Pot, kettle, black attaboy-
Timothy Griffin, Karl Rove's assistant, the President's pick as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, was the hidden hand behind a scheme to wipe out the voting rights of 70,000 citizens prior to the 2004 election.
Key voters on Griffin's hit list: Black soldiers and homeless men and women. Nice guy, eh? Targeting voters where race is a factor is a felony crime under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In October 2004, our investigations team at BBC Newsnight received a series of astonishing emails from Mr. Griffin, then Research Director for the Republican National Committee. He didn't mean to send them to us. They were highly confidential memos meant only for RNC honchos.
However, Griffin made a wee mistake. Instead of sending the emails -- potential evidence of a crime -- to email addresses ending with the domain name "[at]GeorgeWBush.com" he sent them to "[at]GeorgeWBush.ORG." A website run by prankster John Wooden who owns "GeorgeWBush.org." When Wooden got the treasure trove of Rove-ian ravings, he sent them to us.
And we dug in, decoding, and mapping the voters on what Griffin called, "Caging" lists, spreadsheets with 70,000 names of voters marked for challenge. Overwhelmingly, these were Black and Hispanic voters from Democratic precincts.
The Griffin scheme was sickly brilliant. We learned that the RNC sent first-class letters to new voters in minority precincts marked, "Do not forward." Several sheets contained nothing but soldiers, other sheets, homeless shelters. Targets included the Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida and that city's State Street Rescue Mission. Another target, Edward Waters College, a school for African-Americans.
If these voters were not currently at their home voting address, they were tagged as "suspect" and their registration wiped out or their ballot challenged and not counted. Of course, these 'cages' captured thousands of students, the homeless and those in the military though they are legitimate voters.
We telephoned those on the hit list, including one Randall Prausa. His wife admitted he wasn't living at his voting address: Randall was a soldier shipped overseas.
Karl Rove's ssistant Busted in Scheme of Massive Voter Fraud
Thats one of the less publicised examples, Florida being the best known.
They busted themselves too notice- it was Republicans that accidentally sent the memo to the wrong hands, no 'Leak' or hearsay involved.
Truth be told, I don't see anyway that Obama can lose this election except voter fraud on a significant scale in strategic states (well, unless he's found to be a closet gay, or has fathered a love child with a white mistress
). Seeing as the evil genius Rove and his minions work for the GOP, I can only hope this is something that the Obama team is keeping a good watch on. It cost the Dem's the Presidency in the 2000 elections, thanks to Florida.
Given the course of history since then, that is absolutely no laughing matter.
