Election -- The Obstacles Voters Face

January 9, 2008

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, and Ali Frick

ELECTION

The Obstacles Voters Face

Today, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in cases surrounding the constitutionality of laws requiring voters to show photo identification. Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita presents one of "the most important cases involving the mechanics of election administration in decades." The case challenges Indiana's strict voter ID law, which purportedly aims to eliminate voter fraud -- an issue conservatives often drum up as a serious problem facing the country. Yet as CNN legal analyst Jeffery Toobin points out, "Nationwide, despite an attempt by the Bush Justice Department to crack down on voter fraud, there were only a hundred and twenty federal prosecutions and eighty-six convictions between 2002 and 2006 -- a period in which close to four hundred million votes were cast." Even the Election Assistance Commission "found 'little evidence' of the 'problem' now being pushed nationwide by GOP operatives as evidence that disenfranchising Photo ID requirement laws should be passed in states across the country." "First and foremost, Indiana's law is a 'solution' to a problem that doesn't exist. ... In the entire history of Indiana, the total number of reported instances of" in-person fraud preventable by ID laws "is zero." Instead of preventing fraud, voter ID laws such as Indiana's tend to discriminate against low-income and minority voters. A federal judge compared Georgia's voter ID law to a modern day poll tax. The justices will rule on Indiana's law by mid-June, a decision that could affect next fall's presidential election.

THE BURDEN OF VOTER ID LAWS: According to the Transportation Department and Census Bureau, there are 20 to 21 million voting-age Americans without driver's licenses. "A 2007 study by political scientists at the University of Washington found that about 13 percent of registered voters in Indiana lacked the required identification." In Georgia, which has a requirement similar to Indiana's, "roughly 200,000 people who have no government-issued photo ID have registered to vote, and more than 60 percent of them voted in the last general election before a photo-ID requirement was imposed." Those less likely to have IDs are not only poor or minority voters, but also urban residents who don't drive, handicapped Americans, people living in nursing homes, and other elderly voters who have a harder time getting current IDs. Upholding Indiana's law, Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals wrote dismissively, "It is exceedingly difficult to maneuver in today's America without a photo ID (try flying, or even entering a tall building such as the courthouse in which we sit, without one)." Despite the judge's faulty assumption that all Americans fly frequently, voter ID laws have serious "suppressive effects" on voting, according to a Brown University study released this week. The study found that such laws lead "to lower levels of voter participation" and "discourage legal immigrants from becoming citizens, particularly for blacks and Hispanics, reducing odds of naturalization by over 15 percent."

A DEDICATION TO DISENFRANCHISEMENT: Under the Bush Administration, the Department of Justice has undergone a "sea change" from protecting minority voting rights to prosecuting voter fraud -- and indirectly disenfranchising minority voters. The Voting Rights section of the Civil Rights Division has led this effort, under the leadership of Hans von Spakovsky and John Tanner. A career lawyer in the Voting Rights section, Spakovsky used his position to pursue, in the words of six former career professionals in the section, "an agenda which placed the highest priority on the partisan political goals of the political appointees who supervised the Section." Spakovsky allegedly "used every opportunity he had over four years in the Justice Department to make it difficult for voters -- poor, minority and Democratic -- to go to the polls." He championed Georgia's voter ID law over the objection of Justice Department lawyers who said it would likely discriminate against black voters. A former Voting Rights section employee testified in October that former Section chief John Tanner was "both the cause and the effect of the politicization of the Civil Rights Division," and that until Tanner's mistakes were repaired, "the voting section of the Civil Rights Division will remain a wounded institution." Tanner also supported the Georgia voter ID law, which the employee called a "nasty piece of legislation" that had "draconian restrictions." Earlier this year, Tanner said minority voters were not affected by voter ID laws because they "die first" before becoming elderly.

THE UNPROTECTED VOTE: Even after a voter gains access to a ballot, that individual's vote is hardly safe. The New York Times magazine recently wrote that unreliabe electronic voting machines can fall victim to hackers or simply malfunction on their own. Last month, Colorado's secretary of state decertified many of the state's touch-screen voting machines, and Ohio's secretary of state released a report finding that such machines "may jeopardize the integrity of the voting process." California and Florida jettisoned their touch-screen machines last spring. As the Times magazine article explored, many touch-screen machines do not include a verifiable paper trail. They often operate using secret source code known only to the machines' vendors, creating "an environment, critics maintain, in which the people who make and sell machines are now central to running elections. Elections officials simply do not know enough about how the machines work to maintain or fix them." Some states, including Florida, have moved to replaced touch-screen machines with optical scan machines, where voters fill out bubble forms, which are then scanned and tallied electronically. Sens. Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) introduced a bill last fall that would eliminate touch-screen voting machines starting in 2012.

ADMINISTRATION -- JUDGE DEMANDS WHITE HOUSE PROVIDE ANSWERS ON MISSING E-MAILS: A federal magistrate yesterday ordered the White House to disclose whether it is in possession of backup copies of up to 10 million missing e-mails. The existence of the missing e-mails came to light in early 2006 when Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the CIA leak scandal revealed that the Executive Office of the President and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney failed to store all of their e-mail traffic through the normal archiving process "for certain time periods in 2003." The order was issued as the White House, claiming the "president's record-keeping practices... are not subject to review by the courts," tried to scuttle lawsuits brought by two private groups, the National Security Archive and the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, who are seeking the missing messages. The National Security Archives contends that the missing e-mails could concern not just the Plame investigation, but also Hurricane Katrina and the firing of the U.S. Attorneys: "This Order will force the Executive Office of the President to tell the public whether it really erased key records of the nation's history or whether it has made any effort to preserve the information." The White House has five business days to report whether computer backup tapes contain the millions of missing e-mails.

IRAQ -- PENTAGON OFFICIAL SEES AT MOST '50-50' CHANCE OF 'SURGE' SUCCEEDING: In a news conference yesterday, President Bush said that he now sees "political progress" in Iraq that is "matching" the security gains achieved last year. In contrast, yesterday at the Heritage Foundation, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle Eastern Affairs Mark Kimmitt said 2008 will be "far more difficult" than 2007 for the U.S. strategy because "it depends far more on the Iraqis themselves to show progress on key legislation, on their economy, and reconciliation." "[I]f I had to put a number to it," Kimmit said, referring to the chances for the escalation succeeding, "maybe it's three in 10, maybe it's 50-50, if we play our cards right." In an interview with Newsweek, Gen. David Petraeus also hesitated to be "optimistic" as of yet, saying, "[We] should be realistic at this point, and the reality of Iraq is that it's very hard." The tenuous nature of Iraq's lull in violence, however, hasn't stopped hawks like Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) from already declaring success.

ETHICS -- PENTAGON INSPECTOR GENERAL REFUSES TO PROBE KBR RAPE CASE: Last month after ABC News reported that former Halliburton/KBR employee Jamie Leigh Jones had been gang-raped by her co-workers while working in Baghdad, multiple lawmakers -- including Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) and Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Bill Nelson (D-FL) -- pressed the Bush administration to reveal the state of Jones's case and explain how an earlier investigation "had not resulted in any prosecution." The administration has been anything but cooperative. Both the State and Justice Departments refused to give Poe "answers on the status" of the investigation. The Justice Department "refused to send a representative" to a congressional hearing last month, and the State, Defense, and Justice Departments all missed Nelson's deadline for answering their questions. The Inspector General of the Department of Defense has nw written to Nelson and other lawmakers, saying that his agency will not investigate the allegations. "In letters to lawmakers, DoD Inspector General Claude Kicklighter said that because the Justice Department still considers the investigation into Jones' case open, there is no need for him to look into the matter." Nelson's office told ABC News that the senator is "not satisfied" with Kicklighter's letter.

President Bush "had a powerful effect" on New Hampshire's Republican primary. Roughly half of GOP voters "had a negative opinion of the Bush administration, and those voters significantly went for Arizona Sen. John McCain by nearly a 2-to-1 margin." Of those with a "positive opinion of the administration," 37 percent voted for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

There was record turnout in yesterday's New Hampshire primaries. "With ballots from 12 percent of voting precincts still to be counted, about 453,000 residents had cast votes, breaking the previous primary turnout record of 396,385 ballots cast in 2000."

President Bush chastised the "provocative" acts of a few Iranian high-speed boats that confronted U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf. According to a video released by the Pentagon, the Iranian boats swarmed around the American ships, and a man speaking heavily-accented English threatened, "I am coming to you. ... You will explode after...minutes."

With just "two members and unable to muster a quorum," the Federal Elections Commission "has decided to offer advice instead of binding decisions on questions from political campaigns." The four vacancies are a result of President Bushâ€™s refusal to withdraw the nomination of Hans A. von Spakovsky, despite strong opposition from Congress.

As President Bush arrives in Israel today "to start a tour of six Middle Eastern countries," he "has yet to fulfill a key diplomatic promise to name an envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a promise he made seven months ago." In a June speech at the Islamic Center of Washington, Bush pledged to name an envoy to the grouping of 57 Muslim states.

In a new court filing, lawyers for Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) argue "that the underlying act" of his airport bathroom arrest "wasn't criminal because it didn't involve multiple victims." Craig's lawyers also claim that hand signals should be considered "constitutionally protected speech."

"Faced with recession fears, the White House is considering tax rebates for individuals to encourage spending and tax breaks for businesses to encourage investment, according to people familiar with the matter."

And finally: Gloria Squitiro, wife of recently elected Kansas City, MO, mayor Mark Funkhouser, recently sent out a holiday letter to her friends and family. But instead of talking about her kids or job, she talked about Funkhouser's prostate exam, which was "the highlight of his year." She also said that watching it was her "biggest joy." "I waited in gleeful anticipation,â€ she wrote, noting "the doctor's sausage-sized fingers." Ever since someone leaked Squitiro's letter, it's been the "talk of the town."

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"Colorado officials this year are rejecting nearly $500,000 from the federal government for programs that teach 'abstinence-only' sex education."

MISSOURI: Missouri teachers say pay is lacking.

NORTH CAROLINA: County judge rejects "Wal-Mart's bid to obtain a $30 million tax refund from the state."

LOUISIANA: Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington claims Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) may have violated federal bribery laws for receiving a $2-million earmark for campaign donors.

THINK PROGRESS: White House staffers join the blogosphere.

TPM MUCKRAKER: Congressional Research Service says the Justice Department was wrong to bless President Bush's partisan stacking of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.

KATRINA: AN UNNATURAL DISASTER: Open Society launches a multimedia website documenting the social and economic toll of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

"Iraqis are beginning to see political progress that is matching the dramatic security gains for the past year."
-- President Bush, 1/8/08

VERSUS

Seeing "such significant progress in security with only the foundations of progress in reconciliation is a bit disheartening, not to mention sobering."
-- Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle Eastern Affairs Mark Kimmitt, 1/8/08

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The Obstacles Voters Face

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