Must see TV: GOP Vote Caging & the US Attys

As diaried here, more e-mail evidence from inside the RNC points to a massive 2004 GOP effort to disqualify likely Democratic voters in key battleground states.
But there's more to come; there's evidence the program may still be running, and one can't help but wonder if this is   the reason the Bush administration was targeting US attorneys who refused to bring voter fraud cases.
NOW on PBS reports on it Friday night. See a summary on the flipside...

This Week on NOW: Voter Caging
Was there a White House plot to illegally suppress votes in 2004? Is there a similar plan for the upcoming elections? This week, NOW examines documents and evidence that point to a Republican Party plan designed to keep Democrats from voting, by targeting people based on their race and ethnicity within key battleground states like Ohio and Florida.

"It was a partisan, discriminatory attempt to challenge voters of color," Eddie Hailes, a senior attorney for The Advancement Project, a civil rights group, tells NOW.

Web Extra:

Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias tells NOW why he believes the Justice Department acted unlawfully.
 

...Is this what Rove meant when he bragged of building a permanent Republican majority?

•  don't forget your TiVO...

  merci.

  by commonscribe on Thu Jul 26, 2007 at 10:14:42 PM PDT

  •  and your airsick bags

    by Horsefeathers on Thu Jul 26, 2007 at 10:24:02 PM PDT

•  Yes. If the Democratic Party would

  concentrate on these things,

  1. Stop vote caging.

  2. Ensure that there are sufficient working voting machines in all precincts.

  3. Publicize to every voter for weeks in advance the date to vote in every precinct.  

  4. Place people in each precinct to identify the voting locations and direct/drive voters to the new locations if last minute changes are made.

  5. Ensure that every vote cast is accurately counted.

  We would win every election.

  by Blogvirgin on Thu Jul 26, 2007 at 10:24:44 PM PDT

  •  Well, gee,

    we'll just snap our fingers and do that. This  is a wish list not a plan.

    To be honest, I think the exposure HAS pretty much stopped things like vote caging by making it infinitely more difficult to carry out, and whatever their plans may have been for 2008, they're way less likely to succeed for a lot of reasons.
     

    by anastasia p on Thu Jul 26, 2007 at 10:33:13 PM PDT

    •  Whatever you do, don't EVER "misunderestimate"

      the Rethuglicans!

      by murphsurf on Thu Jul 26, 2007 at 11:03:14 PM PDT

    •  In New York City, it's a plan

      Anastasia P, there are voting rights activists in NYC working hard right now on this list of action items, particularly as NY struggles w HAVA regulations on voting machines.

      Some of these voting rights activists are Democrats.  None of them are Republicans as far as I know. On the subject of voting rights, we have a lot to learn from the 'third parties.'  Their perspective on the system and how the big parties game it is invaluable and must not be ignored.

      The exposure is only just beginning, vote caging and other forms of suppression - voter id requirements, statewide database checks, and more - are alive and well.

      In NYC just a few months ago a Republican party operative, a lawyer, came to testify to the NYC Board of Elections about the threat of vote fraud in the State . . .

      by AskQuestions on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 06:58:12 AM PDT

    •  Unfortunately the Republican Party has been under

      a federal injunction since 1986 for voter suppression activities.  That is 20 years of illegally suppressing the votes of American citizens.  They continued these practices through the 2006 elections.

      by Blogvirgin on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 08:57:23 AM PDT

•  Isn't the Republican Party subject to a Consent D

  Isn't the Republican Party subject to a Consent Decree over voter caging?  Have they violated it?

  by junta0201 on Thu Jul 26, 2007 at 11:14:02 PM PDT

  •  yes

    it was the consent decree that gave the Ohio Dems the legal footing to actually stop them making challeges based on the caging.

    by commonscribe on Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 07:00:22 AM PDT

•  Listen to the interview with Bud Cummings...

  here.

  Its quite extraordinary.

  An excepert about just before he testified to congress:

  HINOJOSA: How did you pass the information on to your colleagues? What—what did you do after you got this phone call from Mike Elliston, basically saying, "You know, if you keep talking about this, there may come a point where we're gonna have to—we're gonna have to move this forward a little bit ourselves, too, and start revealing information." I mean, some people might say that that was something of a threat. What did you do when—after that phone call? How did you communicate this to your colleagues?

  CUMMINS: When I got the call from Elliston, and I felt like I needed to share it with some of my colleagues, and so I sent an e-mail to all of them. And I tried to describe the call in the e-mail. I really didn't think about it again until the night before our Congressional testimony. One of my colleagues—was concerned about it and—and had mentioned it to a Senate staffer. And I learned from a reporter the night before, very late the night before the hearings, that I was gonna be asked about that call. And that reporter also shared with me that the Department was completely disavowing that those calls ever took place.

  And one person at the Department had said specifically, "If it's Bud Cummins saying it, he's a liar." And I'm probably a lotta things, but I'm not a liar. So that—that ticked me off a little bit. So I got up, put my clothes back on, and went to the basement of the hotel and paid $5 a minute or something to get on their internet. And I found that e-mail. And I printed it out, put it in my pocket. And I was asked about it. And they asked if I had the e-mail, and I did. So that's how all that kinda got into the public record.

  by Alex in Osaka on Thu Jul 26, 2007 at 11:16:47 PM PDT

  •   excerpt [n/t]

    by Alex in Osaka on Thu Jul 26, 2007 at 11:38:06 PM PDT