"I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."
Ronald Reagan may have thought those words to be "terrifying" for ordinary Americans, but for members of the modern Republican Party, those words tickle the ears and raise hope in the heart. The cavalry has arrived for the embattled GOP, and three letters are emblazoned on its uniform -- D.O.J.
The Republican tactic of crying "vote fraud!" to suppress the vote began long ago, and only now is culminating in a long, drawn out whine of unprecedented proportions. Indeed, over a year ago, before the focus on ACORN, the RNC was peddling the "vote fraud" card.
But mere grumbles of "vote fraud" grew in direct response to John McCain's poll numbers--the more his numbers fell, the more Republicans turned to twisting isolated voter registration fraud into a widespread pattern of vote fraud which, as McCain shameless contended, would destroy the "fabric of democracy."
But the election is now just days away and McCain's path to victory is as slim as a tightrope.
Which is why the GOP has been hard at work building a "safety net" of sorts to catch the candidate if he falls. Weaving together isolated incidents of voter registration fraud, Republicans have coordinated a vile scheme whereby they can suppress voter turnout in key battleground states and attempt to cast doubt over a possible Obama victory.
The hot issue day of the "no name, no match". Under this tactic, if your name doesn't match government databases exactly, letter for letter, your name is purged from the voter rolls. CNN has an article today detailing the widespread purging of valid voters from voting rolls in key battleground states. In Ohio, the GOP ran to the courts seeking to prohibit 200,000 newly registered voters from voting (background here and here). The Ohio Supreme Court sided with Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, and the GOP's appeal to the United States Supreme Court was fruitless.
But hey, this is the modern GOP, and they aren't going to let a little thing like an adverse court decision get in their way. Not when they have the executive branch ready to jump at a moment's notice.
Cue the parade of politicized professionals. The FBI is investigating ACORN registrations in various battleground states. The leak on the FBI investigation came from two "senior law enforcement officials." This wasn't a lowly government employee who leaked the news. It was a leak straight from the top, and an illegal leak to boot:
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Justice Department regulations forbid discussing ongoing investigations particularly so close to an election.
But it wasn't enough to have "senior law enforcement officials" leak news of an ACORN investigation to the press. No, the GOP needed more from its government.
On October 20th, House Minority Leader John Boehner sent a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey requesting an immediate investigation into alleged "voter fraud." He did not receive a response right away, so just a few days later, on October 24th, Boehner penned a letter to President Bush, demanding that the President use his executive power to force the DOJ to go after the 200,000 newly registered voters in Ohio:
"Unless action is taken by the Department immediately, thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands of names whose information has not been verified through the HAVA procedures mandated by Congress will remain on the voter rolls during the November 4 election; and there is a significant risk if not a certainty, that unlawful votes will be cast and counted. Given the Election Day is less than two weeks away, immediate action by the Department is not only warranted, but also crucial," Boehner wrote in the letter.
Mere hours later, the President did the Minority Leader's bidding:
The White House has asked the Department of Justice to look into whether 200,000 new Ohio voters must reconfirm their registration information before Nov. 4, taking up an issue that Republicans and Democrats in the battleground state have been fighting over in court for weeks.
President Bush [on Friday] asked Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey to review concerns over the voters raised by House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). [...]
White House press secretary Dana Perino characterized Bush's referral of the matter to Justice as a routine step that would be taken for any such request from a congressional leader.
Voting rights advocates, however, immediately raised concerns. "This is taking the politicization of this to a new level, and the last thing we need is for the elections officials and voters of Ohio to be put in a chaotic situation in the last days before the election," said Jon Greenbaum of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
Bob Bauer, counsel for the Obama campaign, like Boehner, had sent a letter to Mukaskey asking for an investigation into the coordinated voter suppression efforts of the GOP. Like Boehner, Bauer received no response. But in light of the fact that the President has stepped into this decidedly partisan affair, Bauer has sent another letter to Mukaskey (PDF):
We certainly hope that you do not take the fateful step, 11 days before the election, of involving the Department at the request of one of the political parties, the President's party, in matters properly left to election officials in the states. In Ohio and elsewhere, the federal and state courts have weighed in: the Secretary of State's legal position has been vindicated. Now is the time for preparations for the election to proceed without interference from any quarter -- and certainly any action by your Department, in light of the recent scandals in the Department, cannot fail to be seen as interference to satisfy desperate partisan political demands. [...]
For the Department now, in response to the intense politics of the moment, to abruptly intercede in the current work of state and local officials would inflict incalculable damage -- further and irreparable damage -- to your office and to the reputation of senior federal law enforcement.
As the good folks over at Election Protection note, the DOJ's policy with respect to election crimes is: "Prosecution, Not Intervention." And its own manual on the Federal Prosecution of Election Offenses states:
- "Because the federal prosecutor's function in the area of election fraud is not primarily preventative, any criminal investigation by the Department must be conducted in a way that minimizes the likelihood that the investigation itself may become a factor in the election."
- "The mere fact that a criminal investigation is being conducted may impact upon the adjudication of election litigation and contests in state courts...Accordingly, it is the general policy of the Department not to conduct overt investigations, including interviews with individual voters, until after the outcome of the election allegedly affected by the fraud is certified.
- "...deterrence (of fraud) is achieved by public awareness of the Department's prosecutive interest in, and prosecution of, election fraud – not through interference with the process itself."
And Attorney General Mukasey himself has promised while testifying to Congress:
"I repeated the message that politics must play no role in the decisions of investigators or prosecutors as to any investigations or criminal charges; that law enforcement officers and prosecutors may never select the timing of investigative steps or criminal charges for the purpose of affecting any election; and that we must not do anything for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party. Those principles have even more weight in decisions concerning ballot access and voter integrity, and I am confident that all Department employees will follow them."
The President and his party continue to believe that the DOJ is simply an appendage of the Republican Party and that they may abuse their power and manipulate the rules in order to benefit their own political interests. Will Mukasey budge?
Meanwhile, former DOJ attorneys who worked in the Civil Rights Division have written to Mukasey asking that he not inject the DOJ into such a political situation (PDF):
"Allegations of voter registration fraud should not be taken lightly. But, it is because of the long recognized sensitivity to the role of federal law enforcement officials in elections that we have concern about press reports, apparently leaked to the press by FBI officials, that the Department recently opened a nationwide criminal investigation into the allegations of fraud in the voter registration efforts of a national community organization that was engaged in registering low income voters who are predominantly minority. It would seem that this is the kind of investigation that longtime Department policy dictates should not be initiated until after an election. We understand there may be exceptions to this policy, but it is not clear that this particular investigation should be one of those exceptions"
If the DOJ were to fight alongside the GOP in Ohio and force Brunner to purge the rolls of 200,000 newly registered voters, this would not only mark another shocking chapter in the politicization of the department, but it may also direcly affect who wins that state. Remember, George W. Bush won the state in 2004 by a just 118,457.
Before the President got involved, Rick Hasen over at the Election Law Blog noted:
The idea that the DOJ would get involved in the Ohio election now to force Sec. Brunner to produce the mismatch list on voter fraud grounds seems remote. The political uproar would be deafening.
But the rules have meant little to this President and his party, who have politicized nearly every nook and cranny of the federal government. If the last eight years of Republican government have proven anything, it is that when these Republicans are in positions of public trust, they will use their power almost exclusively to retain that power. And because of that, "I'm from the DOJ, and I'm here to help" are the sweetest words for a Republican Party desparate to suppress new voter turnout in this change election.
Video from Keith Olbermann summarizing the entire debacle below the fold.