From Monica Goodling’s opening statement to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee this morning [emphasis added]:
For the record, it’s the practice of sending registered mail to minority voters, asking for a reply, and if one doesn’t come back, the voter’s right to vote is challenged either at the polls, or attempts are made to remove them from the voter rolls — usually without their knowledge. Allegations have been made that this was done, based on race, in 2004, when registered letters were sent to the home addresses of African-Americans in Ohio, Florida and elsewhere. Most insidiously, letters were said to have been sent to U.S. troops who were away, serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, and thus did not (and could not) answer the registered mail. Their registrations were then reportedly challenged.
The RNC agreed to cease the practice in a 1986 consent decree in a court case brought after they had “tried to have 31,000 voters, most of them black, removed from the rolls in Louisiana when a party mailer was returned, ” according to the Washington Post.
“The consent decrees that resulted prohibited the party from engaging in anti-fraud initiatives that target minorities or conduct mail campaigns to ‘compile voter challenge lists.'”
Hopefully one of the Judiciary Committee Members will follow up on this, with either Goodling or in further interviews with McNulty or Griffin, who was Karl Rove’s aide at the time, before he was later shoved into Bud Cummins’ position as Arkansas U.S. Attorney.
UPDATE 2:45pm PT: The DoJ released a statement this afternoon from McNulty, in response to Goodling’s testimony and her claims that his “public testimony was incomplete or inaccurate in a number of respects”:
More on Vote Caging Lists at Wikipedia. The key details follow below…
Caging is a term of art in the direct mail industry. After a mailing is sent, caging is when information is processed that can be learned from the returns. A caging list is the compiled information that is transferred to the organization that hired the direct mail firm, in order for them to update their mailing lists and databases.
Voter suppression
Caging has also been used as a form of voter suppression. A political party challenges the validity of a voter’s registration; for the voter’s ballot to be counted, the voter must prove that their registration is valid.
Voters targeted by caging are often the most vulnerable: those who are unfamiliar with their rights under the law, and those who cannot spare the time, effort, and expense of proving that their registration is valid. Ultimately, caging works by dissuading a voter from casting a ballot, or by ensuring that they cast a provisional ballot, which is less likely to be counted.
With one type of caging, a political party sends registered mail to addresses of registered voters. If the mail is returned as undeliverable – because, for example, the voter refuses to sign for it, the voter isn’t present for delivery, or the voter is homeless – the party uses that fact to challenge the registration, arguing that because the voter could not be reached at the address, the registration is fraudulent. It is this use of direct mail caging techniques to target voters which probably resulted in the application of the name to the political tactic.
On the day of the election, when the voter arrives at the poll and requests a ballot, an operative of the party challenges the validity of their registration.
While the challenge process is prescribed by law, the use of broad, partisan challenges is controversial. For example, in the United States Presidential Election of 2004, the Republican Party employed this process to challenge the validity of tens of thousands of voter registrations in contested states like Florida, Nevada, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The Republican Party argued that the challenges were necessary to combat widespread voter fraud. The Democratic Party countered that the challenges were tantamount to voter suppression, and further argued that the Republican Party had targeted voter registrations on the basis of the race of the voter, in violation of federal law.
Examples of political caging
From the Washington Post: “In 1981, the Republican National Committee sent letters to predominantly black neighborhoods in New Jersey, and when 45,000 letters were returned as undeliverable, the committee compiled a challenge list to remove those voters from the rolls. The RNC sent off-duty law enforcement officials to the polls and hung posters in heavily black neighborhoods warning that violating election laws is a crime.
The Washington Post continues: “In 1986, the RNC tried to have 31,000 voters, most of them black, removed from the rolls in Louisiana when a party mailer was returned. The consent decrees that resulted prohibited the party from engaging in anti-fraud initiatives that target minorities or conduct mail campaigns to ‘compile voter challenge lists.'”
In October 2004, the BBC Newsnight program reported on an alleged so-called “caging list” maintained by the George W. Bush campaign that suggested that they may be planning possibly illegal disruption of African American voting in Jacksonville, Florida.
The BBC reports that it has obtained a document from George W. Bush’s Florida campaign headquarters, inadvertently e-mailed to the parody website GeorgeWBush.org, containing a list of 1,886 names and addresses of voters in largely African-American and Democratic areas of Jacksonville. Democratic Party officials allege that the document is a “caging list” that the Bush campaign intends to use to issue mass challenges to African-American voters, in violation of federal law.
While Florida statutory law allows the parties to challenge voters at the polls, this practice is not allowed if the challenges appear to be race-based.
The list appears to have come to light because of what appear to be e-mails accidentally addressed by Republican campaigners to the georgewbush.org anti-Bush site instead of the georgewbush.com Bush campaign site. The e-mails had the subject line “Re: Caging” and contained Microsoft Excel spreadsheet file attachments called “Caging.xls” and “Caging-1.xls”.
References
- Palast, Greg (June 2006) African-American Voters Scrubbed by Secret GOP Hit List, Democracy Now!
- Emails published on georgewbush.org
Sources
- “10 Most Important Things About Direct Mail”
- Anne-Marie Cusac. “Bullies at the Voting Booth.”
- Andrew Welsh-Huggins. “Voter Registrations Challenged in Ohio.” Associated Press. October 28, 2004.
Rep. Feeney attempted to suggest that the same thing had occurred under Democratic administrations.
“Did you have any understanding of how the previous Justice Department worked under President Clinton?” he asked.
Goodling answered that she didn’t know.
Brad posted:
(emphasis mine). How like the electronic voting machine sickness that has plagued us since:
(Dugger 1988, emphasis mine).
Am I just kidding myself that any of the people in government care about anything?
Am I just kidding myself that the electronic voting movement is anything more than American Idol does elections?
To me the big question is why is this site the only place I read about this serious compromise to our democracy? Am I just media sheltered? But also…
Why isn’t the Democratic Party plastering this everywhere they can? Do they not want to win elections?
If there was a court order in 1986, do court orders have an expiration date? If not, then who is to be arrested for breaking the law. A start would be the head of the RNC, but also to include all participants in the caging operation, Republican or Democrat. How can this be allowed to continue?
People should be held accountable. If no one is held accountable there is no reason to assume people will stop such practices and no reason for the public to believe our elections have any validity or reliability.
Alex #3:
Like you, I’m waiting for some outrage and action from the Democratic Party on this issue that seems to be no longer in question but a definite violation of the 1986 consent decree. Unfortunately, I believe that actual legal action in the matter rests with the Justice Department. Ya think that’s gonna happen soon? That’s what these criminals have put in place (and are continuing to put in place for the 2008 election). As Randi Rhodes says, it’s like having the fox lead the foxhunt.
So, Monica Goodling and Paul McNulty are each calling the other a liar.
Reminds me of George Tenet and Richard Perle.6
Has anyone ever seen Monica Goodling and Dana Perino in the same room together?
GreggP – 🙂
Iteresting that it is the DoJ that is providing a press release on behalf of McNulty.
How often does a government department perform press services for an employee who has left their employ.
Another pathetic day in MODERN US history as the biggest loser party who stole their power to hold office tries to cover their lies and corruption. Speaking of caging, She got pleed the 5th but she deserves 3-5 in a CAGE and a taste of the kind of torture her former boss ALY BAR TOE DOUCHEBAG GONZALEZ believes is a reasonable form or treatment to make US detainies TALK. WATERBOARD TORTURE.
PRISON ORANGE IS HER COLOR. I remember when they pushed that maggot Gonzalez through Congress to overshadow accepting the 2004 rigged electors in Ohio. The stolen states of Florida, New Mexico, and Nevada never even got an honorable mention even though New Mexico would have been the easiest to prove.
Obama like most modern dems of our time was in favor of the debate and then backed out or caved in or whatever you want to call the robot poser sellouts who are all in favor of Bush’s oil war and against impeaching Cheney and Bush for their numerous Fascist criminal activities including Bush’s blow job World Trade Tower building #7 on 9/11 (no arabs no planes required).
IMPEACH AND JAIL THE CRIMINAL BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND THEIR WARMONGERING ENABLERS FORWARDING bUSH’S ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL AGENDA.
Oh, and btw? Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, Curtis “5 IQ” Sliwa, Ann Coulter, etc…can’t stop calling Edwards a “pretty boy” who gets $400 haircuts…well Monica Goodling looks like she spent $1,000 steamers at a beauty parlor before the hearing! She looks like she’s in a beauty contest, not testifying that she’s a christian fascist who’s ruining America and a LIAR!
…maybe she used her kickback $$$ on those thousand dollar earings and jewelry and hair style! I’d play the “natural” look, if I were testifying that I wasn’t a kool-aid drinking liar! (see Jack Abramoff for how NOT to dress for a hearing, like the black SPY vs. SPY)
It’s not a beauty contest, honey, you’re a christian fascist “America Ruiner”…
I’m getting increasingly frustrated because, even at this late date after numerous articles from some serious journalists, very few people are connecting the dots that show that the attorney firing scandal is only a small part of a much bigger picture – the full-frontal assault on the voting process by political operatives of the Bush Administration.
That assault includes the well-documented irregularities in recent elections and the politicization of the Federal Election Commission as part of the pattern of the partisan high jacking of not only the Justice Department but the election process.
Tim Griffin was put in place in Arkansas because of his background of election dirty tricks including using “caging” to remove African-American voters from the roles. Most of the attorneys replaced or that were considered to be replaced either were “guilty” of not pursuing voter “fraud” or were in swing states where the new appointees could be useful in future elections. And, this doesn’t even scratch the surface of all the the irregularities – especially in Ohio – that WEREN’T investigated.
Please, people. We need to quit calling this an “attorney firing” scandal and call it what it is – a full-frontal attack on the election system of the United States. We need a special prosecutor and we need to see some people pay for this – and I don’t mean just lose their jobs.
Occams razor people – the reason the Dems do nothing about these obvious all of these Republican illegalities is that they would implicated themselves as well.
As has been demonstrated repeatedly for decades, our politicians are simply self serving mutts.
We have a one party political system that plays dress up and pretends to be a two party system. This tactical approach keeps the masses bickering amongst themselves and at at bay while the politicos steal the store and strap us with the bill.
Divide and conquer. It’s an old tactic that always seems to work.
What we now have is simply the first and second string players of the corporate fascist party shucking and jiving us out of our money and natural resources.
It is time to cut this cancer out and throw all the bums out of office. ALL OF THEM, every last one.
Yep, it’s a return to Jim Crow. Rep. Conyers should be most interested in heading-down this road of investigation. We’ll see, though I’m not holding-out much hope here, democracy must be thwarted. Well, to the GOP and the wealthy. It’s a conscious-action to rollback what we’ve all enjoyed for 100 years–the right to vote for virtually every American citizen, not just property-holders (aka the rich).
This is sick and I have been suprised over and over again at what this white house has done! They have managed to undo so much! We do not know if they rigged the votes for sure but I am willing to bet they did and they have done worst. In their minds they can justify this because they need to do whatever it takes to win so they can do what Jesus would do!
It’s no coincidence that Karl Rove started up a direct mail business in Texas that became very successful. (Karl Rove & Company 1981-1999) He built his reputation on dirty campaigns with direct mail. This “caging” stink emits from the that soulless, walking/talking toxic cesspool Karl.
Don’t be holding your breath for the majority of the Dems to express outrage. They are bought and sold by high-dollar corporate influence, same as the Repubs.
Right now it’s the bloggers and perhaps Conyers, Kucinich, holding feet to the fire.
Until we figure out how to remove dollar influence from public office, there IS NO REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. Period. It may come to, as Molly Ivins said, and I paraphrase, waking up, en masse “and taking to the streets banging on pots in outrage.”