Efforts to Stop `Voter Fraud’ May Have Curbed Legitimate Voting
WASHINGTON - During four years as a Justice Department civil rights lawyer, Hans von Spakovsky went so far in a crusade against voter fraud as to warn of its dangers under a pseudonym in a law journal article.
Writing as “Publius,” von Spakovsky contended that every voter should be required to produce a photo-identification card and that there was “no evidence” that such restrictions burden minority voters disproportionately. 
Now, amid a scandal over politicization of the Justice Department, Congress is beginning to examine allegations that von Spakovsky was a key player in a Republican campaign to hang onto power in Washington by suppressing the votes of minority voters.
“Mr. von Spakovsky was central to the administration’s pursuit of strategies that had the effect of suppressing the minority vote,” charged Joseph Rich, a former Justice Department voting rights chief who worked under him.
He and other former career department lawyers say that von Spakovsky steered the agency toward voting rights policies not seen before, pushing to curb minor instances of election fraud by imposing sweeping restrictions that would make it harder, not easier, for Democratic-leaning poor and minority voters to cast ballots.
In interviews, current and former federal officials and civil rights leaders told McClatchy Newspapers that von Spakovsky:
-Sped approval of tougher voter ID laws in Georgia and Arizona in 2005, joining decisions to override career lawyers who believed that Georgia’s law would restrict voting by poor blacks and who felt that more analysis was needed on the Arizona law’s impact on Native Americans and Latinos.
-Tried to influence the federal Election Assistance Commission’s research into the dimensions of voter fraud nationally and the impact of restrictive voter ID laws - research that could undermine a vote-suppression agenda.
-Allegedly engineered the ouster of the commission’s chairman, Paul DiGregorio, whom von Spakovsky considered insufficiently partisan.
Von Spakovsky, who declined to comment on these allegations, is among more than a dozen present and former Justice Department officials drawing congressional scrutiny over the administration’s alleged use of the nation’s chief law enforcement agency for partisan purposes.
Congressional committees investigating the firing last year of nine U.S. attorneys are looking into allegations that prosecutors nationwide were urged to pursue voter fraud to build a basis for tougher ID laws.
Von Spakovsky, who had been a longtime voting rights activist and elections official in Georgia before serving at Justice, accepted a presidential recess appointment to a Republican slot on the Federal Election Commission in December 2005. He is scheduled to appear at a June 13 confirmation hearing before the Senate Rules and Administration Committee.
The House Administration Committee is also inquiring into von Spakovsky’s communications with the Election Assistance Commission, a tiny agency that implemented a 2002 election reform law and serves as a national election information clearinghouse.
The bipartisan, four-member commission stirred a political tempest last year when it delayed the release of voter fraud and voter ID law studies, saying that more research was needed. A House panel revealed last month that the fraud study’s central finding - that there was little evidence of widespread voter fraud - had been toned down to say that “a great deal of debate” surrounded the subject.
Commissioners rejected as flawed the second study’s finding that voter ID laws tend to suppress turnout, especially among Latinos, and ordered more research.
Rich said that von Spakovsky usurped his seat on a commission advisory panel in 2004, although the law creating the panel allocated that spot for the Voting Rights Section chief “or his designee.” Rich said he was not consulted.
After the commission hired both liberal and conservative consultants to work on the studies in 2005, e-mails show that von Spakovsky tried to persuade panel members that the research was flawed.
In an Aug. 18, 2005, e-mail to Chairman DiGregorio, he objected strenuously to a contract award for the ID study to researchers at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, who were teaming with a group at Rutgers University.
Von Spakovsky wrote that Daniel Tokaji, the associate director of Moritz’ election program, was “an outspoken opponent of voter identification requirements” and that those “pre-existing notions” should disqualify him from federal funding for impartial research.
The criticism was ironic coming from von Spakovsky, who a few months earlier had written the anonymous article for the Texas Review of Law and Politics, in which he called voter fraud a problem of importance equal to racial discrimination at the polls. Von Spakovsky acknowledged writing the article after joining the FEC.
Months after its publication, he participated in the department’s review of Georgia’s photo ID law, as required under the 1965 Voting Rights Act for election laws passed in 16 Southern states. After the department approved it, a federal judge struck it down as akin to a Jim Crow-era poll tax on minority voters.
Rich called von Spakovsky’s failure to withdraw from the case “especially disturbing, given the clear ethical concerns” over his prior work as a Georgia elections official and the bias in his article.
Von Spakovsky’s tone toward DiGregorio grew increasingly harsh in 2005 as the chairman refused to take partisan stands, said two people close to the commission who declined to be identified because of the matter’s sensitivity.
Their differences seemed to come to a head last year over two issues raised by Arizona’s Republican secretary of state, Janice Brewer, who was implementing the toughest state voter identification law in the nation. In April 2005, the Justice Department erroneously advised her that Arizona did not need to offer a provisional ballot to those lacking proof of citizenship.
E-mails suggest that von Spakovsky contacted an aide to Missouri Republican Sen. Kit Bond, who inquired of DiGregorio whether the commission was “seriously considering taking a position against” the department on the provisional ballot question.
DiGregorio sent a testy message asking von Spakovsky if the note from Capitol Hill was “an attempt by you to put pressure on me.”
“If so, I do not appreciate it,” he wrote.
The next day, von Spakovsky wrote DiGregorio that he thought they “had a deal” under which the department would reconsider its position on provisional ballots if the commission would allow Arizona to modify the federal voter registration form to require proof of citizenship.
“I do not agree to `deals,’ especially when it comes to interpretation of the law,” DiGregorio replied.
Last September, the White House replaced DiGregorio with Caroline Hunter, a former deputy counsel to the Republican National Committee. DiGregorio confided to associates that he was told that von Spakovsky influenced the White House’s decision not to reappoint him, said the two people close to the panel.
Asked about his ouster, DiGregorio said only that he “was aware that Mr. von Spakovsky was not pleased with the bipartisan approaches that I took.”
© 2007 McClatchy Washington Bureau and wire service sources.
I am confused. Why in FL, or at least Palm Beach County, have I had to produce my FL DL every time I vote. It is a requirement to have a photo ID to vote. If this is such a problem in other States, I would think that it would be a problem here too.
I thought by law every adult person had to carry ID to show who they are.
Can anyone out there explain this to me?
Only Republicans should be allowed to vote. And even then they won’t win.
There is a clear effort to supress the vote… of dead people, multiple voters, and illegal aliens, that is. If it so difficult for people to produce an ID to vote they should just pull out the one they use to buy liquor and cigarettes.
Thanks for being the bigot, mitch52.
The reason this looks like voter suppression is that it would require eligible voters to purchase another picture ID, which would have to be renewed for a fee, in order to vote. A picture ID that cannot be used in place of other state-issued picture ID’s, like driver’s licenses or non-driver’s license photo ID’s, that have to be renewed for a fee. It requires yet another personal appearance, at another state agency office, from the group of people the least likely to have paid leave from work for such efforts.
Thanks zebraluna! That makes more sense. I wish they would clarify that in other articles.
In France 85% of the people voted recently in their presidential election. If we voted on Saturday and Sunday like they do in France and other countries, the people who are now voiceless would be heard. Those who need to vote the most, are working long hours, and picking up their children at day care centers. Thus they, haven’t time to vote. When studies and interviews have been done, these individuals say they would vote if they could do so on Saturday/Sunday and could bring their children with them to let them learn how important voting is.
If it was a legitimate attempt to fight real voter fraud instead of a means of violating the voting rights of poor people, who tend not to vote with and for Republicans, the people behind the moves would be forthcoming about the evidence that there is significant voting fraud taking place on the basis of a lack of reliable identity documentation, and they would take care to find remedies that were highly accessible to all. Instead, the article presents the following smoking guns:
– “von Spakovsky . . . had written the anonymous article for the Texas Review of Law and Politics, in which he called voter fraud a problem of importance equal to racial discrimination at the polls.” [Why did he hide in anonymity instead of taking credit for the article if he believed it was meritorious?]
– von Spakovsky “Sped approval of tougher voter ID laws in Georgia and Arizona in 2005, joining decisions to override career lawyers who believed that Georgia’s law would restrict voting by poor blacks and who felt that more analysis was needed on the Arizona law’s impact on Native Americans and Latinos.”
– von Spakovsky “Tried to influence the federal Election Assistance Commission’s research into the dimensions of voter fraud nationally and the impact of restrictive voter ID laws - research that could undermine a vote-suppression agenda.”
– “A House panel revealed last month that the fraud study’s central finding - that there was little evidence of widespread voter fraud - had been toned down to say that “a great deal of debate” surrounded the subject.”
What the article doesn’t mention is that there was a GOP coordinated effort involving Karl Rove and “caging lists,” which are illegal, to challenge the voting rights of some 3 million enlisted service members and people living in poor neighborhoods and shelters, which had the effect of scrubbing hundreds of thousands of legitimate voters in swing states off the rolls without their knowledge until the day of the 2004 presidential election, by which time it was too late to do anything about it. That is the bigger picture of the real voting fraud that has gone on and which the politicization of the Justice Department under the guise of phony concerns about undocumented voters is intended to further in 2008.
Nader4prez wrote:
“I thought by law every adult person had to carry ID to show who they are.”
That’s not quite true-the concept of a photo ID is ‘key pass’ or ’security device’ much liked by corporate entities, some of whom are government agencies-for example motor bureaus that need to control the use of cars. If you don’t have a car, (hard to believe in America, that such a situation could arise), then why would you need a photo ID? You wouldn’t and every state adheres to that rule, none require PHoto Id for doing the business of paying your income taxes, property taxes (mostly a local thing anyway) or sales tax. The state still gets their share.
However, next in line to State Departments of Motor
Vehicles are banks, who love and indeed mandate that a picture ID be present and on an account (they photo-copy it) in order that you can be positively Identified for security reasons. Again, if you dont’ have a checking account, you can opt out here as well. Just make sure everything is done with cash or use the local party store to cash your paycheck-or get soaked by the local check cashier’s joint who will rip you off.
Next in line are employers who mandate that a Picture ID be shown on application for employment. If you are self employed-you can opt here as well.
And on down the line; there are folks, mostly in rural America but found in inner urban areas also, people who go through life, sort of hanging out on the fringes of society. They propbalbly number, just to pull a hat out of the numbers, about 10% of the adult population.
That’s enough to change an election if you disenfranchise them by saying -(like some place in rural Mississippi) drive, before you vote(how?, I dont’ have a car) half way across the county and back to your home to obtain a Pix ID then down to the local voting booth.
Yes, you must always carry your papers. You must always present your papers to a peace officer when he demands them.
Try being a black person in a rural Alabama county, facing a white sherrif’s duputy who is openly racist and who’s main job on this day he’s ‘volunteering’ at the polling place is to try to intimidate black voters into not voting. Remember, there’s almost certainly been flyers going around before the election warning people if they try to vote illegally they will go to prison. Or typically there are flyers around warning that anyone with even an unpaid parking ticket who tries to vote will be arrested.
Go there, be that person, then tell me its no big deal to have to show your id to vote.
Of course this is all about suppressing legitimate voters. The Republicans at best represent about 25-30% of Americans. They can only survive politically as long as turnout is so low that they can win elections with that numbers. Didn’t you notice that the main reason these US Attorney’s got fired was because they failed to push through bogus voting fraud cases before the last election?
The whole thing is about intimidating voters. Always was. And its not just on its own, its a part of a bigger picture of intimidation. You have to look at it that way.
And ask this basic question …. should any American citizen feel intimidated when they go to vote?
Who doesn’t have a passport? Over 75% of the US.
Who doesn’t have a driver’s license? Seniors. Disabled people.
Who doesn’t have a birth certificate? Interestingly, quite a few older people in rural or poor areas.
It’s not about preventing voter FRAUD. It’s all about preventing VWD.
rverne8 is right. The government wants you to think that you have to have a photo id on you at all times, but that’s not actually the law. Yes, you have to have one on you while driving, if you want to buy certain things like alchohol and cigarettes, but you don’t have to carry one on you at all times.
By any means possible…ultra con GOPers will do anything and everythiing to suppress the vote. Touch screens, constant changing of poll booths, voter tax, IDs, purging of lists. Of course, the usual baiting by Rverne8 had the right fall out, distraction from the real issue. Rverne8, maybe illegals can use the same ID’s that unlawful employers give cursory notice when hiring them.
Forgive me if anyone else thinks I’m stating the obvious here, but…
There are many, many people in this country that don’t have cars. I don’t have a car. It’s called living in a city. If you live in New York City (and *millions* of people do), having a car is a liability. You just don’t need one. The same is true in many cities, particularly in the northeast. I have also lived in Boston and Philadelphia - without a car. There are subways, there are buses, there are trains, there are taxis, there are friggin’ boats - there are a million other ways to get around. It’s not that you’re poor, on the fringes of society, or anything like that. I have a damn good job and could easily afford a car if I wanted one.
In fact, many would say that the urban population is at the center of society, and you with the cars are on the fringes.
Of course, you do still need an ID - to buy tobacco or booze, or to open a checking account. But there are many, many people in this city - and I imagine in others - who are simple, god fearing people who do not drink or smoke. And yes, some of these people do not have checking accounts - if you need to use a check cashing place (there are many here) because you live paycheck to paycheck, having a checking account isn’t exactly a luxury you’re worried about. I suppose you could say that such people are on the fringes of the society - but yet, I swear I talk to at least one every day. Should all these people be forced to pay for some meaningless piece of plastic in order to vote? How is that any different than a poll tax? It’s government by the people - ALL the people, not just the lucky ones.
Not everyone in America lives in a posh suburb with an SUV and a mortgage - and you’ll find our numbers are much greater than you think, when you consider that there are as many people in Brooklyn (a tiny speck on the map) as there are in the entire state of Kansas. If you seriously think you need an ID to have a normal life in this country, you need a reality check. I haven’t even looked at my ID in months.
Birth certificates are not accurate pieces of ID. The mother can put who ever she wants or not as the father. The age of the mother doesn’t have to be accurate with proof in some states. And so on. A driver’s license means that one has met the requirements to drive in a state. Signing your name to vote is not great proof either that you are who you say. I’d be more willing to jump through some hoops to vote if I seriously thought that the touch screen was registering my vote as I cast it. No point in fixing blame and stigma to voters when the major fraud is in office at present. Rove playing delete with the 2004 Ohio vote totals negates the whole question of fair voting.
Changing voting to Saturday and Sunday both would increase turnout. States need to allow advanced voting by mail or in person for those who work 7am to 7pm ect.. Take a moment and see if your state allows advanced voting. Contact your legislator and ask to get this presented as a bill.
Maybe you should do as do we in Australia. Voting is compulsory.
Voting is for twelve hours on a Saturday. We do get close to 100% of voters. The downside is we are still voting for Politicians. Tom Edgar
In Canada, we update our voting lists by going door to door before elections. We pay a small sum to nominees of all major parties to do this.
Party campaigners work from the lists when they go door to door, making chicanery vulnerable to detection at this stage.
We have small polls — no one has to drive to them — so the risk of being identified as a stranger is very high. Where we use touch screens they kick out a receipt to the voter, who can ask for a replacement ballot if the recorded vote is wrong.
We count by hand and everything’s done by bedtime.
Voter fraud - baloney - no one steals an election one vote at a time (retail). The only way you can steal an election is wholesale - exclude a group by denying the right to vote or make sure their votes are lost or disallowed.
Half of the voters don’t vote once. The penalty if you commit retail voter fraud is harsh.
The penalty for wholesale voter fraud is that you get the most devious politician in office.