HOWARD DEAN LAUNCHES A 50 STATE ELECTION PROTECTION PROGRAM

I was in college when Lyndon Johnson enraged racists and reactionaries, especially in the South, by signing the Voting Rights Act." Reactionaries and racists, for similar reasons have always been eager to keep people from voting and LBJ knew the Democratic Party would lose the Solid South as surely as the Republicans had under Abraham Lincoln when he freed their slaves. Johnson said that the "right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless. It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies." Reactionaries and racists weren't sympathetic then and they're not sympathetic now. They hate democracy and the idea of majority rule and social and political equality.

Today at Yearly Kos Howard Dean, Chairman of the DNC, announced a new election protection project to insure that American citizens will not be prevented from voting by reactionaries, racists and Republicans. It begins with an ambitious nationwide survey to collect critical data on voting practices and procedures at the local level. According to Dean's office the goal is to "map the often confusing and complex sets of administrative practices and decisions governing election administration in every state. Working with local election boards, the DNC is examining the election mechanics in each state, flagging potential problems and election administration issues that threaten to deprive citizens of their right to register, vote and have their vote counted. Once these issues are identified, the DNC will work to resolve potential problems well in advance of the 2008 election. Election laws, while written on the federal and state level, are often subject to interpretation at the local level. This decentralized process results in varied administration and supervision of the elections themselves, which can be potentially problematic considering that in 2008, there will be at least 13,000 elections run by localities."

Is this really needed? Did you notice that the Republican Party used dozens of methods to steal both the 2000 and the 2004 elections for Bush-- not to mention a number of congressional seats (particularly the one illegitimately occupied by John Sununu in New Hampshire)? They have brazenly politicized the Justice Department and twisted its mission from protecting people's right to vote to denying people the right to vote.

The Bush Justice Dept has aimed to create roadblocks for Americans to exercise their right to vote by approving restrictive state voter ID laws, voter purging, and voter intimidation tactics. And as is now well-known, top Justice Dept officials improperly, and illegally, pressured U.S. Attorneys to bring phony voter fraud cases against Democratic and progressive organizations and individuals, to influence the outcome of elections for the Republicans.

The DNC lists a small handful of examples of how the Bush Regime has attempted to undermine democracy. Let's start with their failed attempt to subvert the 2006 elections in Maryland:

Just days before the 2006 general election, copies of the Election Day manual for the Maryland Republican Party were obtained; in that manual, Republican Party workers were given false information about voters' rights, were told systematically to challenge voters and were advised to threaten election judges with jail time. Also in Maryland, on Election Day, flyers were distributed in Prince George's County, by the Ehrlich/Steele Republican campaign, falsely stating that African American elected officials had endorsed the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate and for Governor and misleading voters about the party affiliation of those candidates.

An anomaly? Hardly. Don't think Florida went from being a banana Republic to being a genuine democracy once Katherine Harris was no longer Secretary of State. As the BBC reported on October, 26, 2004, the Bush Regime continued the racist and reactionary war on the right of African Americans to vote:

"Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington, DC, contain a 15-page so-called 'caging list.' It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida. An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: 'The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day.'"

And don't get the idea that this is the kind of antics that just go on among low level hacks. Hacks at the very highest level of the Bush Regime were involved in every step along the way, from Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman right down the line. "During an appearance on behalf of the GOP gubernatorial candidate in Virginia in 2005, RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman vowed to 'do whatever we can to help make sure Jerry Kilgore becomes the next governor of the state'-- including, according to the AP, 'having poll workers on hand to challenge voter eligibility.'"

In 2004 KLAS in Las Vegas reported on how an RNC-funded company registered minority voters in Democratic neighborhoods and then threw away the registration forms.

"Voter's Outreach of America" aka "America Votes" is responsible for ripping up democratic voter registrations in Nevada. According to the investigative report, hundreds and perhaps thousands of individuals who think they are registered to vote actually are not. The organization has reportedly left Nevada and gone to Oregon. Full transcript of story attached... Well, the company [Voter's Outreach for America, aka America Votes] has been largely, if not entirely funded by the Republican National Committee. We should also point out that similar complaints have been received in Reno, where the registrar there has asked the FBI to investigate. It's a complicated story and we'll have a lot more tonight and I think in the days ahead."

And this kind of stuff happens all over the country-- never from Democrats, of course; always from Republicans eager to depress voters participation. In California they threatened Hispanic citizens with jail and deportation if they tried to vote. In Florida they just struck African Americans' names off the voter rolls. In South Dakota they harassed Native Americans trying to vote on election day. And, of course, the New Hampshire scandal which brought Sununu to office has already resulted in several Republicans going to prison, though not Mehlman and not Rove, clearly the masterminds. According to the Boston Globe on June 10 of last year:

As he finished serving a prison sentence for "jamming Democratic phone lines in New Hampshire during the 2002 US Senate race," Allen Raymond told the Boston Globe that the "scheme reflects a broader culture in the Republican Party that is focused on dividing voters to win primaries and general elections. He said examples range from some recent efforts to use border-security concerns to foster anger toward immigrants to his own role arranging phone calls designed to polarize primary voters over abortion in a 2002 New Jersey Senate race." The scheme led to "the convictions of Raymond and two top Republican officials, and a Democratic lawsuit that seeks to determine whether the White House played any role." Allen said "he got caught up in an ultra-aggressive atmosphere" and that "he had been reluctant to turn down a prominent official of the RNC, fearing that would cost him future opportunities from an organization that was becoming increasingly ruthless."

They haven't suddenly stopped their descent into ruthlessness.