A page one story in today’s Washington Post reports that a 51-page memo obtained by the paper, shows Dept. of Justice staffers had rejected a controversial new Photo ID requirement law for voters in Georgia, but that their recommendations were overruled and the measure was approved anyway by the Bush appointed Attorney General.
Georgia’s new law was recently rejected as unconstitutional by two Federal Courts who equated it to a “Jim Crow-era poll tax” after its approval by the DoJ despite the recommendation against it by 4 out of 5 staffers in the DoJ’s Voting Rights Act division.
The law would have required all voters to present a Photo ID at the poll, available for $20 to those who did not have one. The measure, which, like all such measures currently being pushed around the country by Republicans, is alleged to be disproportionately disenfranchising to minority (read: Democratic-leaning) voters.
Despite a complete dearth of evidence to demonstrate that Photo ID requirements are useful in combatting the non-existent epidemic of “Voter Fraud” in America, Republican legislators in Georgia and other states are attempting to ramrod such measures through their state legislatures. Even the creators of the Georgia law were unable to cite a single example of fraud in the state which would have been held off by the new legislation.
Indeed, the self-described “non-partisan” GOP front-group calling itself the American Center for Voting Rights has been fervently attempting to perpetrate the hoax of a “Voter Fraud” epidemic on voters for at least the past six months. They’ve made the cause their number one plan in attempting to further disenfranchise millions of minority, elderly, poor and urban-dwelling voters, all of whom are far more likely to vote Democratic and not own drivers licenses.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, parts of which are up for renewal by this Justice Department in 2007, requires states such as Georgia to have any such new laws that may effect voters to be “pre-cleared” by the DoJ.
“Some of my colleagues told me early on that, because of politics in the Bush administration, no matter what the staff recommendation was, this would be approved by the attorney general,” Brooks said. “It’s disappointing that the staff recommendation was not accepted, because that has been the norm since 1965.”
UPDATE 12/2/05: Bush DoJ does it again! This time with a unanimous decision against Tom DeLay’s Texas redistricting! Turns out that too was overruled by his DoJ cronies!
UPDATE 12/10/05: Now the DoJ has barred staffers from offering opinions at all! Democracy crumbles…
For more information on the “non-partisan” tax-exempt ACVR scam and the snakeoil salesmen who invented it, Bush/Cheney ’04 National General Counsel Mark F. “Thor” Hearne and RNC Communications Director Jim Dyke, please see BRAD BLOG’s full Special Coverage of the “American Center for Voting Rights” at https://BradBlog.com/ACVR.
Just to be clear: this WAS struck down by the courts, right? So this is just a reveal of what we’ve known all along: Bush and his appointees are fascist Nazi scum. But Georgia is still free of this taint, right? (If not free of Diebold.)
Re: Diebold et al–
More shocking voting machine stories are coming to light on BBV–see here for breaking story.
"Two testing labs in Huntsville, Alabama need to be visited by people with badges, guns and search warrants. The small offshoot office of Ciber Labs, run by Shawn Southworth, and the Wyle Labs office which has been supervised by Jim Dearman, are responsible for repeatedly certifying defective voting machines that violate Federal Election Commission standards.
1. New California report confirms that a security problem identified by Harri Hursti affects both touch-screens and optical scans – Diebold Election Systems’ whole product line.
2. Records obtained by Black Box Voting show that Diebold executives lied to the Arizona Secretary of State, the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, and to hundreds of elections officials throughout the U.S. about the existence of specific defects.
3. Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell withheld crucial information on security defects from other secretaries of state, from the Election Assistance Commission(the EAC; federal overseers), and Ohio’s election officials.
4. Evaluations conducted by Black Box Voting in San Joaquin, Marin, and Alameda counties (Calif.) reveal that a critical paper audit component is missing for all absentee and mail-in ballots, and also for RECOUNTS. (Black Box personnel were hired by the Libertarian Party to conduct inspections.)
5. The state of California has released a report in the aftermath of the failed testing of Diebold products, expressing horror that those products ever made it out of the federal testing labs. Dr. David Jefferson of Lawrence Livermore Labs led the panel that wrote the failure analysis report.
These issues demonstrate that voting machine testing labs may be complicit in approving defective voting systems, that a secretary of state withheld information on defects, and that Diebold has demonstrated a pattern of corrupt practices unrestrained by any oversight process at the federal or state level. "
(lots more at the link above)
Thanks for keeping us up to date on BBV’s excellent work, Catherine A.
With all the activists across the country who are doing this backbreaking work for the rest of us, Diebold et al is being exposed.
It has truly been one of the biggest CON jobs of the century.
I know I appreciate the work being done by researchers and scientists nationwide. Many heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you!
I join Kira in thanking you Catherine A.
The voting machine issue is the largest single issue that is between democracy and demockcrazy at the moment.
Time to find a Fitzgerald type to take a look at the widespread fraud taking place and taking american down.
Jim #1
Yes, the appellate court affirmed the district court.
Some of the state senators who made the law have vowed to take it to the Supreme Court.
They will loose there too.
Hey religious conservatives it’d make sense for you WHACKOS to "join" Michael Scanlon in jail!!!!!!
Michael Scanlon who says all you religious conservatives are "whackos" is now charged with conspiracy to defraud, fraud and has been arrested
Proves that religious conservatives are anything BUT religious or conservative!!!!!!!!!!!
The only actual REAL conservative christian belongs to a real church!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU ARE FAKE ZIONISTS BASTARDS!!!!!!!!!!
And you know it, thats why he called you out!!!
Doug E.