Voter Purging: A Legal Way for Republicans to Swing Elections?

[deminks]

edited link to start on page 1, snip is from page 2

http://www.alternet.org/rights/62133/?page=1

Now the Department of Justice, like the Republican Party, wants fewer registered voters in 2008.

Looking toward the 2008 election, it appears the purges could be a new and legal way to accomplish a controversial longstanding Republican Party electoral tactic -- thinning the ranks of likely Democratic voters in states where there may be close races. In numerous elections dating back to the 1960s, the Republican Party has tried to challenge new voter registrations to accomplish this goal, although since 1981 federal courts have blocked many of those challenges as illegal electioneering. In 2004, state Republican Parties tried to challenge 100,000 voters in Ohio, Florida, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit, public-interest Washington law firm. Courts and local officials blocked most of those efforts.

Voting rights attorneys say the purges sought by the Justice Department -- in a total of 16 states since 2005 -- could accomplish the same goal as the illegal voter challenge efforts. That is because it is harder to contact lower-income voters to validate their registrations as these voters move more frequently and the means of contact -- mail that is not forwarded -- is not always successful. Historically, this population tends to vote Democratic. All these trends -- 2000's flawed voter purges, the GOP's stymied 2004 voter challenges, the origins of the department's latest voter purge effort, and the apparently specious statistics cited in its letters to 10 states -- have prompted ex-Justice Department attorneys to view the Voting Section's purge project through a partisan lens.

"To me, it's a very clear view of the Republican agenda," said Joe Rich, who resigned as Voting Section Chief in 2005 after 35 years in the Justice Department, speaking of the voter purge initiative. "The GOP agenda is to make it harder to vote. You purge voters. You don't register voters. This is ripe for partisan decision making. You pick the states where you go after Democrats."

"This stuff disenfranchises voters," said Becker. "There are eligible voters who will be removed. There is no evidence that rolls need to be cleaned up to this degree. This will make things more chaotic on Election Day. People will be given provisional ballots that won't get counted."

(END SNIP)

This article is from yesterday.

I guess barring any more hurricanes, the only way is to politicize the Department of Justice top to bottom, and get them to do nothing but voter rights (republicans only) stuff, that and cover up any republicans that get caught doing what they do naturally.