Voter Caging

From Wiscopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

1 Where Do Progressives Stand?
2 Hot Topics
3 Facts and Figures
4 In the News
5 Sources

[edit] Where Do Progressives Stand?

Voter caging is the practice of sending mass direct mailings to targeted groups of registered voters by non-forwardable mail, then compiling lists of voters, called "caging lists," from the mail returned as "undeliverable" in order to formally challenge their right to vote on that basis alone.
Voter caging is a voter suppression tactic used almost exclusively by officials or members of the Republican Party, local and national.
While the practice of voter caging is technically legal, voter caging on the basis of race is prohibited by the National Voting Rights Act.

[edit] Hot Topics

2004 Presidential Election

In October 2004, the BBC Newsnight program reported on an alleged George W. Bush campaign caging list. The BBC obtained documents from George W. Bush's Florida campaign headquarters that were inadvertently e-mailed to the parody website GeorgeWBush.org.
The mistakenly sent e-mails contained the subject line "Re: Caging" and contained Microsoft Excel spreadsheet file attachments called "Caging.xls" and "Caging-1.xls". The files themselves contained a list of 1,886 voter names and addresses in largely African-American and Democratic areas of Jacksonville.
Other court documents produced during limited discovery in a challenge to use of cagings list in Ohio revealed clear intent to use caging lists in Ohio and other states. They are listed and linked below.

State Implementation Template III.doc last saved by Christopher Guith, attorney and Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign official

Declaration_of_Caroline_Hunter_and_emails_exh_d, emails exchanged between RNC operatives, Bush-Cheney '04 campaign workers , and the Ohio Republican Party personnel revealing involvement of these entities in caging operations

Voter Supression and the U.S. Attorney firings under Alberto Gonzales

Investigative reporter Greg Palast initially received the incriminating emails from the owner of georgewbush.org, and in a recent interview has drawn a link to the scandal surrounding the Alberto Gonzales U.S. Attorney firings, claiming that the firings are part of a wider effort by Republicans to use caging to "steal the 2008 election."[16]
David Iglesias, one of the nine U.S. attorneys who were fired under the Bush administration, told PBS NOW his bosses back in Washington repeatedly asked him to investigate voters.
When asked why he thought he had been fired from his position, Iglesias told PBS NOW:

"I've maintained from day one for illicit, partisan political reasons. Specifically not coming up with voter fraud cases, number one. And number two not rushing forward indictments involving prominent Democrats during the election cycle. And thirdly, and this is a possible, since the evidence, it hasn't rolled out yet. But my reserve military duty being gone from the office a lot, I was called an absentee landlord. I believe it's a combination of those three reasons."

[edit] Facts and Figures

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.
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."