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GREG GORDON, MCCLATCHY - Four days before the 2004 election, the Justice
Department's civil rights chief sent an unusual letter to a federal
judge in Ohio who was weighing whether to let Republicans challenge the
credentials of 23,000 mostly African-American voters. The case was
triggered by allegations that Republicans had sent a mass mailing to
mostly Democratic-leaning minorities and used undeliverable letters to
compile a list of voters potentially vulnerable to eligibility
challenges.
In his letter to U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott of Cincinnati,
Assistant Attorney General Alex Acosta argued that it would "undermine"
the enforcement of state and federal election laws if citizens could not
challenge voters' credentials.
Former Justice Department civil rights officials and election watchdog
groups charge that his letter sided with Republicans engaging in an
illegal, racially motivated tactic known as "vote-caging" in a state
that would be pivotal in delivering President Bush a second term in the
White House. . .
Acosta, now the U.S. attorney in Miami, said in a statement that his
letter was aimed at advising the court that a new Ohio law allowing
challenges was "permissible," so long as no challenge was based on race.
He said it also was intended to make clear that anyone whose eligibility
was questioned had a right to file a provisional ballot.
Justice Department spokeswoman Cynthia Magnuson said that the Civil
Rights Division "does not coordinate actions with any political party"
and that any such suggestion would be "entirely unfounded."
But Robert Kengle, former deputy chief of the department's Voting Rights
Section who served under Acosta, said the letter amounted to
"cheerleading for the Republican defendants."
"It was doubly outrageous," he said, "because the allegation in the
litigation was that these were overwhelmingly African-American voters
that were on the challenge list."
Joseph Rich, a former chief of the department's Voting Rights Section,
called the Ohio scheme "vote caging.". . . Rich said that challenges of
caged voters have been stopped when brought to light before an election.
The question is, he said, whether caging and subsequent challenges have
occurred "and somebody didn't bring it to light."
The new Ohio law permitted challenges in 2004 but required political
parties to list targeted voters in advance of the election. The Ohio
Republican Party notified election authorities in the fall of 2004 that
it planned to challenge more than 35,000 voters at the polls, a figure
it later trimmed to 23,000.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/17303.html
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GREG GORDON, MCCLATCHY - Four days before the 2004 election, the Justice
Department's civil rights chief sent an unusual letter to a federal
judge in Ohio who was weighing whether to let Republicans challenge the
credentials of 23,000 mostly African-American voters. The case was
triggered by allegations that Republicans had sent a mass mailing to
mostly Democratic-leaning minorities and used undeliverable letters to
compile a list of voters potentially vulnerable to eligibility
challenges.
In his letter to U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott of Cincinnati,
Assistant Attorney General Alex Acosta argued that it would "undermine"
the enforcement of state and federal election laws if citizens could not
challenge voters' credentials.
Former Justice Department civil rights officials and election watchdog
groups charge that his letter sided with Republicans engaging in an
illegal, racially motivated tactic known as "vote-caging" in a state
that would be pivotal in delivering President Bush a second term in the
White House. . .
Acosta, now the U.S. attorney in Miami, said in a statement that his
letter was aimed at advising the court that a new Ohio law allowing
challenges was "permissible," so long as no challenge was based on race.
He said it also was intended to make clear that anyone whose eligibility
was questioned had a right to file a provisional ballot.
Justice Department spokeswoman Cynthia Magnuson said that the Civil
Rights Division "does not coordinate actions with any political party"
and that any such suggestion would be "entirely unfounded."
But Robert Kengle, former deputy chief of the department's Voting Rights
Section who served under Acosta, said the letter amounted to
"cheerleading for the Republican defendants."
"It was doubly outrageous," he said, "because the allegation in the
litigation was that these were overwhelmingly African-American voters
that were on the challenge list."
Joseph Rich, a former chief of the department's Voting Rights Section,
called the Ohio scheme "vote caging.". . . Rich said that challenges of
caged voters have been stopped when brought to light before an election.
The question is, he said, whether caging and subsequent challenges have
occurred "and somebody didn't bring it to light."
The new Ohio law permitted challenges in 2004 but required political
parties to list targeted voters in advance of the election. The Ohio
Republican Party notified election authorities in the fall of 2004 that
it planned to challenge more than 35,000 voters at the polls, a figure
it later trimmed to 23,000.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/17303.html
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