Are Campaigns Against "Voter Fraud" Part of Republican Electoral Strategy?
The New Mexico lawyer who lobbied for the ouster of former U.S. attorney David Iglesias was also the officer of a Republican group that pushed for tougher voter identification laws, possibly to make it more difficult for Democratic voters to cast a ballot.
According to an investigation by McClatchy newspapers, Patrick Rogers, an Albuquerque lawyer and secretary of the American Center for Voting Rights Legislative Fund, repeatedly pressured Iglesias to prosecute voter fraud cases where little or no evidence existed. Iglesias believes that he was fired in part because he did not pursue those cases.
David Iglesias was one of the nine U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration during a political purge last year.
During an April 2006 speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association, Karl Rove described the Republican Party’s “voter fraud” work as another method of voter suppression, through a mixture of tougher I.D. laws and other forms of intimidation.
These efforts are now under renewed scrutiny as Congress continues to investigate the political activities of the Bush administration’s Justice Department, as well as Republican financing behind organizations like the American Center for Voting Rights.
Amid the controversy, the American Center for Voting Rights shut down its website last March. But that doesn’t mean that its efforts have ended.
One of the directors of the American Center, Cameron Quinn, who lists her membership in the Republican National Lawyers Association on her resume, was appointed last year as the voting counsel for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.The division is charged with policing elections and guarding against discrimination against minorities.
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