Yesterday's election fraud indictment of longtime Bob Ehrlich aide Paul Schurick and campaign dirty trickster Julius Henson reveals that all of Mr. Ehrlich's top staff--Henry Fawell, Greg Massoni, Bernie Marczyk and Mr. Schurick--met with Mr. Henson last summer to figure out a way to prevent African Americans, who make up 23 percent of Maryland's electorate, from voting in the 2010 gubernatorial election, a plan dubbed, "The Schurick Doctrine."
"The first and most desired outcome [of the Schurick Doctrine Strategy] is voter suppression," Mr. Henson, who is black, shamelessly wrote in a campaign memo; "voter suppression operations will take place in 472 precincts..."
No Ehrlich staffer who read that memo or participated in that meeting but did not immediately demand Mr. Henson's termination should ever be allowed to participate in any respectable campaign anywhere ever again, and that goes for Mr. Ehrlich too, since he can't credibly deny knowledge of a fraud involving his entire staff, including Mr. Massoni, who is never more than arm's length from his boss.
But based on Republican behavior in state legislatures all over the country this year, Team Ehrlich, which sent over 100,000 fraudulent robocalls hours before polls closed to Democrats in African American precincts telling them to stay home because the race had already been won, more likely awaits a hero's welcome wherever GOP strategists gather...
That's because new tea party driven Republican governors and legislatures all over the country have embarked on a coordinated voter suppression regime, enacting laws restricting voter registration, scaling back popular early voting programs, and placing obstacles at polling places masquerading as election security measures, but really designed to prevent African Americans, young voters, and the less affluent from participating in elections.
If you can't earn votes, eliminate them
Republicans claim measures requiring raised seal birth certificates to register to vote and photo IDs to cast ballots are designed to prevent voter fraud, but field experience has proven voter fraud is a Republican fantasy with no basis in reality. For five years, the former Bush justice department scoured hundreds of millions of votes cast all over the country in search of voter fraud, but found only 122 isolated incidents resulting in 86 convictions. A small town sheriff paid a handful of people to vote for him; a scattering of convicted felons illegally cast ballots in different places, and a Pakistani citizen with a Green Card registered to vote when he got his driver's license in Tallahassee but never cast a ballot.
Here's a 46 page report from the liberal Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law:
Levitt, Justin. The Truth About Voter Fraud
Still Republicans cling to their fantasies, backed by the secretive Koch funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which drafts model legislation paired with generic talking points and press kits hidden behind a password protected website promoting their broad and extremist right wing agenda. Anyone who has been around state legislatures over the past 30 years knows the bills with goofy titles that go nowhere that Republican legislators introduce, such as the "[Insert your state's name] Sovereignty Under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States Act," or the "Great Preschools Tax Credit Program," but few know they are model legislation from ALEC. Now that Republicans have gained control of 26 state legislatures, ALEC bills have turned from goofy to scary.
One reason is because ALEC is the the behind the scenes nerve center of the GOP voter suppression regime sweeping Republican controlled state houses this year, steered by freshman Maryland Del. Michael Hough (R-Frederick) whose day job is director of ALEC's innocently named Public Safety and Elections Task Force.
What would Del. Hough's patriotic constituents think of his quasi-secret day job coordinating ALEC's nationwide campaign ostensibly fighting nonexistent "voter fraud" but really designed to deny people their right to vote? That depends on how revolting they find yesterday's allegation that former Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich's 2010 re-election team--his longtime inner core staff--criminally conspired to prevent their fellow Marylanders from voting last November.
- Steve Lebowitz, Annapolis
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