The Bush crowd knew what they were doing. The cries of voter fraud provided the cover for the Bush administration, and particularly political appointees in DoJ, to support the more insidioius efforts to suppress the votes of minorities:
Quote:
Unanimous or near unanimous Justice Department career staff findings of minority voter suppression were overruled by political appointees.
The goal in Texas in 2003 was to, as Tom Delay boasted, create a redistricting plan that would knock Democratic Members of Congress out of office and have them replaced with Republicans. However, eight career professionals in the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ unanimously concluded that plan discriminated against Latino and African-American voters. The political staff, led by Hans von Spakovsky, overruled the career professionals and approved the plan. In 2006, the Supreme Court invalidated the plan in part because of Voting Rights Act violations.
Georgia passed a law requiring photographic identification to vote in 2005. Voter identification requirements reduce minority voting. The career professionals were near unanimous in their disapproval of the plan and again the political staff overruled them and approved it. A United States Court of Appeals has since ruled the law unconstitutional.
http://houseoflabor.tpmcafe.com/blog...ession_efforts
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Fortunately, we still have a Court that understands that voting rights are sacred and above Republican politicization of the Justice Dept.