Conyers calls on McCain to Immediately Halt
Republican Vote Suppression Efforts
DOJ urged to Investigate as Committee Hearing ScheduledHouse Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) today called on Senator John McCain to direct his supporters to immediately halt voter suppression activities including efforts to prevent people from voting if their homes have been in foreclosure. At the same time, Conyers and all Democratic Members of the House Judiciary Committee called for an investigation by the Department of Justice and scheduled a hearing for next week on federal and state efforts to prepare for the November elections.
Recent media reports detailed the plans of the Macomb County (MI) Republican Party Chairman James Carabelli and others to use lists of residents of foreclosed homes to block their participation at the ballot box. This particular type of voter suppression tactic is called vote caging and the Republican Party has been under a federal consent decree since 1981 to refrain from this practice.
"The Republican Party has had a long record of blocking eligible voters from voting," said Conyers. "In the past two Presidential elections, the country witnessed appalling efforts to limit voter participation in Ohio, Florida and throughout the country. It is beyond disgraceful that the Republican Party now seems to be targeting those who are suffering the most. It appears that individuals who can’t recall how many houses they own don’t understand how awful it is to lose your home to foreclosure, and don’t know that you don’t need to own property to vote in the United States of America. It should surprise no one that the people who gave us the worst economy since the Great Depression would now want to prevent those victimized by this economy from voting in the coming elections. Senator McCain needs to step forward now and halt the Republican Party’s efforts to profit politically from the economic misery of others"…
Election dirty tricks have been known to backfire in the past, and it may be happening again in 2008. According to the author of How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative, an alleged scheme to prevent voters who have encountered foreclosure proceedings on their homes from voting in November is "going to work against the Republicans."
Last week, the Michigan Messenger detailed a plan by the Macomb County, Michigan Republican party to challenge voters whose names appear on foreclosure lists, describing it as one among numerous such GOP plans to challenge African-Americans and other likely Democratic voters on Election Day in crucial swing states such as Michigan and Ohio.
Olbermann was joined in his discussion of the story by Allen Raymond, who came by his expertise on vote-rigging the hard way, having been imprisoned in 2006 for his involvement in an illegal GOP phone-jamming operation during the 2002 elections.
Raymond explained that this threatened use of foreclose lists is a new form of what is called "vote caging," which has traditionally meant that "you essentially send a first-class letter to a hoursehold where you suspect that that person no longer lives there but where they’re still registered to vote. That letter comes back. … Somebody [at the local polling place] then challenges that vote if that person comes in to vote."
Vote caging first became notorious during the 2004 presidential election, when it was allegedly used against predominently black voters in Florida…
Another specter in this election [besides the Evangelicals and Sarah Palin] is the history of "dirty tricks" in the actual voting. Recall that the U.S. Attorney scandal hinged on an attempt to get U.S. Attorneys to file "voter fraud" suits to scare away minority voters. Various voter suppression schemes were apparent in Florida and Ohio in the last two elections. This time, Michigan, a key state, is being targeted. Maybe this time, we’ve caught on and are pre-empting "dirty trick season"…
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