NAACP Challenges Louisiana Purge

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>NAACP Challenges Louisiana Purge</font size></center>

Associated Press
By ALAN SAYRE
Friday, Aug. 31, 2007

NEW ORLEANS) — The NAACP filed a civil rights lawsuit challenging a purge of Louisiana voters believed to have registered in other states following Hurricane Katrina.

In the federal court action, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People contends that the purge has already begun without the necessary pre-approval of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Because of its history of racial discrimination before the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, voting changes in Louisiana and other Southern states must be approved by federal officials.

On June 15, Secretary of State Jay Dardenne announced that his agency was mailing notices to 53,554 voters saying they must give up their registration in other states or risk losing the right to vote in Louisiana. Dardenne said the state had compared Louisiana voter roles with those of other states and identified people with identical names and dates of birth.

Voters were given one month to prove they had canceled their out-of-state registrations. After that, they had to appear in person at their voter registrar's office with documentation that their non-Louisiana registration had been canceled.

On Aug. 17, election officials said more than 21,192 people had been dropped — the majority from areas hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina. Of those, 6,932 were from Orleans Parish, which was majority black before the storm.

In its lawsuit, filed Thursday, the NAACP said that "the voting rights of many more may be threatened unless this court enjoins this practice."

The named plaintiffs in the suit include Rosa Segue, a woman described as a lifelong Orleans Parish resident who lost her home to Katrina and has relocated to Katy, Texas and a person identified only as John Doe-Jane Doe displaced from Louisiana who intends to return.

The suit says the second plaintiff has not voted in another state, does not intend to and never received any warning about the pending removal from Louisiana voting rolls.

Merietta Norton, general counsel for the secretary of state, said her office had not received a copy of the lawsuit Thursday and she could not comment.

Since the suit involves a voting rights case, the NAACP is requesting, as provided by federal law, that the case be heard by a three-judge panel of federal district judges.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1657951,00.html

 

[VegasGuy]

Ok, the obvious question. Is it legal to register and vote in two seperate districts? And how can voting rights of anyone be threatened if they are registered to vote where they live?

What the NAACP is clearly worried about is the dilution of voting strength of black voters that vote democrat. Balance of power and shit. So the thing to do is challange the law itself.

I don't know what can be done and I know none of the candidates give a shit about it to have lifted a finger to fix it.

-VG

 

[QueEx]

VG,

In the states covered by Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, any changes with respect to voting must be pre-cleared by the Justice Department before they can be put into practice. Apparently, the method Louisiana proposes to purge its voting list is different in some respect from the method it had used heretofore. Therefore, unless the new method has been precleared by Justice, it can not be used.

On its face, your argument makes sense, however, various ingenious yet subtle schemes had been and, in some covered states, continue to be used to either deny or frustrate minority voter participation. In the Louisiana case, it should have simply submitted the proposed change to the Justice Department. If the new practice of purging had a neutral effect and did not burden minority voters, more than likely Justice would give its approval. I've had several statutory schemes that worked changes in elections cleared by Justice. In fact, of the 15 or more submissions I've made, not one has ever been rejected.

Louisiana has known of potential multiple registrations since at least the municipal elections won by Nagin. It has had ample time to make the submission and show that its new method of purging the voters list"does not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color or membership in a language minority group.

The 3 judge panel might hold that the purge system does not affect a change in voting and allow it to continue -- but I doubt it.


QueEx

 

[VegasGuy]

What are the differences? Is the issue that the method LA plans to use has not been cleared by the Justice department first?

-VG

 

[QueEx]

Exactly. Not cleared by Justice before put into use.
Of course, that doesn't mean that the practice is in
fact wrong or that Louisiana can't purge its voter
list in that manner - - BUT it must first be cleared by
Justice -- or no can do.

QueEx

 

[thoughtone]

source: The Washingpost.com

Politics Alleged In Voting Cases
Justice Officials Are Accused of Influence

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 23, 2006; Page A01

The Justice Department's voting section, a small and usually obscure unit that enforces the Voting Rights Act and other federal election laws, has been thrust into the center of a growing debate over recent departures and controversial decisions in the Civil Rights Division as a whole.

Many current and former lawyers in the section charge that senior officials have exerted undue political influence in many of the sensitive voting-rights cases the unit handles. Most of the department's major voting-related actions over the past five years have been beneficial to the GOP, they say, including two in Georgia, one in Mississippi and a Texas redistricting plan orchestrated by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) in 2003.

The section also has lost about a third of its three dozen lawyers over the past nine months. Those who remain have been barred from offering recommendations in major voting-rights cases and have little input in the section's decisions on hiring and policy.

"If the Department of Justice and the Civil Rights Division is viewed as political, there is no doubt that credibility is lost," former voting-section chief Joe Rich said at a recent panel discussion in Washington. He added: "The voting section is always subject to political pressure and tension. But I never thought it would come to this."

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and his aides dispute such criticism and defend the department's actions in voting cases. "We're not going to politicize decisions within the department," he told reporters last month after The Washington Post had disclosed staff memoranda recommending objections to a Georgia voter-identification plan and to the Texas redistricting.

The 2005 Georgia case has been particularly controversial within the section. Staff members complain that higher-ranking Justice officials ignored serious problems with data supplied by the state in approving the plan, which would have required voters to carry photo identification.

Georgia provided Justice with information on Aug. 26 suggesting that tens of thousands of voters may not have driver's licenses or other identification required to vote, according to officials and records. That added to the concerns of a team of voting-section employees who had concluded that the Georgia plan would hurt black voters.

But higher-ranking officials disagreed, and approved the plan later that day. They said that as many as 200,000 of those without ID cards were felons and illegal immigrants and that they would not be eligible to vote anyway.

One of the officials involved in the decision was Hans von Spakovsky, a former head of the Fulton County GOP in Atlanta, who had long advocated a voter-identification law for the state and oversaw many voting issues at Justice. Justice spokesman Eric W. Holland said von Spakovsky's previous activities did not require a recusal and had no impact on his actions in the Georgia case.

Holland denied a request to interview von Spakovsky, saying that department policy "does not authorize the media to conduct interviews with staff attorneys." Von Spakovsky has since been named to the Federal Election Commission in a recess appointment by President Bush.

In written answers to questions from The Post, Holland called allegations of partisanship in the voting section "categorically untrue." He said the Bush administration has approved the vast majority of the approximately 3,000 redistricting plans it has reviewed, including many drawn up by Democrats.

Holland and other Justice officials also emphasize the Bush administration's aggressive enforcement of laws requiring foreign-language ballot information in districts where minorities make up a significant portion of the population. Since 2001, the division has filed 14 lawsuits to provide comprehensive language programs for minorities, including the first aimed at Filipino and Vietnamese voters, he said.

"We have undertaken the most vigorous enforcement of the language minority provisions of the Voting Rights Act in its history," Holland said.

Some lawyers who have recently left the Civil Rights Division, such as Rich at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and William Yeomans at the American Constitution Society, have taken the unusual step of publicly criticizing the way voting matters have been handled. Other former and current employees have discussed the controversy on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

These critics say that the total number of redistricting cases approved under Bush means little because the section has always cleared the vast majority of the hundreds of plans it reviews every year.

The Bush administration has also initiated relatively few cases under Section 2, the main anti-discrimination provision of the Voting Rights Act, filing seven lawsuits over the past five years -- including the department's first reverse-discrimination complaint on behalf of white voters. The only case involving black voters was begun under the previous administration and formally filed by transitional leadership in early 2001.

By comparison, department records show, 14 Section 2 lawsuits were filed during the last two years of Bill Clinton's presidency alone.

Conflicts in the voting-rights arena at Justice are not new, particularly during Republican administrations, when liberal-leaning career lawyers often clash with more conservative political appointees, experts say. The conflicts have been further exacerbated by recent court rulings that have made it more difficult for Justice to challenge redistricting plans.

William Bradford Reynolds, the civil rights chief during the Reagan administration, opposed affirmative-action remedies and court-ordered busing -- and regularly battled with career lawyers in the division as a result. During the administration of George H.W. Bush, the division aggressively pushed for the creation of districts that were more than 60 percent black in a strategy designed to produce more solidly white and Republican districts in the South.

These districts were widely credited with boosting the GOP in the region during the 1994 elections.

Rich, who worked in the Civil Rights Division for 37 years, said the conflicts in the current administration are more severe than in earlier years. "I was there in the Reagan years, and this is worse," he said.

But Michael A. Carvin, a civil rights deputy under Reagan, said such allegations amount to "revisionist history." He contended that the voting section has long tilted to the left politically.

Carvin and other conservatives also say the opinions of career lawyers in the section frequently have been at odds with the courts, including a special panel in Texas that rejected challenges to the Republican-sponsored redistricting plan there. The Supreme Court has since agreed to hear the case.

"The notion that they are somehow neutral or somehow ideologically impartial is simply not supported by the evidence," Carvin said. "It hasn't been the politicos that were departing from the law or normal practice, but the voting-rights section."

In Mississippi in 2002, Justice political appointees rejected a recommendation from career lawyers to approve a redistricting plan favorable to Democrats. While Justice delayed issuing a final decision, a panel of three GOP federal judges approved a plan favorable to a Republican congressman.

The division has also issued unusually detailed legal opinions favoring Republicans in at least two states, contrary to what former staff members describe as a dictum to avoid unnecessary involvement in partisan disputes. The practice ended up embarrassing the department in Arizona in 2005, when Justice officials had to rescind a letter that wrongly endorsed the legality of a GOP bill limiting provisional ballots

In Georgia, a federal judge eventually ruled against the voter identification plan on constitutional grounds, likening it to a poll tax from the Jim Crow era. The measure would have required voters to pay $20 for a special card if they did not have photo identification; Georgia Republicans are pushing ahead this year with a bill that does not charge a fee for the card.

Holland called the data in the case "very straightforward," and said it showed statistically that 100 percent of Georgians had identification and that no racial disparities were evident.

But an Aug. 25 staff memo that recommended opposing the plan disparaged the quality of the state's information and said that only limited conclusions could be drawn from it.

"They took all that data and willfully misread it," one source familiar with the case said. "They were only looking for statistics that would back up their view."

Mark Posner, a former longtime Civil Rights Division lawyer who teaches election law at American University, noted that Justice could have taken as many as 60 more days -- rather than seven hours -- to issue an opinion because of the new data.

Staff writer Thomas B. Edsall and researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

 

[thoughtone]

source: Pittsburg Tribune.com

'Vote-caging' is GOP victory strategy

By Robyn Blumner
Sunday, September 2, 2007

The Republican Party learned well at the knee of Southern Democrats how to keep blacks from the polls.
After the party took over from the boll weevils as the political home for those standing against the expansion of civil rights, black voters swarmed into the ranks of the Democrats. In the last presidential election, blacks gave John Kerry 88 percent of their vote.

This stark imbalance has led to an aggressive campaign by Republicans to find a new iteration of the repudiated poll taxes and literacy tests of the Jim Crow past.

In 2000, the successful tactic was the padded felons list. George Bush was essentially handed the presidency by brother Jeb thanks to a felons list of ineligible voters that included the names of thousands of people who were valid voters. The felons list was never fully vetted for accuracy and, conveniently, those mistakenly barred from the polls were disproportionately black and Democrat-leaning. In a presidential election that turned on 537 votes, this could have been the margin of victory

In 2004, with the felons list trick discredited, the Republicans had to look elsewhere to try and tamp down black voting. They dusted off an oldie but a goodie: vote caging.
Have you ever received a piece of first-class mail from a political party? Not likely. Campaign literature typically comes bulk rate. But in its vote-caging effort, the Republican Party sent out registered and first-class mail with "do not forward" instructions to thousands of new voters in certain districts in key states. Then the party waited for some of that mail to come back as undeliverable. Those voters were then placed on a list and subject to challenge on Election Day due to their invalid address.

This is a disgraceful tactic no matter who is the target. There are plenty of legitimate reasons for mail getting returned: typos on addresses for one, or Democrat voters not wanting to sign for mail from Republicans. But when the tactic is to single out black voters, it's illegal. Yet that is what appears to have happened in Florida and Ohio -- two battleground states -- in the lead-up to the 2004 election.

Thanks to his friends at GeorgeWBush.org, an anti-Bush parody site, BBC journalist Greg Palast was given confidential e-mails with attached files named "Caging.xls" and "Caging-1.xls." These e-mails were sent by the Republican Party of Florida to a long list of national Republican officials and were accidentally also sent to the ".org" address. Among the intended recipients was Tim Griffin, research director and deputy communications director for the Republican National Committee, who responded to one with, "thank you, perfect."

You might also remember Griffin's name since he was the Karl Rove acolyte who replaced Bud Cummins as an interim U.S. attorney in Arkansas. Cummins is one of the nine U.S. attorneys fired for political reasons, purposely dumped to make room for Griffin, who has since left the job.

Palast writes in his book "Armed Madhouse" that nearly 2,000 names were on the RNC caging lists and they were disproportionately made up of black voters in Duval County. The names included students at the historically black Edward Waters College, who weren't around in the summer to get their mail, as well as dozens of black soldiers -- troops who may not have been at their proper addresses because they were serving overseas.

In the end, however, no challenges to Duval voters took place, maybe because Palast broadcast the scheme on British television a week before the election. But in Ohio, the Republican Party was open about its plan to use poll workers to challenge voters on Election Day off a 35,000-person caging list. It took the brushing off of a standing federal consent decree from 1982 to hold off the Republican onslaught.

That year, the RNC agreed to stop illegally targeting minority voters in future caging operations. It had been found doing so during a New Jersey governor's race. But Republicans didn't stop. They got caught caging minorities again in 1986 in Louisiana. And in 1990, another consent decree was issued after Republicans in North Carolina sent 125,000 postcards to primarily black voters to construct a caging list.

Now, with the Democrats in control of Congress and Griffin being a key figure in the U.S. attorney purge scandal, this insidious practice is getting more attention. Democrat Sens. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island have sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales demanding an investigation into vote caging and whether Griffin's voter suppression activities were known before he was appointed U.S. attorney.

Protecting minority voting rights used to be a priority for the department. Now it promotes to top jobs those who stand in the voting booth door. Who are the Dixiecrats now?

Robyn Blumner is a columnist for the St. Petersburg Times.

 

[thoughtone]

source: Pittsburg Tribune.com

'Vote-caging' is GOP victory strategy

By Robyn Blumner
Sunday, September 2, 2007

The Republican Party learned well at the knee of Southern Democrats how to keep blacks from the polls.
After the party took over from the boll weevils as the political home for those standing against the expansion of civil rights, black voters swarmed into the ranks of the Democrats. In the last presidential election, blacks gave John Kerry 88 percent of their vote.

This stark imbalance has led to an aggressive campaign by Republicans to find a new iteration of the repudiated poll taxes and literacy tests of the Jim Crow past.

In 2000, the successful tactic was the padded felons list. George Bush was essentially handed the presidency by brother Jeb thanks to a felons list of ineligible voters that included the names of thousands of people who were valid voters. The felons list was never fully vetted for accuracy and, conveniently, those mistakenly barred from the polls were disproportionately black and Democrat-leaning. In a presidential election that turned on 537 votes, this could have been the margin of victory

In 2004, with the felons list trick discredited, the Republicans had to look elsewhere to try and tamp down black voting. They dusted off an oldie but a goodie: vote caging.
Have you ever received a piece of first-class mail from a political party? Not likely. Campaign literature typically comes bulk rate. But in its vote-caging effort, the Republican Party sent out registered and first-class mail with "do not forward" instructions to thousands of new voters in certain districts in key states. Then the party waited for some of that mail to come back as undeliverable. Those voters were then placed on a list and subject to challenge on Election Day due to their invalid address.

This is a disgraceful tactic no matter who is the target. There are plenty of legitimate reasons for mail getting returned: typos on addresses for one, or Democrat voters not wanting to sign for mail from Republicans. But when the tactic is to single out black voters, it's illegal. Yet that is what appears to have happened in Florida and Ohio -- two battleground states -- in the lead-up to the 2004 election.

Thanks to his friends at GeorgeWBush.org, an anti-Bush parody site, BBC journalist Greg Palast was given confidential e-mails with attached files named "Caging.xls" and "Caging-1.xls." These e-mails were sent by the Republican Party of Florida to a long list of national Republican officials and were accidentally also sent to the ".org" address. Among the intended recipients was Tim Griffin, research director and deputy communications director for the Republican National Committee, who responded to one with, "thank you, perfect."

You might also remember Griffin's name since he was the Karl Rove acolyte who replaced Bud Cummins as an interim U.S. attorney in Arkansas. Cummins is one of the nine U.S. attorneys fired for political reasons, purposely dumped to make room for Griffin, who has since left the job.

Palast writes in his book "Armed Madhouse" that nearly 2,000 names were on the RNC caging lists and they were disproportionately made up of black voters in Duval County. The names included students at the historically black Edward Waters College, who weren't around in the summer to get their mail, as well as dozens of black soldiers -- troops who may not have been at their proper addresses because they were serving overseas.

In the end, however, no challenges to Duval voters took place, maybe because Palast broadcast the scheme on British television a week before the election. But in Ohio, the Republican Party was open about its plan to use poll workers to challenge voters on Election Day off a 35,000-person caging list. It took the brushing off of a standing federal consent decree from 1982 to hold off the Republican onslaught.

That year, the RNC agreed to stop illegally targeting minority voters in future caging operations. It had been found doing so during a New Jersey governor's race. But Republicans didn't stop. They got caught caging minorities again in 1986 in Louisiana. And in 1990, another consent decree was issued after Republicans in North Carolina sent 125,000 postcards to primarily black voters to construct a caging list.

Now, with the Democrats in control of Congress and Griffin being a key figure in the U.S. attorney purge scandal, this insidious practice is getting more attention. Democrat Sens. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island have sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales demanding an investigation into vote caging and whether Griffin's voter suppression activities were known before he was appointed U.S. attorney.

Protecting minority voting rights used to be a priority for the department. Now it promotes to top jobs those who stand in the voting booth door. Who are the Dixiecrats now?

Robyn Blumner is a columnist for the St. Petersburg Times.