Graves was forced to resign in March 2006 and was replaced by Schlozman, who as head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division's voting-rights section had clashed with Graves.
John McKay, the U.S. Attorney from Washington State who also was ousted in the purge, said "many U.S. attorneys were concerned when Mr. Schlozman was appointed" to replace Graves.
Schlozman “was the deputy in the [Justice Department's] civil rights division, but I don't think he had the sort of background and experience we would have expected as a United States Attorney,” McKay told me in an interview last year.
"So I would say it would be true that many eyebrows were raised when he was first appointed. Of course, we didn't know that Todd Graves had been forced to resign ... and it appears that he was forced to resign at least in part because Mr. Schlozman himself was trying to push the prosecution of voter fraud cases."
Schlozman filed federal criminal charges of voter fraud against members of ACORN only days http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/03/951/ before the November 2006 mid-term elections. The case was later dismissed and Schlozman came under criticism for breaking with longstanding Justice Department policy against bringing voter fraud charges close to an election.
Schlozman testified before a Senate committee last year that he received approval to file the voter fraud charges from a Justice Department official who was instrumental in drafting the guidelines urging that U.S. Attorneys avoid filing charges claiming voter fraud at the height of an election.
At the time, Iglesias stated that he had worked with the same Election Crimes Unit attorney and simply did "not believe" Schlozman's testimony.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division also filed a civil suit against Missouri’s Secretary of State Carnahan but it was dismissed by a federal court judge who ruled, "The United States has not shown that any Missouri resident was denied his or her right to vote as a result of deficiencies alleged by the United States. Nor has the United States shown that any voter fraud has occurred."
Campaign 2004
Hearne took part in a conference call during the 2004 presidential campaign with several high-ranking Bush administration officials who discussed strategies for suppressing votes in battleground states, such as Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania, where Bush was in tight races with Democratic nominee John Kerry.
An e-mail dated Sept. 30, 2004, and sent to about a dozen staffers on the Bush-Cheney campaign and the RNC, under the subject line "voter reg [sic] fraud strategy conference call," describes how campaign staffers planned to challenge the veracity of votes in a handful of battleground states, such as Ohio, in the event of a Democratic victory.
E-mails among Ohio Republican Party official Michael Magan, national field director of the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign Coddy Johnson, and close Rove associate Timothy Griffin reveal the men were given documents that could be used as evidence to justify widespread voter challenges if the Bush campaign needed to contest the election results.
The documents, which Hearne and his counterparts had obtained, were lists of registered voters who did not return address confirmation forms to the Ohio Board of Elections. The Republican operatives compared this list with lists of voters who requested absentee ballots.
In the opinion of one strategist, the fact that many names appeared on both lists was evidence of voter fraud.
"A bad registration card can be an accident or fraud. A bad card AND an Absentee Ballot request is a clear case of fraud," former Bush-Cheney campaign staffer Robert Paduchik wrote in a 2004 e-mail.
Bush-Cheney field director Johnson called the documents a “goldmine.”
But Christopher McInerney, a RNC researcher, warned his colleagues at the time that if "other states ... don't have flagged voter rolls, we run the risk of having GOP fingerprints."
John McKay, the U.S. Attorney from Washington State who also was ousted in the purge, said "many U.S. attorneys were concerned when Mr. Schlozman was appointed" to replace Graves.
Schlozman “was the deputy in the [Justice Department's] civil rights division, but I don't think he had the sort of background and experience we would have expected as a United States Attorney,” McKay told me in an interview last year.
"So I would say it would be true that many eyebrows were raised when he was first appointed. Of course, we didn't know that Todd Graves had been forced to resign ... and it appears that he was forced to resign at least in part because Mr. Schlozman himself was trying to push the prosecution of voter fraud cases."
Schlozman testified before a Senate committee last year that he received approval to file the voter fraud charges from a Justice Department official who was instrumental in drafting the guidelines urging that U.S. Attorneys avoid filing charges claiming voter fraud at the height of an election.
At the time, Iglesias stated that he had worked with the same Election Crimes Unit attorney and simply did "not believe" Schlozman's testimony.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division also filed a civil suit against Missouri’s Secretary of State Carnahan but it was dismissed by a federal court judge who ruled, "The United States has not shown that any Missouri resident was denied his or her right to vote as a result of deficiencies alleged by the United States. Nor has the United States shown that any voter fraud has occurred."
Campaign 2004
Hearne took part in a conference call during the 2004 presidential campaign with several high-ranking Bush administration officials who discussed strategies for suppressing votes in battleground states, such as Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania, where Bush was in tight races with Democratic nominee John Kerry.
An e-mail dated Sept. 30, 2004, and sent to about a dozen staffers on the Bush-Cheney campaign and the RNC, under the subject line "voter reg [sic] fraud strategy conference call," describes how campaign staffers planned to challenge the veracity of votes in a handful of battleground states, such as Ohio, in the event of a Democratic victory.
E-mails among Ohio Republican Party official Michael Magan, national field director of the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign Coddy Johnson, and close Rove associate Timothy Griffin reveal the men were given documents that could be used as evidence to justify widespread voter challenges if the Bush campaign needed to contest the election results.
The documents, which Hearne and his counterparts had obtained, were lists of registered voters who did not return address confirmation forms to the Ohio Board of Elections. The Republican operatives compared this list with lists of voters who requested absentee ballots.
In the opinion of one strategist, the fact that many names appeared on both lists was evidence of voter fraud.
"A bad registration card can be an accident or fraud. A bad card AND an Absentee Ballot request is a clear case of fraud," former Bush-Cheney campaign staffer Robert Paduchik wrote in a 2004 e-mail.
Bush-Cheney field director Johnson called the documents a “goldmine.”
But Christopher McInerney, a RNC researcher, warned his colleagues at the time that if "other states ... don't have flagged voter rolls, we run the risk of having GOP fingerprints."
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