A provisional ballot is used to record a vote when there is some question in regards to a given voter's eligibility. A provisional ballot would be cast when:

The voter refuses to show a photo ID (in regions that require one)
The voter's name does not appear on the electoral roll for the given precinct.
The voter's registration contains inaccurate or out-dated information such as the wrong address or a misspelled name.
The voter's ballot has already been recorded
Whether a provisional ballot is counted is contingent upon the verification of that voter's eligibility.

A provisional ballot is used to record a vote when there is some question in regards to a given voter's eligibility. A provisional ballot would be cast when:

The voter refuses to show a photo ID (in regions that require one)
The voter's name does not appear on the electoral roll for the given precinct.
The voter's registration contains inaccurate or out-dated information such as the wrong address or a misspelled name.
The voter's ballot has already been recorded
Whether a provisional ballot is counted is contingent upon the verification of that voter's eligibility.

The Times-Picayune is reporting this morning that the Louisiana Secretary of State and the Orleans and Jefferson Parish Registrar of Voters offices are conducting one of their regular purges of inactive voters in the New Orleans area.

Voters' names may get erased

These "inactives", those who have not voted in over two years, total more than 100,000 Louisiana voters.

This morning on MSNBC actor Kevin Spacey (who stars in the upcoming HBO film "Recount" as one of Al Gore's key players in the mess) was asked whether he felt that Al Gore was cheated in Florida's 2000 recount process. While Kevin doesn't give a direct answer it is clear that from everything he lists that he believes the evidence speaks for itself.

He says that from watching the film, people will be able to draw their own conclusions. This makes me want to see the film even more, since it's focus on accuracy should be damning enough in it's own right to voter purging, butterfly ballots, districts that never were recounted etc.

Even 8 years later this is an incredibly painful experience to re-live. Not because I supported Al Gore at the time (I supported Nader) but because of how disastrous the Bush presidency has been for our country.

Has anyone seen "Recount" yet? Weigh in with comments / reviews below:

Yesterday the FBI raided the office and home of Scott Bloch, Special Counsel in the Office of Special Counsel (OSC).  According to news reports, Bloch's staff was told to log-off computers.  Computers and documents were seized.  While the FBI had no comment, staff at the OSC believe the raid is related to a 2005 investigation of allegations that Bloch retaliated against whistleblowers.  Additionally, the FBI presumably is investigating Bloch's purging of computer files in 2006.

Part Two - Staining the Honor of our Armed Forces

Our topic is the number one accomplishment of the George W. Bush administration.  Not the record deficits, or stagnant science, or rampant theft, or even a legacy of nation-dividing Culture War. Rather, it is something that until a few years ago seemed downright impossible -- bringing low the finest and most professional national military the world has ever seen.  

Especially the U.S. Army, which incoming Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Michael Mullen, has called "in critical condition."

Despite frantically posturing as tough, flag-waving patrots, the neoconservative cabal (led largely by men who avoided or took cushy military service) has in fact succeeded in making America far less safe. Not only by driving away allies and spurring recruitment of Islamic radicals, but -- even worse -- by demolishing much of the power, elan, and reputation of the services that are dedicated to protecting us.

.

For approximately a year prior to his brother's 2000 Presidential Election, Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris spent five-million Florida taxpayer dollars to purchase a phoney felons voter purge list from DBT Technologies/Choicepoint Software.

It's still not entirely clear what dirt Monica Goodling's got to dish, but we'll probably soon find out:

WASHINGTON - A House committee voted Wednesday to grant immunity to Monica Goodling, a key aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales during the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. She had refused to testify, invoking her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

The 32-6 vote by the House Judiciary Committee surpassed the two-thirds majority required to grant a witness immunity from prosecution. A separate vote to authorize a subpoena for Goodling passed by voice vote.

The House panel's action was one of several scheduled committee votes pertaining to subpoenas for Bush administration officials, among them Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whom lawmakers want to question about the administration's now-discredited claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa — used in part to justify the war against Iraq.

Meanwhile, Gonzales is making the rounds on Capitol Hill, trying to convince Senators like Mark Pryor, who says he was lied to by Gonzales, that it was just all big misunderstanding, undoubtedly a result of Gonzales's condition of selective amnesia.

After revealing that 4 years (years!) of Karl Rove's email has been erased (purged?), Rove claims that he believed all email was saved, even if he deleted it.  Let's take a sample of dKos readers to find out if anyone else ever thought this:

I see that TPMmuckraker is reporting yet another White House excuse for the missing emails:

Today, during the White House press gaggle, Dana Perino gave an explanation of sorts:

But there was a conversion sometime between 2002 and 2003 to convert people that were using Lotus Notes when we first arrived to Microsoft Outlook. And I know that the tech people worked to get us all transferred over. We had to save our Word documents and all to make sure that they weren't lost in that transition.

Blame the tech people. The dog ate my homework, indeed. Well, I have a theory -- I'll bet that many of the IT folks who have worked at the White House and RNC might not be your typical loyal Bushies. In fact, they just might not be willing to lie to Congress and risk having their lives destroyed in order to save Karl Rove's butt.

Already posted in the comments of BarbinMD's front page story, but it merits stand-alone coverage...

CREW, the ethics watchdog group, has learned through "confidential sources" that over a 2 year period, the White House has "lost" upwards of 5 million email messages. Never mind "the dog ate my homework", this is "an entire kennel ate my homework".

In this diary yesterday, I provided some background about the shocking federal appeals court reversal of a case prosecuted to the full extent of the law by Bush-appointed US Attorney Biskupic in the months leading up to the 2006 Wisconsin Governor's election.

Biskupic went full-tilt after a Wisconsin civil service employee, who lost everything and was sentenced to federal prison right before the election (in which incumbent Democratic Governor Jim Doyle was being challenged by Bush family friend, Rep Mark Green).

Last Friday - Good Friday - the federal appeals court (with 2 of the 3 judges being Republican appointees) literally took one look at the case and with less than a day of oral argument overturned the sentence and ordered the employee, Georgia Thompson, immediately released from prison - before even issuing a written decision.

MORE - including breaking news from the Dems on the Senate Judiciary Committee - below the jump

CANDIDATE JIMMY CARTER made a promise that no Presidential candidate will say in 2008, no matter what.  And a promise that no candidate had made before.  But strange as it was, it seemed to make sense in the wake of Watergate and the Nixon resignation.  "If I ever tell a lie," Carter said.  "If I ever mislead you, if I ever betray a trust or a confidence, I want you to come and take me out of the White House."

The obvious problem with such a neat promise, as Carter would find out is that its too hard for a Modern President to live up to.  But this was 1976.

Your daily drivetime update on the US Attorney Purge...

I've been wondering, along with lots of other people, I'm sure, just exactly what is the content of the incriminating testimony that ex-Gonzales aide Monica Goodling invoked the 5th Amendment about. With that question on my mind, I was particularly intrigued by this editorial in the NY Times this morning. The editorial lays out the case of Georgia Thompson, a Wisconsin state employee was was railroaded, convicted, and imprisoned in an initiative of the US attorney in Milwaukee apparently to help the Republican gubernatorial candidate. There are two interesting, more general comments:

[A] question . . . lurks behind the firing of eight top federal prosecutors: what did the surviving attorneys do to escape the axe?
...
The list of things to investigate keeps growing.

This gave me an idea.

The case of Steve Biskupic, a Wisconsin U.S. Attorney who kept his job, hasn't really been on the radar in the Prosecutor Purge story, since he wasn't fired. But Josh has been keeping tabs and found a report from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that bolsters the case for dirty electoral politics being the core issue.

For weeks, it was unclear who whined to the White House last year that not enough voter fraud cases were being prosecuted in Milwaukee. Now we know. The state Republican Party went straight to the top in its efforts to make voter fraud an issue in Wisconsin.

Sources tell No Quarter that Rick Wiley, then the executive director of the state GOP, directed a staffer in 2005 to prepare a 30-page report on election abuses in Wisconsin so Wiley could pass it along to a top White House official.

That document, entitled "Fraud in Wisconsin 2004: A Timeline/Summary," turned up last week in the horde of White House and U.S. Justice Department records released by the House Judiciary Committee, which is investigating the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

"The report was prepared for Karl Rove," said a source with knowledge of the situation. "Rick wanted it so he could give it to Karl Rove."...

So the head of the state party went to the political arm of the White House with a report supposedly documenting widespread abuse of election laws in Milwaukee, violations that the party clearly believed weren't getting the attention they deserved. In late 2005, U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic, a Bush appointee, announced that his probe found no evidence of a conspiracy to steal the 2004 election here.

While Biskupic kept his job, from all appearances, he was on thin ice.

Last month, Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino said that, beginning in mid-2004, the White House received complaints that federal prosecutors were not vigorously pursuing complaints of voter fraud in Philadelphia, New Mexico and Milwaukee. She said the president met with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in October to discuss those concerns, among other things.

White House Counsel Dan Bartlett made it clear in a March 13 press briefing who specifically was coming under criticism.

"Over the course of several years, we have received complaints about U.S. attorneys, particularly when it comes to election fraud cases - not just New Mexico, but also Wisconsin and Pennsylvania."

The source says the report was "prepared for Karl Rove." The question now is was the report prepared by the Wisconsin GOP requested by Karl Rove? Was the White House just receiving complaints that prosecutors weren't following up on voter fraud cases, or was the White House trying to manufacture voter fraud cases? Inquiring minds want to know.

Josh Marshall notes a passage in a BoGlo article that suggests the politicization of the DOJ started before Kyle Sampson's suggestions to fire all the USAs in 2005. In fact, John Ashcroft changed hiring practices so as to make it easier to politicize hiring in 2002:

Their path to employment was further eased in late 2002, when John Ashcroft, then attorney general, changed longstanding rules for hiring lawyers to fill vacancies in the career ranks.

Previously, veteran civil servants screened applicants and recommended whom to hire, usually picking top students from elite schools.

2002 ... 2002 ... What happened in 2002? Well, for starters, that's when Monica Goodling came over to DOJ with Barbara Comstock:

Here we go again.

Another (very) long and winding tale of yet another bit of corruption that weaves in and out of the Bush White House, Chinese Casinos, Team Abramoff, the Mariana Islands and the purge of US Attorneys.

As the Bush era enters the scandal-a-day phase it is hard to keep up. Do you really need to learn more?

Perhaps.

This is a tale of exploitation, greed and money laundering. The targets of the scam are not only foreign guest workers, but also US tax payers and US service men and women.

Like most of the scandals of the Gingrich/Bush era this one is about raising money for off-the-books operations to fix elections, control the news media and enrich the vested investors in the Gingrich/Bush Republican party.

And if you want to follow the money the Republican Party raised and spent in the moral twilight zone defined by their greed, desire, power and hypocrisy, you need to study Jack Abramoff.

That study will lead to long and complicated tales.

Like this one.

Let’s go to school on the jump...