When it came to pushing a “voter fraud” scandal that didn’t exist, the administration worked diligently to politicize federal law enforcement. But it wasn’t entirely alone — outside the government, the Bush gang also received support from the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR), which was established, ostensibly to root out election fraud.
At least it used to. Rick Hasen emailed me over the weekend to let me know about a great item he has in Slate about the ACVR, which “has literally just disappeared as an organization.”
With no notice and little comment, ACVR — the only prominent nongovernmental organization claiming that voter fraud is a major problem, a problem warranting strict rules such as voter-ID laws — simply stopped appearing at government panels and conferences. Its Web domain name has suddenly expired, its reports are all gone (except where they have been preserved by its opponents), and its general counsel, Mark “Thor” Hearne, has cleansed his resume of affiliation with the group. Hearne won’t speak to the press about ACVR’s demise. No other group has taken up the “voter fraud” mantra.
As Hasen explained, the group was part of a two-pronged strategy. The first dealt with politicizing the Justice Department, prosecuting as many voter fraud cases as U.S. Attorneys could find. This prong was a failure — not only was there no actual fraud epidemic, but the pursuit ultimately created a massive scandal that will likely bring down an Attorney General.
The other prong was using the ACVR to produce reports and “evidence” about a widespread problem that doesn’t exist. For Republicans anxious to disenfranchise voters who they suspect might vote Democratic — elderly, African American, low-income, naturalized citizens, etc. — the ACVR’s work has produced support materials that justified suppressing voters through adding burdens at the ballot box.
Again, from Hasen:
The short organizational history of ACVR, chronicled indefatigably by Brad Friedman of the Brad Blog, shows that the group was founded just days before its representatives testified before a congressional committee hearing on election-administration issues chaired by then-Rep. (and now federal inmate) Bob Ney. The group was headed by Hearne, national election counsel to Bush-Cheney ’04, and staffed with other Republican operatives, including Jim Dyke, a former RNC communications director.
Consisting of little more than a post-office box and some staffers who wrote reports and gave helpful quotes about the pervasive problems of voter fraud to the press, the group identified Democratic cities as hot spots for voter fraud, then pushed the line that “election integrity” required making it harder for people to vote. The group issued reports (PDF) on areas in the country of special concern, areas that coincidentally tended to be presidential battleground states. In many of these places, it now appears the White House was pressuring U.S. attorneys to bring more voter-fraud prosecutions.
What’s worse, the bad guys have largely won. ACVR “studies” have been used to pass state laws, which in turn are intended to keep voters away from the democratic process.
If this sounds to you like a con job for the ages, then we’re on the same page. (Think Progress has more.)