I wonder why some enterprising civil rights lawyers didn't think of this is in '84, '88, '92, '96 or '00, but I'm glad they've come up with it now. From this morning's Star-Ledger:
Voting suit revisits intimidation claims
Letters targeting Ohio minorities said to violate settlement after Kean-Florio race in'81
By Robert Schwaneberg
Armed guards wearing armbands patrolled polling places. Signs warned of criminal penalties for voting illegally. Hundreds of thousands of letters returned as undeliverable were used to compile a list of voters to be challenged at the polls.
Republicans said they were trying to keep the election honest.
Democrats said Republicans were trying to intimidate black and Latino voters.
It was 1981, during one of the closest elections in New Jersey history -- one that wasn't decided until a recount that dragged on nearly a month found Republican Tom Kean had defeated Democrat Jim Florio for governor by less than 2,000 votes.
State and county prosecutors launched probes into voter intimidation. Furious Democrats filed a $10 million federal lawsuit accusing the Republican state and national committees of depriving minorities of their constitutional right to vote.
But the criminal probes went nowhere and the lawsuit was settled a year later for $1. The Republicans admitted no wrongdoing, but signed a promise never to target minority voters for special treatment -- anywhere in the nation.v
That 22-year-old settlement agreement is why a case will be argued today in federal district court in Newark that could affect the outcome of the presidential election. The lawsuit charges Republicans again with targeting minorities, this time in Ohio, a key battleground state in the race between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry. ...v
[In 1981 in New Jersey,] Republican-paid poll workers, some of them off-duty police officers carrying their firearms as required by law, patrolled polling places wearing armbands.
Democrats immediately went to court and got a judge to order the signs and armbands removed.
Richard Richards, chairman of the Republican National Committee, proudly defended the program and credited it with electing Kean.
In a delicious bit of irony in this delicious piece of litigation, the case will be heard by U.S. District Court Judge Dickinson Debevoise. That's the same judge who okayed the settlement of the lawsuit challenging the Republicans' National Ballot Security Task Force in 1981.
Meanwhile, Rick Perlstein has christened his column in
The Village Voice in honor of "Operation Eagle Eye," the Republican voter suppression effort in 1964. That was the year that the Democratic Party transformed itself and finally gave a great big NO to those in the party who had used every effort to prevent blacks from exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right to vote. The move sent whites who didn't agree flooding into the Republican Party, which began voter suppression efforts against blacks that continue to this day.
Perlstein
notes:
Forty years ago this week John M. Bailey, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, sent out an angry press release charging that "under the guise of setting up an apparatus to protect the sanctity of the ballot, the Republicans are actually creating the machinery for a carefully organized campaign to intimidate voters and to frighten members of minority groups from casting their ballots on November 3rd."
The Republican vote-suppression effort in 1964 was called "Operation Eagle Eye." Vice President Hubert Humphrey called it "Operation Evil Eye." Internal memos explained its purpose: "to safeguard the investment of time, money, and effort that the Republican Party, its volunteers, its candidates, and their volunteers in this election." (Those Republicans: always looking after their investments!) ...
"Eagle Eye" officials briefed their volunteers this way: "If any question or dispute arises, refer to the pertinent authority cited below and (when it is in your party's interest) insist that the law be followed." An "Honest Ballot Association," Republican-run, successfully represented itself as "non-partisan" in the media though it sent out 159,000 copies of a letter to households in predominantly Democratic areas that told anyone who had moved 30 days before the election they were ineligible to vote--and appealed to snitches to come forward and report abuses. Plus ça change: One Republican official even told the Wall Street Journal that plans included using cameras as instruments of intimidation.
In his attack on the program, Bailey said Operation Eagle Eye seemed to have its roots in a Republican operation from two years previously that was a dry run for the national program in 1964:
"In Detroit, less than a month before election day in 1962, an organization called 'The Committee for Honest Elections' was established and immediately proceeded to:
"--Mail 159,000 copies of a letter misrepresenting the Michigan election law to 'high mobility' areas that were predominantly Democratic. The letter created the impression that anyone who had moved 30 days before the election could not vote. It also appealed for informers to come forward and report suspected cases of voter fraud.
"--Plan to flood these Democratic areas with fliers that said: 'WANTED--FOR VOTER FRAUD.'
"--Recruit 600 'challengers' who would use 'Honest Ballot Association' credentials to indiscriminately challenge voters on election day.
Same old, same old. And we're just not going to take it anymore.