Department of Injustice

One of these days, the complete record of what the Bush administration has done to minorities will be revealed and the GOP will be broken. Of course, the racists among us will find another vehicle for their warped agenda. But the damage that has been done to the Department of Justice will take a long time to repair.

Here's one thing that the Bush political appointees insisted didn't raise any red flags. The sponsor of the bill, Georgia state Rep. Sue Burmeister told voting section staff that "if there are fewer black voters because of this bill, it will only be because there is less opportunity for fraud," and that "when black voters in her black precincts are not paid to vote, they do not go to the polls."

Once again, Josh Marshall and his staff are taking the lead on this issue. Please join DB in awarding him the honorary title Chief Justice of the Internet.

Voter fraud

75,000 Voter Registration Cards Found in Trash Bin in Atlanta:

ATLANTA (AP) -- The Georgia Secretary of State's office has begun an investigation into who threw more than 75,000 Fulton County voter registration cards into a trash bin.

The cards contained a voter's full name, address and Social Security number. The office says a random sampling showed many of the cards were for active voters.

In a statement, Secretary of State Karen Handel said the finding "represents a significant and serious breach of the personal information of Fulton County voters and an outrageous violation of the trust and integrity of Fulton County's elections."

After getting a call from a resident, officials with Handel's office found more than 30 boxes of voter registration application cards, precinct cards and other documents Monday in a construction trash bin at Atlanta Technical College in southwest Atlanta.

Gee, I wonder what the student body at Atlanta Technical College looks like:

Student Body Size and Diversity

In Fall 2002, the school had 2,135 (full-time equivalent) students.

Minority enrollment included African-American (85)%, Hispanic (1)%, and Asian (3)%.

Atlanta Technical College is a Minority Serving Institution as defined by the Office of Civil Rights.

I'm sure Karl Rove's Department of Justice will be sprinting to the scene to find a remedy.

Big week in election law

Of course, the biggest and scariest election news this week came from California, where a San Diego judge decided that the courts have no authority to stop the federal governement -- the House, specifically -- from swearing in anybody they think deserves a seat, regardless of the certitude of a State election for that seat.

This conclusion is disturbing, to say the least. By this logic, Denny Hastert and his party members in Congress could swear in anybody they see fit, even if a Democrat wins in a landslide. Politically, that could probably never happen, but what kind of democracy allows representatives from other districts, counties and states to override the wishes of a community to pick their own representative?

It may come as news to the voters of America that their Courts are powerles to "revise even the most arbitrary and unfair action of the legislative department…." The Court could have (as it was requested to do) assessed the Constitutionality of the premature action by the House given Roudebush v. Hartke, a US Supreme Court case stating that states have the right to perform the count, so therefore they have the right to perform a recount as well. But here again, the early swearing in was the defendants end-around this US Supreme Court case, as well as its end around democracy, the San Diego Superior Court, the rights of the contestants, and the requirement that all parts of the Constitution be upheld, not just Art. I, sec. 5.

Whether or not an appeal from this particular case is the vehicle, the contestants will fight on harder than ever before, because it is now clear that there are powerful forces in our country willing to exercise raw power to terminate elections.

Given the undeniable nature of the power grab that took place in San Diego's 50th Congressional District, the entire nature of the debate about the question of whether any elections officials might ever take advantage of less open methods of modifying or terminating election results via the opportunity of secret vote counting provided by electronic voting machines seems clearer than ever before.

Unless the people reassert their right, consistent with the 92% result in the recent Zogby poll, to supervise elections and obtain information regarding them, democracy itself will be lost.

There's an interesting battle going on in Alabama, where "Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Robert Vance Jr. ordered voter registrars in Alabama counties to register ex-felons until 'the Alabama Legislature passes, and the governor signs into law, legislation specifically identifying which felonies involve moral turpitude.' "

"Now I feel like somebody," the Dothan man said of being able to vote again. "I am a citizen and can really make a difference. I feel like a whole person now."

Rev. Kenneth Glasgow, state coordinator for the Alabama Alliance to Restore the Vote, said this decision is monumental – he called it the new Civil Rights movement.

It didn't take long for a circuit judge to order a stay on that ruling "until after the Nov. 7 general election and until the Alabama Supreme Court has a chance to review the issue."

This will be interesting to watch. Other interesting news about voters' rights... Two victories over voter supression.

On Aug. 28, a federal court, ruling in League of Women Voters of Florida v. Cobb blocked a Florida law that "requires third-party voter registration groups to meet new artificially short deadlines for the return of forms, and imposes hefty fines under a strict liability scheme."

And yesterday, a federal district judge blocked a similar Ohio law from taking effect.

A federal court in Cleveland blocked enforcement of an Ohio state law enacted earlier this year that would have imposed crippling requirements on voter registration groups. The plaintiffs, civic and religious organizations and voting rights groups that have been working in Ohio through many election cycles without government interference, say that the law had dramatically curtailed their efforts to help eligible voters get on the rolls.

"This is a win for democracy, and coming on the heels of the similar decision in Florida on Monday, the beginning of a national trend of courts rejecting unreasonable barriers to voter registration," stated Wendy Weiser, deputy director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and co-counsel to the plaintiffs in both the Ohio and Florida cases.

Ohio's notorious Secretary of State Ken Black well is also getting sued now (King Lincoln Bronzville Neighborhood Association v. Blackwell, PDF) for civil rights violations.

Ohio State's Moritz College of Law has good roundups of Florida and Ohio's situations.

It's hard to keep up with all these issues when we're fighting two wars, our leaders are questioning our patriotism and thousands are mourning the one-year anniversary of their government leaving them on their own during an epic natural disaster.

UPDATE: Oh yeah, it could always be worse.