dad29, try reading before writing commentary, if you don't like it, you can always go back to what you're doing now.

On CNN, Van Hollen Admits to GOP Lawsuit Collusion

More evidence that Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen is a liar, and corrupt partisan.

From the Wisconsin Democratic Party:

Van Hollen says GOP 'may have asked lawyers in my office to file the lawsuit.'



In a recent interview with CNN, Attorney General JB Van Hollen finally admitted to what we’ve known all along, that his hyper-partisan lawsuit against the GAB was brought in collusion with his Republican Party bosses.

Van Hollen doesn’t have a very good poker face. Watch his eyes wandering nervously when the reporter presses him on whether or not the GOP personally asked him to file the lawsuit. Maybe he’s nervous because he lost his lawsuit and now his web of cover-ups and deceit at the DOJ is finally unraveling.

Remember, this is the same guy who made the following statements to reporters last month:

“There was no discussion with anybody involved in leadership with the Republican Party (or the McCain Campaign) about this lawsuit before it was brought." - Attorney General JB Van Hollen (Source: MJS, 9.18.08)

(Van Hollen) said he had “no reason to believe” any of his aides discussed the case with the GOP or the McCain campaign. (Source: MJS, 9.19.08)

"This should be about as nonpartisan an issue as there is. … Once again, I don’t know who is making this a partisan issue. Our decision to sue is non-partisan as well." - Attorney General JB Van Hollen (Source, WPR, Joy Cardin, 9.18.08)

The Van Hollen v. GAB Victory

- see also the Washington Independent's new piece, "A Myth of Voter Fraud"
The victory over the GOP and the Wisconsin attorney general's attempt to suppress blacks and other Democratically-leaning voters for electoral purposes reveals other groups and dedicated legal staffs busily at work, literally saving our democracy from the corrupt and anti-democratic forces that reign in today's GOP.

We have come a long way from the 1960s and Arthur Kinoy and William Kunstler and 1,000s of civil rights workers in Alabama and Mississippi who were threatened with their lives (many were murdered), and jail as the white power structure and the internal states' security apparatus were used in every despicable way imaginable by Senator James Eastland, the Klan and assorted racists against the nigger-loving Jews as they were known back then.

Sure, in Wisconsin today the racism and anti-Semitism are absent, the violence and physical intimidation are gone, but remaining in Van Hollen and the Wisconsin Republican Party is the contempt for the voters who insist on casting their votes and making their voices heard in our democracy.

J.B. Van Hollen and the Wisconsin Republican Party deserve the strongest condemnation and should be held accountable for their lies and actions.

And let's take a look at the litigators and intervenors in the Van Hollen v. GAB et al case who rose to the defense of the Government Accountability Board and the rights of Wisconsin citizens to cast their votes, true champions of democracy who deserve recognition. We salute them today:

Democratic Party of Wisconsin
Madison Teachers, Inc.
American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin
Madison Firefighters Local 311
Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
The Brennan Center for Justice @ NYU School of Law
The Campaign Legal Center
The League of Women Voters of WI Education Fund
American Civil Liberties Union of WI Foundation, Inc
Voting Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union
Fair Elections WI
Daniel P. Tokaji
Milwaukee Branch of the NAACP
Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association

Van Hollen Not 'Valid'

Update: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast: Drinking the ACORN Kool-Aid: How Cries of Voter Fraud Cover Up GOP Elections Theft - While Republicans had the media searching for links between Obama and ACORN, RNC operatives were busily completing one of the most massive voter suppression and purging efforts in American history.

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen's voter suppression suit was tossed because he misread a federal law and tried to use it to suppress votes fighting the spectre of voter fraud, the opposite of the law's public policy rationale. You would think he would be embarrassed.

Civil rights groups, labor unions, voting rights groups, good government groups - all came together to protect Wisconsin citizens from their attorney general and his political party.

Now, "Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen says he'll deploy more than 50 assistant attorney generals and state agents around the state Nov. 4 to guard against election fraud." - AP

What crap.

"... The reality is, if the Government Accountability Office would have followed the law earlier, I believe it would have made our current election more valid," Van Hollen said to News 12 Milwaukee.

But as Judge Sumi who dismissed Van Hollen's lawsuit last week demonstrated, Van Hollen has no idea what the law is and legal observers are laughing at the spectacle of the bush-league jurist, Van Hollen.

Van Hollen is a corrupt public official not fit to serve office, especially the Attorney General's office.

Who knows what other crap he is capable of.

One thing is certain: Van Hollen cannot be trusted by the people of Wisconsin and is deserving of no respect by the citizens who he has betrayed.

Voter Suppression Incidents 2008

The Brennan Center for Justice is compiling a comprehensive synopsis of current voter suppression incidents around the country of which McCain co-chair and Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen' suit comprises just one of many.

The Voter Suppression Incidents 2008 is an excellent resource, please check it out.

And spread the word: The nonpartisan Election protection coalition (http://www.866ourvote.org/) is fighting voter suppression and is a great resource. Look them up with any problems or concerns: Call 1 866 OUR VOTE (1 866 687 8683).

Brennan Center on Van Hollen Voter Suppression Decision

Update: Incredible! Bush Wants DOJ to Look Into Ohio Voting, Seeks Forced Provisional Voting That Suppresses Legal Voters - From RollCall

As we watch the historic threat to our financial system, good news is in the air politically and legally.

From Adam Skaggs on the dismissal of the voter suppression case.

In Wisconsin this morning, Judge Maryann Sumi dismissed all claims in a case brought against the state's elections agency by the Wisconsin Attorney General. We've written about this case before, and why it was troubling: if the court hadn't thrown out the Attorney General's case, it could have put between 53,000 and 200,000 Wisconsin Voters at risk of having to vote provisional ballots. And, historically, as few as 30%of provisional ballots cast in Wisconsin actually get counted.
In rejecting the Attorney General's arguments, the court correctly reached two important conclusions (among other reasons for tossing the case). First, it rightly concluded that nothing in the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requires states to condition a voter's eligibility to vote on a successful database match - an argument we pressed in our amicus brief. Second, the court concluded that denying a voter's right to have their ballot counted because of a typo or data entry error made by a government clerk violated Section 1971 of the Voting Rights Act, the so-called 'materiality provision.' (A federal court relied on that law, which provides that no voter can be denied the right to register or vote based on a mistake that's not material to determining the voter's eligibility, in striking down Washington State's strict no match, no vote law when we challenged it in 2006. More recently, we argued that the materiality provision prohibited rejecting an Ohio voter's request for an absentee ballot just because the voter failed to mark a superfluous check-box.) Although the Attorney General has said he'll appeal the court's ruling, the decision was absolutely correct on the merits, and we are hopeful that the appellate courts won't waste any time before affirming the dismissal. That way Wisconsin election officials will be able to get back to the important business of ensuring a smooth election.

What we know as Wisconsin citizens is that Van Hollen is a liar and a corrupt partisan unfit for office.

Wisc Judge Tosses GOP Vote Suppression Lawsuit

Update IV: Opinion - Order and Hearing Transcript (Case No 08CV4085)

Update II: GOP AG to appeal. Hoping to get to the Wisconsin Supreme Court where the GOP enjoys a 4-2-1 majority, though the case (J B Van Hollen vs. Government Accountability Board et al, (Dane County Case Number 2008CV004085)) is so clear-cut, even the WI SC might rule against the GOP. In any event, this will not result in any new voter suppression rules that the GOP had hoped for.

Update: Judge: "Nothing in state or federal law requires that there be a data match as a prerequisite for a citizen's right to vote," Judge Maryann Sumi said in dismissing Van Hollen's lawsuit that tried to use the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) as a voter suppression tool.

Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi has "dismissed a lawsuit by Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen to require the state elections agency to check voter registrations against other state databases dating to 2006, which critics said could have thrown hundreds of thousands of registrations into doubt," the Wisconsin State Journal reports.

Nationwide, the GOP is attempting to suppress Democratically leaning voters to stave off a landslide defeat, and is unquestionably attempting to use HAVA to this purpose.

The case deals a political and legal body blow to Wisconsin Attorney General and John McCain co-chair J.B. Van Hollen, and delivers a victory to the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board and other voting rights advocates.

Lester Pines, a lawyer for the board, called the ruling 'an absolute validation of the position of the board.' 'Judge Sumi's decision was exceptionally scholarly, well-reasoned and supported by law,' Pines said.

Similar voter suppression efforts by Republicans are under way in Ohio and numerous other states.

The opinion will likely be posted soon at Election Law-Moritz.

Voter Suppression Case Today

Update II: Judge tosses lawsuit challenging voter registration checks

Update: GAB opinion for Milwaukee Election Commission: Database mismatch insufficient basis to challenge and/or disqualify voters. HAVA does not authorize changing voter eligibility because of database mismatches.

The GAB opinion is significant because the Wisconsin Republican Party has signaled that it will challenge Milwaukee voters on election day, and many Milwaukee minorities lack currently updated drivers licences.

Obama brought out 1,000s of casually political blacks in the February primary.

The GAB opinion runs counter to the complaint by Attorney General Van Hollen and the Wisconsin GOP that is being argued today.
---

The legal fight that is being heard today before a Dane County judge will draw the eyes of the nation's voting rights community on the issue of voter suppression and how the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) should be used by states.

At issue:

Whether the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) has met its obligations to bring Wisconsin into compliance with state and federal election laws, including the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Specifically, the Attorney General is seeking to require that the GAB run HAVA checks on voter registrations received prior to August 6, 2008. (Moritz Law).

The case will hinge on whether HAVA says what the Republican Party and Van Hollen interpret it to mean on the question of establishing the eligibility of voters vis a vis what the text of the statute reads and the GAB's interpretation.

Nationwide, the GOP is attempting to suppress Democratically leaning voters to stave off a landslide defeat, and is unquestionably attempting to use HAVA to this purpose.

Van Hollen: Corrupt and Inept

A political talking point is an alleged fact or emotive illustration intended to support an argument or position.

It’s superficial as any observer of talking heads has observed.

A legal brief, on the other hand, is a more rigorous presentation of facts, evidence, statutes, relevant past cases and how the law applies to facts.

A legal brief contains arguments supporting a position to persuade a trial judge or appellate court. There are strong legal arguments that are fact-supported and grounded-in-law, and weak arguments that are defective in these respects.

One would expect that in the highly politicized J.B. Van Hollen vs. Government Accountability Board et al case in which Wisconsin’s Attorney General seeks an extraordinary mandamus order demanding action that could result in 10,000s of citizens being disenfranchised during a historic presidential election that Van Hollen and the Republican Party would present rigorous arguments—full of facts, careful readings of relevant statutes, and a meticulous following of judicial procedures.

But the Government Accountability Board and civil rights organizations show that Attorney General Van Hollen and the Wisconsin Republican Party have filed briefs that read like political talking points (lacking evidence)—composed of poorly reasoned arguments, reckless reading of statutes, and fatally defective procedural steps that voting rights advocates hope will prove both a legal embarrassment for our partisan attorney general and a political club to be used against Van Hollen for what he has become: Corrupt and disdainful of Wisconsin citizens.

For some late-night reading of the legal briefs in this case, see Election Law-Moritz.

A decision on some motions may come as early as Thursday and Friday.

Disgrace

Update: Breaking - High court rejects GOP bid in Ohio voting dispute. See also NYT editorial on ACORN. GOP just got its vote-suppressing arse handed to 'em. Wisconsin's Van Hollen to see a similar event next Thursday, October 23.

The GOP's corrupt usurpation of the legal system for partisan objectives is a disgrace.

The latest target is the ACORN political group whose only crime as an organization is registering low-income Americans to cast votes, a political crime against the Republican Party.

Practiced on both the national and state levels, the ongoing voter suppression operations of the GOP exercised in the capacity of state authority and in the naked partisan name of the GOP raises the spectre of Richard Nixon in using the government apparatus to suppress the political will of the American people.

[Note: Wisconsin's own Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen is deep into it (see Van Hollen v. GAB for motion and argument language) for which the political system at the least ought to hold Van Hollen accountable].

From Talking Points Memo on the national operations aimed at the ACORN organization:

'I'm astounded that this issue is being trotted out again. Based on what I saw in 2004 and 2006, it's a scare tactic.'

Who's that speaking? And what's he talking about?

That's fired US Attorney David Iglesias talking about the news leaked today that the DOJ and FBI are opening a nationwide investigation into allegations that the community organization ACORN is somehow working to undermine the November election through fraud. For more from Iglesias and his fellow fired US Attorney Bud Cummins, don't miss TPMMuckraker's Zack Roth's interview post from earlier this evening.

Civil Rights Brief: Toss AG Voter Suit, AG Misreads Fed Law

Update: Link to brief filed by Milwaukee Branch of NAACP and the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association. NAACP/Teachers brief:

A provisional ballot is a second-class vote. The voter leaves the polling place not knowing whether his or her vote will count. He or she will only find out by calling a toll-free number or checking a website. If the answer is that the vote was not counted, the voter will be given a reason, but by then it will be too late to correct. That voter will have been directly and absolutely deprived of the right to vote without a meaningful remedy.

Seven civil rights and public interests groups submitted their amici curiae brief in support of the Wisconsin General Accountability Board's (GAB) motion to dismiss the Attorney General's legal petition endorsed by the Wisconsin Republican Party.

Voters' rights communities fear that the Wisconsin Attorney General would suppress voters in the presidential election, characterize the move as a continuation of the national GOP voter suppression effort, and see a corrupt use of the Attorney General's office for partisan gain.

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen filed an extraordinary writ of mandamus petition seeking a court-ordered remedy that would overrule a state agency, the Governmental Accountability Board (GAB), as the GAB seeks to protect legally voting citizens in a highly politicized voting issue implementing a federal law during this year's presidential campaign.

Though Van Hollen's suit is now effectively moot in a sense as any judicial remedy would not be workable two weeks out from the election when a Dane County judge is expected to rule on the merits and appeals are expected, Van Hollen, already suffering from diminished credibility for the partisan action, may now further politically suffer for the ambiguity and the lack of precision in his legal arguments that do not nearly meet the exacting requirements for the sought court-ordered remedy.

The civil rights amici curiae brief is often harsh in its tone of rebutting Van Hollen's arguments through its dissection of the September brief supporting his complaint, and the GAB's brief arguing in favor of dismissal is not much less harsh.

Look for a successful dismissal in late October.

From the Brennan Center for Justice:

The amicus brief—click here to read—explains Van Hollen's attempted purges and database matching goes beyond the intended scope of (Help American Vote Act ) HAVA. 'No other state has ever undertaken the kind of retroactive matching that the attorney general seeks,' said Wendy Weiser, director of voting rights and elections. 'It’s bad policy—a recipe for chaos, confusion and, inevitably, disenfranchisement.'

Identification Not Eligibility and Removal
The brief argues that Van Hollen is wrong in arguing that the Help American Vote Act (HAVA) obligates Wisconsin’s GAB to review the voting eligibility of Wisconsin voters who have registered to vote.
Rather HAVA “generally requires Wisconsin (and other states) to utilize database matching for the limited purpose of ensuring that accurate identifying numbers are assigned to registered voters,” reads the brief.

This means simply that one registered voter should get assigned a specific identifying value like a DOT number or the last four digits of a Social Security number.

The civil rights’ groups brief importantly argues that HAVA:

… does (not) include any language specifying that an unsuccessful computer match should result in the registration applicant being excluded from the rolls. It likewise does not include any language specifying that an unsuccessful match generally should result in any limitation being place on the registrant’s ability to vote. … (T)he Attorney General does not cite any such language in HAVA (demanding specific rules and actions by a given state). (pp 7-8)
Instead the Attorney General essentially contends that what Congress meant to say, but did not say, when it specified that ‘[the computerized [registration] list shall be coordinated with other agency databases within the State,’… and specified that matching should include use of the driver’s license and Social Security Administration databases, was that states are required to disqualify registrants (or otherwise generally limit their right to vote) if and when they are the subject of an unresolved computer match. (p. 8)

The brief notes that Van Hollen's complaint does not say specifically that mismatched registrants should be removed from the state registration list, but this would appear to the only "reasonable" interpretation of Van Hollen's claims. (p.7 [footnote 3])
Van Hollen has spoken repeatedly about and his Sept. 10 petition warns that "… properly qualified voters are at risk of having their votes diminished and diluted by the votes of unqualified, ineligible voters who are not entitled to cast ballots." (p 3)
Van Hollen and the GOP have argued throughout his efforts that Van Hollen’s office says stretch back some two years that they are simply trying to follow the HAVA law and its requirements.
But, as looks quite possible, the judge rules that Van Hollen is fundamentally misreading the HAVA law, Van Hollen's statements demand that incompetent be placed alongside corrupt in describing the partisan track of this case and the Attorney General's office.
The brief continues:

…Congress clearly understood that database matching potentially could be linked with voter eligibility, understood how to write specific language that links the two, and chose not to require such a link except with regard to a narrow group of voters (those voters who have registered by mail and have never voted for federal office). (pp 8-9)

The absence of any ‘database-matching, voter eligibility’ requirement in HAVA (except with regard to the aforementioned narrow group of voters) also means that the GAB’s actions do not, under HAVA, raise any specter that persons ineligible to vote have been included in the state’s voter registration database. The Attorney General’s assertion to the contrary is simply his personal, unsupported opinion. (pp 9-10)

The brief also argues that the plain language of HAVA imposes specific restrictions on the authority of Wisconsin to remove persons from the registration rolls so as to ensure that persons who are eligible to vote and are registered to vote are not mistakenly deleted from the rolls, citing HAVA text reading that all states must provide “(s)afeguards to ensure that eligible voters are not removed in error from the official list of eligible voters.”

In the GAB’s brief in its motion to dismiss is this excerpt that is an overview in the introduction stating the GAB is the responsible and appropriate state agency to determine the implementation of HAVA:

Simply put, the Attorney General asserts that his interpretation of HAVA‘s requirements regarding the maintenance of that list and its coordination with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation database is right, and the Government Accountability Board’s interpretation is wrong. However, it is the Board, not the Attorney General, that has responsibility and discretion to interpret and implement HAVA’s provisions. (pp 1-2)

Political Implications

The question for Wisconsin citizens is whether Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen used his office to further the political cause of the Republican Party and its presidential nominee, John McCain.

What did Van Hollen, the McCain co-chair, do?

WisPolitics reports:

“A week before he filed suit against the Government Accountability Board, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen promised Wisconsin delegates at the Republican National Convention they'd be hearing much more from the Department of Justice on targeting those who (are) ‘illegally and illegitimately registered to vote.’”

Van Hollen’s position is at best highly controversial.

But according to the AG’s office, Van Hollen is just seeking to “enforce the law” in a non-partisan manner for the people of Wisconsin.

Asks Dem Party Chairman Joe Wineke: “If JB Van Hollen is claiming that this lawsuit isn’t political, then why did he discuss it with the RPW chair at a partisan political convention and send signals to fellow Republicans that he was mobilizing the Department of Justice to take action?" (WisPolitics)

Here are some more questions.

Among the many public statements made by Van Hollen about enforcing the law and protecting the right of Wisconsin citizens to vote in this manner, how many statements did the nonpartisan attorney general make at the Democratic Convention, or any other Democratic gathering?

How many statements did Van Hollen make on this matter to civil rights groups like the NAACP?

How many conversations did his top aide, Deputy Attorney General Ray Taffora, have with Democratic Party officials like Joe Wineke, like Taffora did with Reince Priebus, the GOP party chair?

What empirical evidence does Van Hollen present in his complaint that merits such an extraordinary legal action in the face of the 2005 Republican US Atty Biskupic and then-District Attorney E. Michael McCann's task force's report that rejected the notion that voting fraud occurred in any extraordinary manner in the last presidential election?

None that I can read. But Republicans are sticking to their guns.