We spend a lot of time in these news updates showing how charges of voter fraud are used to discredit voter participation efforts and prime the pump for voter suppression efforts, such as the passage of voter ID bills, pushing for proof of citizenship, engaging in draconian voter purge efforts, and imposing sever restrictions on voter registration drives. We have also spent a lot of time carefully delineating the politics behind these efforts, starting with our March 2007 report The Politics Of Voter Fraud and continuing on in these diaries to name but two venues.
Today the Dallas Morning News editorialized on the recent attempts by the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbot, to find any evidence of widespread voter impersonation fraud or illegal voting by non-citizens. Project Vote reported on his failure to find any evidence of organized or widespread fraud earlier this week.
Reports out of Texas over the past month show a pattern familiar to voting rights groups: top law enforcement officials engaged in deeply politicized efforts to push prosecutions and policies that disenfranchise low-income and minority voters. Steve Rosenfeld, writing in the Texas Observer, lays out the the whole story in detail, but the general gist feels a lot like the politicization scandal the US Department of Justice brought to light over the course of 2007.
Yesterday, Nelda Wells Spears put out a statementconfirming her support for the Republican Voter ID bill HB 626 in the last session.
As reported by the Austin Chronicle and Austin American Statesman, Ms. Spears is using the language of and siding with Tom Craddick and Texas Republicans in their attempt to disenfranchise thousands of minority, poor, and senior Texas voters.
As a reminder, Texas Senate Democrats heroically fought HB 626 including State Senator Mario Gallegos who was wheeled in on a hospital bed against doctor's orders to cast the deciding vote blocking the bill.
It is outrageous that a Democratic elected official would side with Republicans on this attack on our voting rights.
Glen Maxey has taken a stand not only oppose voter suppression bills, but as Travis County's chief of voter registration will lead a statewide effort to protect the rights of every voter.
We cannot allow the Republicans to go unchallenged another session as they chip away at our right to vote.
I will stand up and be a voice for the rights of Texans. As a 6 term legislator, I have a record of taking on the bad guys, standing up on civil and voting rights issues and for open and transparent government.
Glen Maxey is running as a Democrat for Travis County Tax Assessor Collector in the March 4 Primary.
"It is pretty much against the party line," Spears said. "Even though I consider myself a good Democrat, I also consider myself a person who can think for myself."
It's been going on since this morning, but will likely be going on for another 3-4 hours. This is an open thread for discussion of those following along.
In 2007 two major bills hit the floor of the House and Senate. House Bills 626 and 218 would have instituted a modern day poll tax and restricted the rights for Texas citizens to have a say in who represents them.
Leadership from the Mexican American Legislative Caucus (MALC) in the House and Mario Gallegos in the Senate defeated these Republican bills. And not surprisingly, a new study shows that legislation like this has had a dramatic impact on voting.
"It is incredibly clear how voter I.D. requirements disproportionately affect and suppress minorities," said Logan, professor of sociology. "This data shows that if voter I.D. policies had not been in place in 2004, voter turnout would have increased by more than 1.6 million...
There's not much more that needs to be said. The Republican continue to want as few people in the process as possible. They use fear tactics to sell it to the most racist of Texans and Americans, and put bad public policy ahead of positive solutions. As long as the House is lead by Tom Craddick and his cronies, racism, hate, and fear will dominate the public discourse.
This diary is cross-posted from Project Vote's Daily Kos entry and our own blog, Voting Matters.
Weekly Voting Rights News Update
By Erin Ferns
As we count down to the new year - a time when the Supreme Court will weigh-in on the voter ID debate and we will cast ballots for the next president of the United States - Texas lawmakers continue to aggressively present the alleged issue of non-citizens voting. This week, voter ID was added to the list of topics to be studied by the House State Affairs Committee for the 2009 legislative session, an action deemed a partisan ploy to reintroduce the "discriminatory and divisive" legislation of 2007. Stirring the so-called voter fraud plot in Texas to greater heights, a coalition of legislators requested Secretary of State Phil Wilson "implement more stringent proof of citizenship requirements before casting a ballot in Texas" in November 2008.
A 2006 cynical smear campaign and voter suppression scheme orchestrated by Republican State House Representative Tony Goolsby (HD102, Dallas), along with Dallas County Republican Party Chair Kenn George and a Dallas GOP consultant, may have backfired. Monday, former challenger Harriet Miller, with support from the Lone Star Project, filed a lawsuit in the 192nd State District Court showing that their attack "constitutes slander" and was committed with "actual malice."
The Goolsby/George scheme entailed the blatant misrepresentation of election returns in order to file a false voter fraud complaint against Goolsby's Democratic challenger, Harriet Miller, with the Dallas County District Attorney. The false complaint was then used as a political prop to libel and attack Ms. Miller, while also suppressing African American voter turnout in House District 102. The Lone Star Project detailed the scheme in a special report last year.
For complete details, the complaint, the background, research, and supporting evidence, take a look at the Lone Star Project website.
I recently attended a meeting held by some of Harris County’s precinct officials and election judges, most of whom are extremely hard working and deeply committed volunteers. A subset of this group has formed a committee to investigate voter suppression and integrity concerns in Harris County (Houston area). They toil away relentlessly in a tireless attempt to guarantee equal and fair access to the county’s elections in this Tom Delay gerrymandered state. This is no small feat given the GOP is in charge of about everything here. The challenges the volunteers face are significant and difficult. Fortunately for voting Democrats in Harris County, we have such committed and patriotic defenders of both our state and national Constitutional rights. We had better hope and pray they never give up because as it stands now, our democracy here is hanging on by mere shreds.
Our mayor in Houston is supposed to be a Democrat and yet he failed to give this group’s selected committee members the respect, time and appreciation they deserve for their well founded research, data and findings. In fact, he was more deferential to the GOP county clerk’s people present and wasted 30 minutes of the mere 60 minutes allocated by spinning irrelevant yarns about this that and everything except voting issues.
For this appalling reason I decided to write to the mayor and to also post my letter to him as a journal. I think it is high time for Texas Democrats to take the fight to the people who are running and very likely messing with our election outcomes, as well as those officials who chose to do nothing to stop the contemptible and downright illegal shenanigans.
Should Harris County, the most populated in Texas, flip blue, the Texas GOP will be in a big world of hurt. It is for this reason alone that I believe the GOP will do everything it can get away with to purge/scrub/cancel voter rolls, provide inadequate, pre-rigged, and/or mal-functioning voting machines to mostly minority and poor district, and engage in beyond the pale voter intimidation. Indeed in Harris County, the election folks have come up with a “potential felons” list with names that will likely be scrubbed from the rolls. What in heaven’s name is a “potential felon?” That could be anyone now that our Constitutional rights have been flushed down the toilet by the crooked. lying and incompetent Bush Administration.
It is time to hold the elections’ folks feet to the fire, as well as those of their supervisors, and the Secretary of State.
from: http://www.alternet.... "On the one hand, people will now say you can't prove the fraud," he said, "but the rule of law says that when evidence is destroyed it creates a presumption that the people who destroyed evidence did so because it would have proved the contention of the other side."
I was so hoping for fast change--John Kerry--for the good of us all.
If Rep. Holt's HR 811 were a true remedy, you would have been hearing all along from its supporters the call for an honest recount...which did not happen. What's up with Holt's HR 811 supporters? And all to comply with HAVA which was devised by GOP felons Abramoff and Ney to...do....
Ohio 2004 Presidential Election Ballots Illegally Destroyed, Missing in At Least 56 of 88 Counties...
Blogged by Brad from somewhere in TX...
snip
...we're happy to point over to AlterNet's coverage of the story listeners may have heard us cursorily break during a phone call from Ohio's Paddy Schaeffer on the air the Friday before last while we were Guest Hosting the Peter B. Collins Show from Houston.
Here's the lede...
Two-thirds of Ohio counties have destroyed or lost their 2004 presidential ballots and related election records, according to letters from county election officials to the Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner.
The lost records violate Ohio law, which states federal election records must be kept for 22 months after Election Day, and a U.S. District Court order issued last September that the 2004 ballots be preserved while the court hears a civil rights lawsuit alleging voter suppression of African-American voters in Columbus.
snip
"The extent of the destruction of records is consistent with the covering up of the fraud that we believe occurred in the presidential election," said Cliff Arnebeck, a Columbus attorney representing the King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association, which filed voter suppression suit. "We're in the process of addressing where to go from here with the Ohio Attorney General's office."
and in related news:
Today Is D-Day for Electronic Voting Machines
By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet
Posted on August 3, 2007, Printed on August 3, 2007 http://www.alternet....
SACRAMENTO, CALIF. -- Friday, August 3, is a day that will likely live in political infamy for election integrity activists across the country.
California's Secretary of State Debra Bowen, a newly elected, reform-minded Democrat, will decide whether or not the largest state will use electronic voting machines in its new, early presidential primary next February. No matter what Bowen decides, she will make waves from Capitol Hill to county election offices.
If Bowen bans some or all of the machines, she will face an open revolt from many of the county officials who oversee California elections. She also will be sending a big message to Congress, where efforts to regulate electronic voting machines have stalled. The strongest proposals there -- requiring a paper trail to verify votes and tough new audits -- echo existing California law, which Bowen would be saying no longer is sufficient.
more
Holt's HR 811...Verify votes? Tough new audits? Audits delayed are audits denied, vote counts delayed are vote counts denied...look at Gore and Kerry.
What does it mean to not fix a known problem which any future Democratic candidate would also face?
Yesterday, Nelda Wells Spears put 
