The following is the latest installment in the ongoing controversy surrounding Women's Voices Women Vote, first surfaced at Facing South and DailyKos two weeks ago. We believe the following piece is important because it confirms that, contrary to the claims of WVWV and several of its defenders, the voter confusion resulting from WVWV's tactics is not the product of a "mistake" or isolated error, but the predictable result of a conscious strategy. -- Chris and Sue, Facing South

TWO UPDATES at bottom

The controversy that recently erupted in North Carolina over confusing, misleading and at times illegal voter registration tactics used by Women's Voices Women Vote has not discouraged the D.C. nonprofit from continuing similar efforts in mountain states with primaries this month.

After watching geriatric nuns get turned away from the polls in Indiana last week, because they lacked a photo ID, one would think that the movement for voter ID laws might be slowed down.  Apparently, not in Pennsylvania:

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld Indiana's law requiring voters to present photo identification, state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe wants to enact the same kind of law in Pennsylvania.

...

But Mr. Metcalfe said his bill is needed "in order to bar corrupt politicians, special interests and any other integrity-deficient individuals from executing unfair, criminal influence at the ballot box."

Never mind the lack of proof of such voter fraud.

Women's Voices Women Vote, a nonprofit group with deep ties to Hillary Clinton, is at it again, creating voter confusion in West Virginia just ahead of the state's primary. Despite the fact that WVWV has generated complaints in numerous states over the past six months about tactics that confuse and suppress voters, despite the fact that it has been warned about its misleading and deceptive methods by numerous state and law enforcement officials in many states, despite the fact that WVWV is currently under investigation by the North Carolina Attorney General, WVWV just continues to sow voter confusion. The latest state is West Virginia, where the West Virginia Secretary of State issued a warning on Friday that WVWV's recent mailing could cause voter confusion ahead of the state's primary next week.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns and Nathan Henderson-James

Project Vote normally uses this update to give news roundups on voting rights-related stories from the past week. However, with the reverberations from the Supreme Court’s Crawford vs. Marion County voter identification decision just starting to filter down into statehouses across the country, we felt it was necessary to spend this update concentrating solely on voter ID, giving progressives a concise summary of the problems associated with it and offer some framing devices to help fight against it.

The following is an update on where our investigation into illegal and deceptive election practices and Women's Voices Women Vote stands. A special thank you to the DailyKos community for paying close attention to this story. As you can see, the basic facts of the investigation have not been challenged, and many questions remain unanswered. We will continue to pursue this story until the truth is brought to light. Thanks again. - Chris, Facing South  P.S. -- Please rec this story, keep it alive! Also, see important update at bottom.

It has been a week now since Facing South and the Institute for Southern Studies published our first investigation into the mysterious "Lamont Williams" robo-calls (listen to the audio file here) that blanketed North Carolina on the eve of the state's critical primary elections.

Over the past week, our ongoing investigation has ignited a national firestorm. We'd like to take a moment to reflect on what brought us here, and offer our best sense of where the issue stands.

How harmful was the Supreme Court's decision last week to allow Indiana to implement burdensome photo ID requirements for its voters?

This harmful, stupid and ridiculous:

About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow bride of Christ because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.

Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow sisters at Saint Mary's Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote.

The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn't get one but came to the precinct anyway.

"One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, 'I don't want to go do that,'" Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.

They weren't given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back in the 10-day time frame allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. "You have to remember that some of these ladies don't walk well. They're in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts."

There's more nonsense than that:

[A] group of voting rights advocates that established a separate hot line reported receiving several calls from would-be voters who were turned away at precincts because they did not have a state or federal identification bearing a photograph.

One newly married woman said she was told she couldn't vote because her driver's license name didn't match the one on her voter registration record, said Myrna Perez of the Brennan Center Justice at New York University's law school, coordinator of the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hot line. Another woman said she was turned away from casting her first-ever ballot because she had only a college-issued ID card and an out-of-state driver's license, Perez said.

"These laws are confusing. People don't know how they're supposed to be applied," she said.

People who think photo ID requirements are innocuous aren't paying attention to their impact on the ground.  This is the first of many stories you'll be seeing.

The voter suppression scandal involving Women's Voices Women Vote continued to grow yesterday, as the North Carolina NAACP filed a formal complaint of possible voter suppression against the group, which has deep ties to Hillary Clinton, for its deceptive and illegal robocalls and mailings in North Carolina. As reported by Facing South and the News & Observer, the NC NAACP hand-delivered its complaint to state Attorney General Roy Cooper and State Board of Elections Executive Director Gary Bartlett on Saturday. The NAACP said it is also alerting the U.S. Department of Justice that it is collecting more information from its national network and is contemplating filing a formal complaint with that agency. The NAACP's complaint is extensive and troubling, to say the least.

As the voter suppression scandal involving Women's Voices Women vote continues to escalate, the group appears to be in serious CYA/spin mode.  The WVWV board is reportedly having an emergency meeting; the group has trotted out some board members to make public statements of their full support for the group; WVWV got a piece written in Salon in which it claims their problems in NC are due to incompetence (plus they don't really focus on women anyway); and Julia Louis Dreyfus, who is featured in a WVWV PSA urging women to elect a woman as president, tries to explain away the video on Huffington Post. But all this smoke and mirrors leaves the most important questions unanswered, and raises even more questions that I have for WVWV.

Yesterday National Public Radio's All Things Considered program aired a good story on the North Carolina Robocall scandal that describes some of the key problems with the robocalls by Women's Voices Women Vote (WVWV).  NPR has also uncovered some clear conflict of interest issues that could put WVWV in more legal hot water and does a great job of summarizing the many Clinton connections that run throughout the organization. It's great reporting.

Russell Bruaghman fought in three wars for our country. His brother, Ronald, died in one of them.

As thanks for his service, Russell was turned away from the polls when he showed up to vote on March 11.

You see, his drivers license was out of date.

Of course, to drive a car legally in his state of Indiana, one must have an up-to-date drivers license or other up-to-date photo ID.

But Russell doesn't need to drive a car. He rides his bike.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

Supreme Court Legalizes Voter Disenfranchisement

In the midst of a presidential election year that is seeing record-breaking voter turnout in state after state, the Supreme Court on April 28 ruled in favor of Indiana's draconian voter ID requirement. The controversial law - which requires all voters to provide government issued, photographic proof of identity in order to vote at the polls - threatens to create a legislative domino effect of new voter ID laws ready for implementation before November.

Stefanielaine has a great diary on the rec list about the action she took to voice her concerns about the current robo-call voter disenfranchisement scandal that is enveloping the nonprofit group Women's Voices. Women Vote (WVWV).  As we all know by now, in numerous primary states WVWV - which has extensive ties to Hillary Clinton - has been engaging in a pattern of deceptive and possibly illegal tactics that appear intended to confuse and disenfranchise voters, particularly voters who are less likely to support Hillary Clinton.  Following up on stefanielaine's action, I'd like to suggest another action item that kossacks can take today: contact WVWV's funders.  

By Elizabeth Westfall, Advancement Project
Wendy Weiser, Brennan Center for Justice
Michael Slater, Project Vote

In the past three weeks, Florida courts and election officials have dealt three blows to Floridians who want to cast their ballots in this year’s presidential election. In three separate cases, the Florida Secretary of State, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and a federal District Court each issued decisions that will collectively block tens of thousands of eligible Florida citizens from getting on the voter rolls and voting in the 2008 elections.   In an election season with thousands of voters trying to take part for the first time, Florida is creating new bureaucratic obstacles, rather than knocking them down.  Fortunately, it is not too late for the Governor, the Secretary of State, or the state legislature to intervene.

[Promoted by DHinMI: Robocalls in North Carolina are confusing voters and have the appearance of voter suppression.  It turns out the source of the calls is a Democratic-leaning non-profit.  The director of the organization apologizes for the "confusion" caused by her organization, but as this diary makes clear, the organization has had a series of problems prior to primaries.  And it should be pointed out that a non-profit group focusing efforts on registering unmarried women in presidential primaries has to know that their activities will almost certainly help Hillary Clinton, as unmarried white women is probably her strongest demographic.  Clearly we need to hear more of an explanation about this pattern of problems.]  

Yesterday, I posted a recommended diary here about thousands of deceptive, anonymous and likely illegal robo-calls blanketing North Carolina shortly before the state's primaries on May 6.

The follow-up below is the result of hours of investigative work over the last 24 hours, including helpful tips from DKos members. Thank you for your assistance in helping us tell this important story.

Please note: Women's Voices Women Vote appears to be a legitimate organization; people we respect support their work. However, we believe that the tactics revealed in our story, as well as the effect they are having on confusing and potentially disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of voters -- especially right before critical primaries -- are cause for deep concern and raise critical questions about ethical election practices. -- Chris

Reading through reports on yesterday’s Supreme Court decision upholding an Indiana voter ID law, and reading about the rules imposed by Indiana’s Republican legislature on potential voters—most notably presentation of a valid, unexpired, Indiana state or US federal government-issued photo ID at the polls before voting—my mind quickly leapt to the image of Seinfeld’s infamous Soup Nazi. That character (based on real-life New York soup-maker and martinet Al Yaganeh) was famous for offering the most coveted cup of soup in the city, but to deal with the long lines that formed at lunchtime, the soup man imposed a set of strictures—know what you want in advance, no questions, substitutions, or special requests, move to the left after ordering, cash only, have your money ready—that it struck fear in the hearts of many customers. If the sense of intimidation lead to hesitation or an inadvertent violation of a rule, the chef would deny service with the shouted admonition, “No soup for you!”

The state of Indiana has the most restrictive voter I.D. law in the country. Show up at the polls without a currently valid, government-issued photo I.D., and you can't vote. I realize that to many Americans, that doesn't sound like much of a burden. And for many Americans, it isn't.

But it is a very substantial burden for many groups of eligible voters, including the elderly who don't drive, college students, and the poor who don't own cars. There's a great deal of overlap between those who are unduly burdened by this law and Democratic voting constituencies. It's probably no coincidence, then, that support for Indiana’s restrictive law came from Republicans in the state legislature.

Indeed, the law is a "solution" looking for a problem, since Indiana has been unable to identify a single case of in-person voter fraud occurring in its history. In fact, studies have shown that widespread, in-person voter fraud simply does not exist, whereas many eligible voters do in fact lack the I.D. that laws such as this require.

First of all, I’m surprised with so many hot shot legal eagles in this community no one has written a diary about this travesty.  The US Supreme Court ruled yesterday that voter identification laws are constitutional and in doing so gave a green light for the mass disenfranchisement of the elderly, the poor and people with disabilities.

In a case reflecting a solution truly in search of a problem, and opening the door to all sorts of harassment for minority, elderly and other traditionally Democratic voters, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 today that Indiana could legally require all voters to present photo identification cards in order to vote.

The Complaint had argued that voter ID laws would substantially burden the right to vote in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment; that they are neither necessary nor appropriate to avoid election fraud; and that such laws would arbitrarily disfranchise qualified voters who do not possess the required identification and would place an unjustified burden on those who cannot readily obtain such identification.

The Court's opinion essentially has two pluralities joining to form a majority -- Justice Stevens (sigh), Justice Kennedy and the Chief Justice joined to promote the standard that states can enforce "evenhanded restrictions that protect the integrity and reliability of the electoral process itself."  They argue that Indiana has a valid interest in deterring and detecting voter fraud, including with regards to "a large number of names of persons who are either deceased or no longer live in Indiana," but, um, what about the fact that such fraud has never been found in Indiana?  No matter, Justice Stevens writes:

The record contains no evidence of any such fraud actually occurring in Indiana at any time in its history. Moreover, petitioners argue that provisions of the Indiana Criminal Code punishing such conduct as a felony provide adequate protection against the risk that such conduct will occur in the future. It remains true, however, that flagrant examples of such fraud in other parts of the country have been documented throughout this Nation’s history by respected historians and journalists, that occasional examples have surfaced in recent years, and that Indiana’s own experience with fraudulent voting in the 2003 Democratic primary for East Chicago Mayor -- though perpetrated using absentee ballots and not in-person fraud -- demonstrate that not only is the risk of voter fraud real but that it could affect the outcome of a close election.

Yes, that's right -- no one's ever tried to commit voter fraud like this, but they've done it some other way, and, um, what's that historical answer?

One infamous example is the New York City elections of 1868. William (Boss) Tweed set about solidifying and consolidating his control of the city. One local tough who worked for Boss Tweed, "Big Tim" Sullivan, insisted that his "repeaters" (individuals paid to vote multiple times) have whiskers:

"‘When you’ve voted ’em with their whiskers on, you take ’em to a barber and scrape off the chin fringe. Then you vote ’em again with the side lilacs and a mustache. Then to a barber again, off comes the sides and you vote ’em a third time with the mustache. If that ain’t enough and the box can stand a few more ballots, clean off the mustache and vote ’em plain face. That makes every one of ’em good for four votes.’ " A. Callow, The Tweed Ring 210 (1966) (quoting M. Werner, Tammany Hall 439 (1928)).

Yes, America, they're using Gangs of New York to justify this.  Oh, and one -- yes, one fraudulent voter in Washington State's 2004 gubernatorial election.  So, what of the burdens?  Essentially, they claim, it might be a burden in individual cases, but not so bad as to strike down the whole statute:

A photo identification requirement imposes some burdens on voters that other methods of identification do not share. For example, a voter may lose his photo identification, may have his wallet stolen on the way to the polls, or may not resemble the photo in the identification because he recently grew a beard. Burdens of that sort arising from life’s vagaries, however, are neither so serious nor so frequent as to raise any question about the constitutionality of SEA 483; the availability of the right to cast a provisional ballot provides an adequate remedy for problems of that character.

[J]ust as other States provide free voter registration cards, the photo identification cards issued by Indiana’s BMV are also free. For most voters who need them, the inconvenience of making a trip to the BMV, gathering the required documents, and posing for a photograph surely does not qualify as a substantial burden on the right to vote, or even represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting. Both evidence in the record and facts of which we may take judicial notice, however, indicate that a somewhat heavier burden may be placed on a limited number of persons. They include elderly persons born out-of-state, who may have difficulty obtaining a birth certificate; persons who because of economic or other personal limitations may find it difficult either to secure a copy of their birth certificate or to assemble the other required documentation to obtain a state-issued identification; homeless persons; and persons with a religious objection to being photographed. If we assume, as the evidence suggests, that some members of these classes were registered voters when SEA 483 was enacted, the new identification requirement may have imposed a special burden on their right to vote.

The severity of that burden is, of course, mitigated by the fact that, if eligible, voters without photo identification may cast provisional ballots that will ultimately be counted. To do so, however, they must travel to the circuit court clerk’s office within 10 days to execute the required affidavit. It is unlikely that such a requirement would
pose a constitutional problem unless it is wholly unjustified. And even assuming that the burden may not be justified as to a few voters, that conclusion is by no means sufficient to establish petitioners’ right to the relief they seek in this litigation.

[In other words: particular individual voters may have legitimate grievances that this is unconstitutional as applied to them, but it's not enough to invalidate the law as a whole.]  

Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito concur separately "on the grounds that petitioners’ premise is irrelevant and that the burden at issue is minimal and justified":

The universally applicable requirements of Indiana’s voter-identification law are eminently reasonable. The burden of acquiring, possessing, and showing a free photo identification is simply not severe, because it does not "even represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting." [] And the State’s interests [] are sufficient to sustain that minimal burden. That should end the matter. That the State accommodates some voters by permitting (not requiring) the casting of absentee or provisional ballots, is an indulgence -- not a constitutional imperative that falls short of what is required.

Two dissents.  First, Justices Souter and Ginsburg:

Indiana’s "Voter ID Law" threatens to impose nontrivial burdens on the voting right of tens of thousands of the State’s citizens, [] and a significant percentage of those individuals are likely to be deterred from voting. The statute is unconstitutional under the balancing standard of Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U. S. 428 (1992): a State may not burden the right to vote merely by invoking abstract interests, be they legitimate, [] or even compelling, but must make a particular, factual showing that threats to its interests outweigh the particular impediments it has imposed. The State has made no such justification here, and as to some aspects of its law, it has hardly even tried.

The burden of traveling to a more distant BMV office rather than a conveniently located polling place is probably serious for many of the individuals who lack photo
identification. They almost certainly will not own cars, and public transportation in Indiana is fairly limited. According to a report published by Indiana’s Department of Transportation in August 2007, 21 of Indiana’s 92 counties have no public transportation system at all, and as of 2000, nearly 1 in every 10 voters lived within 1 of these 21 counties. Among the  counties with some public system, 21 provide service only within certain cities, and 32 others restrict public transportation to regional county service, leaving only 18 that offer countywide public transportation....

For those voters who can afford the roundtrip, a second financial hurdle appears: in order to get photo identification for the first time, they need to present " ‘a birth certificate, a certificate of naturalization, U. S. veterans photo identification, U. S. military photo identification, or a U. S. passport.’" As the lead opinion says, the two most common of these documents come at a price: Indiana counties charge anywhere from $3 to $12 for a birth certificate (and in some other States the fee is significantly higher), that same price must usually be paid for a first-time passport, since a birth certificate is required to prove U. S. citizenship by birth. The total fees for a passport, moreover, are up to about $100. So most voters must pay at least one fee to get the ID necessary to cast a regular ballot. As with the travel costs, these fees are far from shocking on their face, but in the Burdick analysis it matters that both the travel costs and the fees are disproportionately heavy for, and thus disproportionately likely to deter, the poor, the old, and the immobile.

The upshot is this. Tens of thousands of voting-age residents lack the necessary photo identification. A large proportion of them are likely to be in bad shape economically.  The Voter ID Law places hurdles in the way of either getting an ID or of voting provisionally, and they translate into nontrivial economic costs. There is accordingly no reason to doubt that a significant number of state residents will be discouraged or disabled from voting.

And, finally, Justice Breyer dissents, focusing on how other states have minimized the burdens on those without IDs, unlike Indiana.

Bottom line, friends?  The Great Disenfranchisement of 2008 has begun. These laws are not neutral, are not innocent, but are an attempt by Republican legislators to prevent traditionally Democratic voters from casting their ballots.  We need to do whatever it takes to help all qualified voters obtain whatever records they need so that they can vote this November; we cannot let them win.

updated, 12:45 pm:  For more on why "voter fraud" is a myth, see this amicus brief filed with the Court by the Brennan Center for Justice, the People for the American Way Foundation and others.  ("The record contains no evidence of polling place impersonation fraud in Indiana: the State conceded that it was unaware of any incidents of attempted or successful impersonation fraud in Indiana; that no one in Indiana history has been indicted for impersonation fraud; and that no evidence of impersonation fraud was presented to the Indiana legislature during the debate over the photo ID law.")