Right-Wing Hatemongering Fueled by Christianity?

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By Frank Schaeffer, AlterNet. Posted September 21, 2009.

The ugly side of Evangelical Christianity is very much to blame for the anti-Obama hyperventilating.

Former president Jimmy Carter went on the record to point out that he believes that racism is at the heart of the great deal of the extreme animosity being leveled at President Obama (NBC News September 15). Carter identified himself as a Southerner with an insider's understanding. There's something he didn't mention however: the special culpability of his own religion -- Evangelical Christianity -- for the anti-Obama hyperventilating and furious reaction to our first black president. And that reaction has less to do with race and more to do with the ugliest side of religion.

The fact is that if you're going to blame one group above all others for the willful ignorance and continuing ugliness of the response to President Obama the best candidate would be the evangelical/fundamentalist community. The angry part of the South Carter spoke of is racist because it's dominated by a certain type of "Christian" culture.

Since Carter is also an evangelical Christian (as well as a Southerner) he would have done well to use his evangelical insider status to point to not just racism but to scream bloody murder about a bigger problem today: the hijacking of Christianity as the source of the hate and anger directed against all things "other" by a vocal (and health care lobby-organized and funded) angry minority of voters who are poisoning the American body.

American Christianity Is At The Heart Of Our Worst Problems

Are the New Atheists leading us to enlightenment? The problem with the recent New Atheist attacks on Christianity is that they mirror the hostility of the evangelical/fundamentalist subculture toward the secular society that it so disdains. The real answer to the question; "Can Christianity be saved from the Christians?" is not going to be found coming from people like Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris et al. Instead that answer may be found in the life and work of Christians such as former president Jimmy Carter, President Obama, the late writer John Updike, and other public figures from Desmond Tutu to Nelson Mandela who's faith can be taken seriously because of the moral authority given them by their achievements outside the realm of theology.

The people running around calling Obama is "Hitler", the so-called "birthers" and all the rest can't be understood outside of the context of the hermetically sealed world-hating gated community known as Evangelical Christianity. As a former Evangelical and son of an Evangelical Religious Right leader, let me share a little of the insider perspective that I wish Carter had brought to the subject.

What Defines American Evangelicals These Days?

The key to understanding the Evangelicals is to understand the popularity of the Left Behind series of books about the "return of Christ" (and the whole host of other End Times "ministries" from the ever weirder Jack-the-Rapture-is-coming!-

Van-Impe to the smoother but no less bizarre pages of Christianity Today magazine). This isn't some new or sudden interest in prophecy, but evidence of the deepening inferiority complex suffered by the evangelical/fundamentalist community.

Left Behind

The words "left behind" are ironically what the books are about, but not in the way their authors intended. The evangelical/fundamentalists, from their crudest egocentric celebrities to their "intellectuals" touring college campuses trying to make evangelicalism respectable, have indeed been left behind by modernity. They won't change their literalistic anti-science, anti-education, anti-everything superstitions, so now they nurse a deep grievance against "the world."

This has led to a profound fear of the "other." Jenkins and LaHaye (the Left Behind authors) provide the ultimate revenge fantasy for the culturally left behind against the "elite." The Left Behind franchise holds out hope for the self-disenfranchised that at last soon everyone will know "we" were right and "they" were wrong. They'll know because Spaceship Jesus will come back and whisk "us" away, leaving everyone else to ponder just how very lost they are because they refused to say the words, "I accept Jesus as my personal savior" and join our side while there was still time!

The bestselling status of the Left Behind novels proves that, not unlike Islamist terrorists who behead their enemies, many evangelical/ fundamentalist readers relish the prospect of God doing lots of messy killing for them as they watch in comfort from on high. They want revenge on all people not like them--forever.

Generations Of Indoctrination

We are several generations into the progeny of leaders such as James Dobson and his radio show Focus On The Family. These offspring extol the virtues of corporal punishment, patriarchy, applying biblical law to public governance and so forth. Millions of evangelicals have been raised in homes where they've been isolated from the wider culture, home schooled and/or sent to "Christian schools" where they have been indoctrinated to believe that the Federal Government is the enemy of all true believers, that the "End" is near, that secular society is their enemy as is art, learning and culture.

They now form a Fifth Column of the deliberately intellectually disenfranchised. They know they are out of the loop and hate the rest of us for their own self-imposed isolation. I'm afraid they will soon turn to violence.

Here Are The Alternatives To Change the Theologically-Induced Hate Landscape:

A) all sane Americans must become atheists or agnostics,

or...

B) those of us who are Christians must rescue Christianity from the willfully ignorant evangelicals and fundamentalists.

I favor the second alternative. First, having been raised in an evangelical/fundamentalist home I've long since moved beyond my background when it comes to my politics and my theology. That proves something; people can change their minds! I did.

But I believe more strongly than ever that we human beings are spiritual beings with or without the permission of those who take a purely rationalist approach to human existence. The better -- and I think only realistic option -- is to regard religion as an evolving process of human consciousness and work to reform rather than eliminate it

In my soon-to-be published book Patience With God: Faith For People Who Don't Like Religion (Or Atheism) I have very deliberately started a radical conversation through which I hope many of us can carve out a position that embraces religion while absolutely rejecting the type of insanity that has become synonymous with the word "Christian" in contemporary America...

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Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back.

9 Conservative Myths About Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism

FROM:



By Sara Robinson, Campaign for America's Future. Posted June 20, 2009.

This is terrorism we're dealing with. We can't afford to let ourselves be distracted by spin. It's time to set the record straight with the facts.

It's been a wild couple of weeks for those of us in the wingnutology business. Our services have been in tremendous demand as the mainstream media try to sort out the meaning of what Scott Roeder and James von Brunn did.

I've done an average of one radio show every day for the past two weeks trying to help various lefty talkers around the country make some sense of it all; and I'm generally gratified at how seriously people are starting to take this.

At the same time, I'm also appalled (though, sadly, hardly surprised) by the conservative mythmaking that's going on around the very serious issue of right-wing domestic terrorism. So it's obviously time to pull together another "Firing Back" piece to give progressives what they need to separate fact from fiction when these talking points start flying.

I've actually had every one of the following myths pitched to me by on-air interviewers, phone-in callers and/or online commenters over the last two weeks. Most of them have come up over and over, which suggests to me that you're likely to encounter them, too. So let's walk 'em through:

1. These are just "lone wolf" psychos who are acting alone. You can't hold anybody else responsible for what crazy people decide to do.

True and false. But mostly false.

It's true that every one of the nine right-wing terrorists who've made the news since Jan. 20 had a history of mental illness, domestic violence, and/or drug abuse. Several were military veterans who were having a really hard time adjusting to civilian life. None of these people could reasonably be considered sane; and, for whatever twisted reasons, they made a personal choice to do what they did.

But it's not true that they were acting alone. People who are dealing with these kinds of demons are often drawn into movements that offer a strong narrative that helps them make sense of a world that never seems to add up right for them. They're usually drawn into organizations like Operation Rescue or the Minutemen that are nominally nonviolent, but which also indoctrinate them into a worldview that justifies and motivates people to commit terrorist acts. They come to believe that they must do this to save the world, to serve God and to be the heroes they desperately want to be.

They're already walking sticks of dynamite. But it takes the heat of that apocalyptic, dualistic, eliminationist, pro-violence narrative to light their fuses and make them explode.

Unfortunately, these groups also make it easy to take that final step over the line, because they often have close ties to other, more secretive groups that do advocate and plan terrorist violence as a solution. Operation Rescue teaches that killing abortion doctors is justifiable homicide, and then feeds its most extreme members into the Army of God.

The Aryan Nations and several other white nationalist groups supplied the nine members of The Order, a racist terrorist group that killed two people (including left-wing talker Alan Berg) and stole over $4 million during a nine-month spree in 1984. Al-Qaida got many of its recruits from the nominally nonviolent (but still radical) Hizb al-Tahrir. Of course, when violence actually occurs, these groups always denounce it -- but they also usually have a very good idea of who was involved, because they've been hanging around with the perpetrators for quite a while themselves.

One of the things the public is finally beginning to understand is that the "lone wolf" story has never been accurate, because these guys are never really alone in the world. Every one of them was well-marinated in large, long-established subcultures that put them up to terrorism and promised to make heroes out of them if they succeeded.

2. These terrorists are really left-wingers, not right-wingers. Because everybody knows that fascism is a phenomenon that only occurs on the left.

False does not even begin to cover the absurdity of this claim.

Fascism has always been a phenomenon of the right. Every postwar academic scholar of fascism -- Robert Paxton, Roger Griffin, Umberto Eco and onward -- has been emphatically clear about this. Benito Mussolini admitted as much. It's part of the very definition of the word.

Jonah Goldberg has gotten a lot of traction on the right for his argument that fascism is somehow a left-wing tendency; but in his badly argued, barely researched tome Liberal Fascism, he gets here by taking logical leaps that no college professor would accept from the greenest freshman.

The worst, perhaps, is the way he conflates "fascism" with "totalitarianism." There is such a thing as left-wing totalitarianism: Stalinism and Maoism both qualify. But they were communist, not fascist, movements. It's only when totalitarianism happens on the right that we call it fascism.

Still, this idea has caught on like wildfire and is being widely promoted by right-wing talkers like Glenn Beck. If you want the full takedown on this, I refer you to Dave Neiwert's exhaustive series of debunking articles, which are linked to in the sidebar at Orcinus.

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Sara Robinson is a fellow at the Campaign for America's Future and a consulting partner with the Cognitive Policy Works in Seattle. One of the few trained social futurists in North America, she has blogged on authoritarian and extremist movements at Orcinus since 2006, and is a founding member of Group News Blog.

The Big "Leftist Voter Fraud" Lie Exposed

FROM:



Posted by Jill Hussein C., Brilliant at Breakfast at 7:00 AM on June 19, 2009.

Acorn, hunh?

Remember last fall, when ACORN was the new gay, or the new feminist, or the new Islamic terrorist, or whatever the wingnuts' boogeyman-of-the-month is? Remember the "concern" on the right about people being registered to vote who weren't eligible?

Well, well, well...take a look at what's happened in California, courtesy of Brad Friedman:

What's perhaps most interesting here is what isn't mentioned in this story, as written on the Los Angeles Times' "L.A. Now" blog. First, here's their entire blog item...

By Brad Friedman on 10/19/2008 9:34PM Breaks Report of CA GOP Voter Registration Arrest During Segment With Host Julie Banderas and the WSJ's John Fund... Well, that was fun. My first time on Fox. And I don't feel dirty at all! Hopefully, it'll not be my last. Hey, I was even honored to offer them a big scoop on air, in the form my very own "Fox News Alert", after which, I'm told, they ran the headline during top of the hour news and on the crawl. So we did some good, if only for that. You're welcome. Fox!UPDATE 6/17/09: Jacoby pleads guilty to voter registration fraud. Media hardly bothers to notice. Details here... Head of CA GOP Voter Registration Firm Pleads Guilty to Voter Registration Fraud Ssshhh...Don't tell Fox 'News'! FLASHBACK Brad covers arrest with 'Fox News Alert' on FNC last October amidst phony ACORN brouhaha... (Video above) What's perhaps most interesting here is what isn't mentioned in this story, as written on the Los Angeles Times' "L.A. Now" blog. First, here's their entire blog item... The owner of a voter-registration company pleaded guilty Tuesday to voter-registration fraud, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. Laguna Beach resident Mark Jacoby, who collects signatures for petition drives, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to three years' probation and 30 days of service with the California Department of Transportation. Jacoby, owner of Young Political Majors, registered to vote at Los Angeles addresses that were not his own. State law requires petition circulators to be qualified voters. Jacoby will also be required to show proof he is registered at his correct address. "

The owner of a voter-registration company pleaded guilty Tuesday to voter-registration fraud, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

Laguna Beach resident Mark Jacoby, who collects signatures for petition drives, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to three years' probation and 30 days of service with the California Department of Transportation.

Jacoby, owner of Young Political Majors, registered to vote at Los Angeles addresses that were not his own. State law requires petition circulators to be qualified voters. Jacoby will also be required to show proof he is registered at his correct address.

And what they didn't bother to mention in that story?...Amongst other things, the fact that Jacoby and Young Political Majors were hired by the California Republican Party to head up their voter registration efforts in the state. Jacoby had been arrested for Voter Registration Fraud last October, smack dab during the media's orgasmic heights of last year's phony GOP ACORN "Voter Fraud" hoax, even as Fox "News" (and the other news outlets who similarly fell for the scam) were going wall-to-wall with their unsupported insinuations about voter fraud by ACORN, Democrats and Obama.

The news about the arrest of Jacoby, at the time, had occurred just as I was heading out for an appearance on Fox "News", so I was able to break the news on-air in my own "Fox 'News' Alert". (Video originally posted here, reposted at bottom of this item.)

Given the way the LA Times blog "covered" the story of Jacoby's plea --- not even mentioning the fact that this guy and his group were hired by the California state Republican Party --- I'd say it's a fair bet Fox wouldn't even have bothered to mention the original arrest at all had I not been on air and forcing them to do so myself. Much as they are unlikely to bother reporting Jacoby's plea today.

More here.

It's worth listening to right-wingers in the media and in government, if only because when you hear them decry something, whether it's marital infidelity, gay sex, fraudulent voter registration, Obama Administration intrusion into people's lives, or anything else, they're actually talking about themselves.

Tagged as: voter fraud

Jill Hussein C. blogs at Brilliant at Breakfast.

Right-Wing Violence Will Continue, And Fox News Will Have to Answer For It

FROM:

By Eric Boehlert, Media Matters for America. Posted June 10, 2009.

Agitators like O'Reilly and Beck traffic in incendiary rhetoric and it's pretty obvious where it's leading to.

If Fox News is going to continue to traffic in hateful, vigilante-style rhetoric, then folks at Fox News, as well as their apologists in the GOP Noise Machine, are going to have to come up with better talking points to spin away the consequences of the right-wing madness they're so eager to incite.

They need a better line of defense because the one they trotted out in the wake of the right-wing assassination of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was wholly unconvincing.

It was just as feeble as the defense Fox News' Glenn Beck tried to employ in May to distance himself from the accused right-wing cop killer in Pittsburgh who seemed to mimic Beck's language about how President Obama was coming to take away everyone's guns.

The Fox News crew is going to need better talking points because I fear the violence -- the bouts of right-wing domestic terrorism -- are likely to continue. As long as Fox News and the Noise Machine refuse to back off the incendiary language that they're actively mainstreaming, the political violence, visible just months into Obama's historic first term, may have only begun.

Note that during a jailhouse interview, Tiller's suspected killer claimed that similar assassination plots against abortion providers are already being planned.

And please note what you did not hear from virtually anyone on the far right who addressed the Tiller story last week. Yes, they tried furiously to distance Bill O'Reilly from the controversy or suggest there was nothing problematic with the "baby killer" rhetoric he used. But what you did not hear was anyone condemn, or even take issue with, O'Reilly's on-air crusade.

Why the silence? Because militia-style vigilante rhetoric has become a cornerstone of the conservative media movement in America, and it's now proudly championed by Fox News on a nearly hourly basis.

The fact is, I couldn't find a single prominent voice within the GOP Noise Machine who even hinted that O'Reilly's relentless attacks on Tiller were in any way off the mark or, in light of the vigilante Kansas church killing, needed to be reconsidered, that they should have been dialed down. And that's why the ugliness has only begun.

The unconvincing right-wing defense in the wake of the Tiller assassination last week was twofold, with the second layer even thinner than the first. The first was that when conservatives were hounding and demonizing Tiller for years, they were merely debating the issue of abortion. And surely nobody in America opposes a healthy debate, right? Nobody opposes "sharp political disagreement," as Michelle Malkin sugarcoated the Tiller attack, right?

Second, Noise Machine leaders claimed that liberal commentators do exactly what O'Reilly and Beck have been accused of: using violent political hate language that puts people's lives in danger. That claim has been made over and over, yet conservatives can't actually produce any proof -- can't find any hateful liberal quotes -- to buttress the claim.

That's because both talking points are complete fabrications.

First, the idea that O'Reilly and company simply debated Tiller's work is laughable. O'Reilly's never been interested in any kind of back-and-forth about the abortion issue. He just rants and demonizes the other side. And in the case of Tiller, O'Reilly portrayed him as a lawless executioner. As Mary Alice Carr, vice president of communications for NARAL Pro-Choice New York, wrote in a recent op-ed for The Washington Post, "O'Reilly knew that people wanted Tiller dead, and he knew full well that many of those people were avid viewers of his show. Still, he fanned the flames."

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AlterNet Takes on Shock Jock Michael Savage and Gets Threatened With a Lawsuit

FROM:


By Don Hazen and Tana Ganeva, AlterNet. Posted June 10, 2009.

When we helped publicize the link between bilious talk show host Michael Savage and Rockstar energy drink, we got a letter from their lawyers.

Michael Savage, right-wing crusader against gays, immigrants, Muslims, Barack Obama, Britain, women, (and possibly puppies), may have found a new object for his wrath: groups that have the temerity to publicize the vicious talk-show host’s connection to Rockstar energy drink -- and to call for a boycott by consumers opposed to Savage's hatemongering.

As part of AlterNet's 10 Hottest Campaigns section, we published a piece alerting readers to a boycott against the Rockstar products. The campaign, launched by Charles C.C. Tsai on Facebook, brought attention to the connection between Savage and the energy drink company. Tsai's page pointed out that Savage's son, Russell Weiner, is the founder and CEO of Rockstar. Savage's wife serves as director of energy drink company, and Savage Productions shares an address with Rockstar(!).

On May 27, the same day the piece was published, Rockstar’s lawyers sent AlterNet a letter accusing us of defamation. The letter read, in part:

Mr. Savage is not affiliated with Rockstar in any manner. Alternet.org’s use of the article to tie Rockstar to Mr. Savage’s statements is wholly improper. Not only does it place Rockstar in a false light, but it constitutes defamation, both of which are objectional.

The offices of Glaser, Weil, Fink, Jacobs, Howard & Shapiro, also demanded an "immediate public retraction of these statements and an apology in substantially as conspicuous a matter on AlterNet.org as the defamatory statements were published."

So, we "apologized," sort of. Here’s what we said:

Lawyers from Rockstar have written AlterNet threatening to sue us because they claim that Michael Savage (aka Weiner) is not a "co-founder" of the Rockstar drink company, as was described in our item, but rather his son, Russell Weiner, is the CEO and principle shareholder, and that Savage has never been an officer, director, employee or shareholder, of the company. AlterNet does not have any specific knowledge of family discussions, meetings, etc., that led to the formation of the company to be able to prove that he was a "co-founder."

Nevertheless, a dictionary definition of "co-founder" offers: "to establish or found in concert with another or others." Thus, it would require, perhaps, for Savage and his son to deny they ever spoke about the founding of the company in order for Savage to be unqualified as a founder. The definition of co-founder doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with ownership, shareholding, etc.

That being said, in the absence of proof of the inner workings of the Weiner family, we retract the comment that Michael Savage was a "co-founder" of the beverage company and offer apologies, if somehow that characterization casts aspersions on any members of the Weiner family, or Savage himself.

Others have also been compelled to write retractions and say “I'm sorry." Gaywired, which published a story about TheTruthAboutRockstar.com, issued this statement.

Meanwhile, Tsai and his Facebook group fared far worse after taking on Rockstar and Savage:

"I made a group to let others know and be able to make a similar choice if they wanted; the group was formed, and it quickly grew to over 12,000 members." Tsai, says in a statement. “In it, we put together a list of quotations from Michael Savage Weiner, as well as his son, that we strongly did not agree with."

Tsai continues:

We also put commonly known information, such as the fact that they co-founded the extremely conservative Paul Revere society, which openly calls for actions such as “eliminate bilingual education in all states" and "traditional marriage." More easily proven information was included as well.

Then, on May 27, I woke up unable to log into my personal Facebook account. It was disabled. I lost all my photos, friends and priceless memories. I sent multiple e-mails to Facebook without any response. And then upon inquiring, I found out that the "Don't Drink Hate. BOYCOTT ROCKSTAR" Facebook group was coincidentally also suddenly taken down without my or any of the administrators' knowledge.

Tsai was then treated to a letter from Rockstar's lawyers similar to the one sent to AlterNet, telling him to issue an apology. Here are parts of Tsai's statement:

I've been forced to make "an immediate public retraction..." and "apologize for the business libel you committed against Rockstar."

I've been "advised that Rockstar will pursue all necessary legal action to redress the violations of its rights, including, without limitation, an action for general, special and exemplary damages and equitable relief."

----------------------------------------------

[ ... ]

Now, I personally also apologize for the following:

I apologize for having an opinion.

I apologize that I created a group as a means to explore my FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

I apologize that the over 12,000 individuals in that group were SILENCED WITHOUT EXPLANATION.

I apologize for STANDING UP for my communities and the communities that I consider myself an ally to.

[...]

I apologize that you feel the need to THREATEN and SILENCE individuals & organizations that you know are POWERLESS in comparison to your various forms of capital.

I apologize that you seem to be confused by the semantics of the word "co-founder" in the sense that Michael Savage Weiner and his wife, Janet Weiner, IRREFUTABLY CO-CREATED / CO-INVENTED / CO-FOUNDED the Rockstar drink alongside current CEO RUSSELL WEINER.

From Rockstar's OWN archived WEB SITE:

[...]

I apologize that legal threats WILL NOT FORCE me into SUBMISSION.

I apologize that I will not be silenced.

I apologize that the incredibly smart, strong-willed and amazing individuals and communities that dislike your CEO Russell Weiner, his dad, Michael Savage Weiner, and his mom, CFO Janet Weiner, will NOT go quietly into the night and will too NOT BE SILENCED.

I apologize that I will, WITHOUT ANY DOUBT, continue to BOYCOTT Rockstar, as it is MY OWN PERSONAL CHOICE TO DO SO.

[...]

Yours truly,

Charles C.C. Tsai

On top of all that, the group's Facebook page was hijacked by Savage supporters. Yesterday, we received a Facebook message letting us know that, "Jan Mikael Evertsson changed the name of the group 'ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK FANCLUB!' to 'Michael Savage -- the FUTURE of America!' "

Since then, a different Facebook user has relaunched the "Don't Drink Hate. BOYCOTT ROCKSTAR" page on Facebook. The page reads:

REPOST BY ANOTHER USER BECAUSE THE ORIGINAL WAS HIJACKED: I AM NOT THE ORIGINAL ADMIN/CREATOR OF THIS GROUP, BUT I FEEL IT DESERVES TO BE PUT BACK.

NOTE: INVITE ALL THE ORIGINAL MEMBERS YOU CAN! WE NEED TO GET THIS BACK TO THE NUMBERS THE ORIGINAL HAD. IF THIS ONE GETS HACKED/REMOVED, THEN SOMEONE PLEASE CREATE ANOTHER, AND SO ON. YOU CAN'T STOP THE SIGNAL. AND I WILL OFFER NO RETRACTIONS AND NO APOLOGIES. FREE SPEECH IS UNIVERSAL. LIVE WITH IT, WEINERS...

Suing Runs in the Family

An eagerness to sue seems to run in the family. When Savage joined Fred Phelps on Britain’s "least wanted," a list of hatemongers banned from the country, he filed a lawsuit in Britain accusing the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, of "serious and damaging defamatory allegations,"

(Savage’s stand for the right to free speech, however, rings somewhat hollow, considering that the talk-show host has advocated jailing war protesters.)

Then there was Savage’s ill-fated (or not, considering the level of publicity it garnered) campaign against the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). In 2007, Savage accused CAIR of violating copyright laws by posting a 4-minute audio clip from Savage’s show. Savage also absurdly alleged that CAIR violated racketeering laws, “claiming that CAIR was a part of a criminal conspiracy silence critics of Islam," according to city media law. Not suprisingly, a federal district court in California dismissed the ridiculous lawsuit.

Apparently, these days, it is not enough for crazy right-wingers to intimidate through the airwaves. They also do so by threatening absurd lawsuits.

As for Rockstar: At this point, the company has become affiliated with Savage just by virtue of having engaged in similar intimidation tactics. Consumers deserve to know about the political affiliations of the products they buy. Or in this case, the horrifying hate speech associated with something as seemingly benign as an energy drink.

But in its campaign to muzzle critics, Rockstar has overplayed its hand; now, tens of thousands of new people will learn about its link to vicious hate-mongerer Michael Savage.

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The Brennan Center for Justice details the voter suppression tactics unfolding as America faces another presidential election.

From: AlterNet

By Wendy Weiser, Brennan Center for Justice. Posted October 22, 2008.

Brennan Center: 2008's Voter Suppression Incidents So Far

(Editor's note: The Brennan Center will be updating and re-posting this document regularly between now and Election Day. This inventory is current as of October 22, 2008)

1- No Match, No Vote - Ohio - Florida - Wisconsin

No Match, No Vote

ISSUE: Some states will not register voters or will purge them from the voter rolls if election officials cannot match their voter registration information against information in other government databases. The problem is the computer match processes states use are inherently unreliable. Between 15% and 30% of all match attempts fail because of typos, other administrative errors, and minor discrepancies between database records, such as a maiden name in one record and a married name in another or a hyphen in one record and not another. No match, no vote policies can block hundreds of thousands of voters through no fault of their own. More information on no match, no vote policies is available here. This year, no match, no vote efforts across the country, if successful, could have a significant impact on the election, affecting tens of thousands of new voters.

Ohio

On September 26, 2008, the Ohio Republican Party asked a federal court to issue an emergency ruling requiring the state to generate a list of more than 200,000 new voters whose information did not match other state records, presumably so those voters could be purged from the rolls right before the election, forced to vote provisional ballots, or challenged at the polls. They asked the court before the absentee ballots cast by new registrants were opened and counted. A federal court granted the temporary restraining order, and after a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit stayed that order, the full appeals court, sitting en banc, reinstated it. On emergency review, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the TRO on October 17, 2008, preventing chaos in the election in Ohio and protecting hundreds of thousands of Ohio citizens from disenfranchisement-by-typo. That same day, the Ohio Republican Party filed a virtually identical suit with the Ohio Supreme Court, seeking essentially the same relief they lost in the federal courts. They also seek to prevent the counting of absentee ballots cast by unmatched voters unless or until the mismatches are cleared. The Republican fundraising consultant who brought the lawsuit has voluntarily dismissed his case. Ohio Republican Party Chairman Robert T. Bennett said he asked the plaintiff David Myhal to drop the case and plans to meet on October 22, 2008 with Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, representing Secretary Brunner, to discuss an out-of-court solution to the dispute. Regardless of the outcome, non-matching voters may still face challenges on Election Day by partisan election workers. Further details can be found here.

Florida

On September 8, 2008, the Florida Secretary of State instructed election officials to reject voter registration applications that do not pass an error-prone computer match process. In the first three weeks of the policy, 15% of registrations were initially bounced because of failed computer matches; election officials were able to catch and correct obvious typos in about 3/4 of these cases, but to date, here.

Wisconsin

After the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (the state's election board) rejected a proposal in July to retroactively implement a no "match, no vote" policy for all voters who registered since 2006, on September 10, the Attorney General sued the board seeking to force such a policy right before the election. The Board conducted an audit of its voter rolls and found a 22% match failure rate, including for 4 of the 6 members of the board. The court ruled on Thursday, October 23, 2008 that the attorney general had no authority to sue, however Van Hollen said he would appeal. More information can be found here.

2- Other states - Voter Purges - Possible Illegal Purges Reported by New York Times - Michigan - Colorado - Georgia naturalized citizens - Muscogee, Georgia - Mississippi - Voter Challenges - Montana

Other states

No match, no vote policies are in place also in Louisiana, Iowa, and South Dakota pursuant to policies adopted well before the 2008 elections. Tens of thousands of voters have been denied registration in those states. Evidence suggests that Colorado also may be treating some voter registrations that fail to match as incomplete.

Voter Purges

ISSUE: Election officials across the country routinely purge millions of names from the voter rolls. Although purging is necessary to keep the voter rolls up to date and accurate, a recent Brennan Center study demonstrates that the processes states use for purging are prone to error and vulnerable to manipulation. Purges are typically done without notice to affected voters or the public, and without any public scrutiny whatsoever. As a result, thousands of registered voters show up at the polls each election year only to find that they are not on the rolls and cannot cast a ballot that will be counted. This year, unreliable and possibly illegal purges could keep thousands of votes from being counted.

Possible Illegal Purges Reported by New York Times

According to a recent front-page article by the New York Times, several states have been illegally purging their voter rolls this year, including Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Nevada. (The Brennan Center has not independently verified all these purges.)

Michigan

Michigan illegally purged its voter rolls this year within 90 days of an election and using non-forwardable mailings to recently registered voters, according to a recent federal court ruling. The court ordered the restoration of about 1,400 voters who had been removed because their voter identification cards were returned as undelivered.

Colorado

In response to a New York Times article, the Colorado Secretary of State admitted that at least 2,454 voters were purged illegally within 90 days of a federal election. Several thousand additional records were purged as potential "duplicates" within 90 days of the election, also in violation of federal law. Another several thousand were illegally purged based on non-forwardable mailings to newly registered voters.

Georgia naturalized citizens

Georgia recently began using an unreliable matching process to purge the voter rolls of alleged non-citizens. The process they use misses naturalized citizens because it only checks the citizenship documents used to obtain driver's licenses, no matter how long ago, and those records are not updated when legal residents become naturalized. A federal court refused to block this practice in a recent lawsuit filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Muscogee, Georgia

Earlier this year, a county election administrator in Muscogee County, Georgia purged 700 people who were supposedly ineligible because of criminal convictions. The purge was highly inaccurate and included people who never received even a parking ticket.

Mississippi

About a week before the Mississippi primary, an election administrator in Madison County, Mississippi improperly purged approximately 10,000 voters, reportedly from her home computer. Reportedly, the purge was detected when it was discovered that a local candidate was removed from the voter rolls. By all accounts, the Secretary of State's staff successfully reinstated the erroneously purged voters in time for the primary.

Voter Challenges

ISSUE: Political operatives sometimes challenge voters' eligibility either before Election Day or at the polls, based on names culled from unreliable caging lists or other lists they develop. While the rules and procedures for voter challenges vary from state to state, these challenges can lead to voter intimidation, long lines at the polls, and disenfranchisement of eligible voters. Historically and in recent years, caging and challenge operations have targeted minority communities, students, and homeless citizens. Widespread challenges are expected across the country on Election Day. Recent incidents include:

Montana

The Republican Party of Montana challenged the registrations of over 6,000 voters in 7 counties based on change of address information. Many were service members and students eligible to vote in Montana but who had their mail forwarded to where they were serving or going to school. Under Montana's challenge rules, these voters would have had to answer the challenges to the satisfaction of election officials before being allowed to vote. After a public outcry--including criticism by the Republican Lieutenant Governor--the party abandoned the challenges. For more information, click here. In a resulting lawsuit brought by the Montana Democratic Party, on October 10, 2008, a federal judge found that the challenges were frivolous and that it would violate federal law for state election officials to deny anyone the ability to vote based on these challenges.

3- No home, no vote - Ohio mailer - Technical Barriers to Voter Registration and Voting - Colorado registrations - Florida registrations - Ohio absentee ballots - Student Voting Barriers - Dorm room addresses

No home, no vote

The Chairman of the Republican Party of Macomb County, Michigan reportedly told an online publication that the party planned to mount challenges to voters whose names appeared on foreclosure lists. After public criticism and instructions by the Michigan Director of Elections that these challenges are insufficient under Michigan law, the Chairman denied that there were such plans (and even sued the publication for libel). There have been fears and reports that similar challenges will be mounted in other states, particularly battleground states such as Ohio where more than 5% of homes are currently in the foreclosure process. Similar challenges are possible across the country on Election Day unless election officials take immediate steps to ensure that those in danger of losing their homes do not also lose their vote. On October 20, 2008, the Democratic and Republican parties agreed that appearance on a foreclosure list is not a reasonable basis to challenge a voter and that no voter will be challenged on that basis.

Ohio mailer

Ohio election officials sent a non-forwardable mailer to voters on the rolls, and over 600,000 were returned as undeliverable. The list was provided to the political parties, and there were fears that this list would be the basis of challenges. After concerns were raised, the Ohio Secretary of State issued a directive explaining that returned mail alone is not a sufficient basis to sustain a challenge. More information on why returned mail is an unreliable indicator of residence or eligibility can be found here.

Technical Barriers to Voter Registration and Voting

ISSUE: In the Jim Crow era, technical barriers to voter registration and voting were common. In the 1960s, Congress tried to put an end to these types of barriers, prohibiting officials from denying the right to vote based on any immaterial "error or omission" on voting-related paperwork or records. In this election cycle, there has been a resurgence of technical barriers based on the failure to check unnecessary boxes on forms.

Colorado registrations

Colorado is treating applications missing unnecessary checkmarks to indicate that the registrant lacks a driver's license as incomplete. Thousands of recent registrations are already affected, and there will likely be more as counties process new forms.

Florida registrations

Florida still rejects voter registration forms submitted without checkmarks in check boxes that are duplicative of other information on the forms. Thousands of votes were lost in prior federal elections because of this practice.

Ohio absentee ballots

In September 2008, the Ohio Secretary of State announced the election officials must reject absentee ballot requests made by voters whose eligibility was not in serious doubt because of their failure to check an unnecessary check box. A federal court ordered the Secretary of State to process those ballot requests.

Student Voting Barriers

ISSUE: Students who attend school away from their homes often fulfill residency and other requirements to be able to register and vote in the communities in which they attend school, but there are obstacles and efforts to discourage them to register and vote. Across the country, there have been reports of widespread misinformation about student voting rights, misleading and intimidating statements, and registration and residency barriers unique to students. The fact that students are readily identifiable at their college community polling stations also makes them easy targets for partisan challengers or voter intimidation efforts. The result is a disproportionate number of student voters being challenged at the polls, discouraged from voting, or prematurely told to cast a provisional ballot.

Dorm room addresses

Local registrars in several states, including in Virginia, were denying registration to students who provided dorm room addresses even though those are valid registration addresses.

4- Misleading and intimidating information - Prairie View, Texas - Restrictive Residency Rules - Restrictive Absentee Voting - Intimidation Aimed at Students - Voter Registration Access - Veterans - Voter registration drive restrictions - Noncompliance with federal voter registration law - Voter Intimidation - Deceptive Practices and Philadelphia fliers

Misleading and intimidating information

A registrar in Montgomery County, Virginia, affecting Virginia Tech University, issued a memo giving incorrect and intimidating information to students about the consequences of registering to vote, including possible loss of financial aid and tax dependence status. Similarly, a county clerk in Colorado Springs, Colorado incorrectly told students at Colorado College that they could not vote at school if their parents claimed them as dependents on their federal tax returns. The websites of the Virginia and Indiana Secretary of States still contain misleading information that could dissuade eligible student voters.

Prairie View, Texas

On October 10, 2008, the registrar of Waller County, Texas entered into a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice to stop imposing unfair and illegal barriers to student voting.

Restrictive Residency Rules

Several states make it very difficult for students to establish residency for voting purposes. In Idaho and Tennessee, for example, students cannot establish voting residency unless they have affirmative plans to remain in the state after graduation. Virginia and Indiana also make it difficult for students to establish residency.

Restrictive Absentee Voting

Michigan and Tennessee require all first-time voters who registered by mail to vote in person; they cannot vote absentee. This makes it nearly impossible for college students (a great percentage of whom are young, first-time voters) to vote in their hometowns.

Intimidation Aimed at Students

A flier recently disseminated on the campus of Drexel University in Philadelphia warned that undercover officers would be present at the polls, looking for voters with outstanding warrants or parking violations.

Voter Registration Access

ISSUE: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 30% of Americans were not registered to vote in 2006. A range of barriers to voter registration access could affect registration rates in certain communities. Several states have enacted laws that impose unnecessary burdens on organized efforts to register voters, which target communities that have the greatest barriers to registration. Threats of criminal penalties and crippling civil fines for failure to comply with requirements have forced community groups to stop or substantially cut down on registering voters. A policy brief on restrictions to voter registration drives can be found here.

Veterans

The Department of Veterans' Affairs denied voter registration access to residents and patients of its facilities, refusing to allow election officials or nonpartisan groups to offer voter registration services, and failing to provide such services itself. A last-minute change in policy offered only a partial fix to this problem. More information is available here.

Voter registration drive restrictions

Several states, including New Mexico and Florida, have enacted restrictive laws that interfere with the ability of groups to do voter registration drives. The Florida law was tied up in litigation filed by the Brennan Center and so has not been in effect for this election season. A court refused to block the New Mexico law, and a number of community groups, especially those that work with volunteers, have not been able to register new voters.

Noncompliance with federal voter registration law

A number of states have not been providing voter registration services at social service agencies, as required by the federal Motor Voter law. Recent lawsuits filed by Project Vote and Demos seek to enforce states' compliance with the implementation of the NVRA.

Voter Intimidation and Deceptive Practices

ISSUE: In recent elections, robo-phone calls and misleading flyers, often targeting minority and low-income communities, have spread false information regarding elections and voting qualifications. For examples of such documents, click here.

Philadelphia fliers

Deceptive fliers about the consequences of voting were distributed in a predominantly African American neighborhood in Philadelphia.

5- Greene County, Ohio - Hamilton County, Ohio - Poor Ballot Design - Mississippi Senate race - Twelve Ohio counties

Greene County, Ohio

A law enforcement officer in Greene County, Ohio sought the names of 300 voters who registered and voted at the beginning of Ohio's early voting period in a town made up largely of students. The effort, which was later withdrawn, was criticized as an effort to intimidate student voters and deter others from voting.

Hamilton County, Ohio

In a move that could intimidate and deter voters, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters recently requested, via subpoena, personal information for 40% of the voters who registered and immediately cast a ballot during the weeklong period in which Ohio allows same-day registration and voting.

Poor Ballot Design

ISSUE: Poorly designed ballots -- remember butterfly ballots? -- can lead to the loss of thousands of votes. A recent Brennan Center report demonstrates that ballot design problems are still widespread and can threaten many votes. Already, there have been problems relating to November's election.

Mississippi Senate race

Mississippi election officials were sharply criticized, in a New York Times editorial and in a letter sent by the Brennan Center, for their decision to place the Wicker-Musgrove U.S. Senate race at the bottom of Mississippi's ballot. This "ballot trick" placed the Senate race far below the other federal races listed in the 2008 election, creating a confusing layout for the ballot, one that could potentially mislead and disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Mississippi voters in that race, particularly low-income and minority voters. More information can be found here.

Twelve Ohio counties

Twelve Ohio counties released sample paper ballots that split the presidential contest over two columns for this November's election. As the Brennan Center's study found, this particular layout often confuses voters and causes them to double-vote, an action which ultimately results in an uncounted ballot. On September 17, 2008, the Brennan Center sent a letter to the board of elections in all Ohio counties, urging them to reconsider their ballot layout and place the presidential contest in a single column on the paper ballot. The Ohio Secretary of State forwarded the letter to all county board of elections as well. Further details can be found here.

Out now, two crucial reports focused on barriers that prevent eligible voters from casting ballots that count. Voter Purges is one of the first examinations of the practice—often controversial—of updating voter rolls by removing voters from registration lists. This detailed study discovered a process that is shrouded in secrecy, prone to error, and vulnerable to manipulation (see a CBS News report here). The second report, De Facto Disenfranchisement, reveals widespread misunderstanding among state election officials of laws governing the right to vote of citizens with criminal convictions. For a full list of recent voter suppression incidents, click here.

• Voting Rights
• Liberty & National Security
• Campaign Finance
• Civil Justice
• Fair Courts

Possible Election Trouble in Key Swing States

Oct 22 - 200,000 voters at risk in Ohio. African American voters inundated with misleading voter information in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Confusing ballot design and instructions could result in hundreds of thousands of lost votes. With two weeks to go before the Election, these and other practices -- including suspected purges, no match no vote policies, voter challenges, and intimidation -- could disenfranchise enough voters to affect the election outcome.

The Brennan Center's continuously updated report provides a road map to potential problem spots, and a chance to do something about them. Check back for updates. New update available for October 24th.

SCOTUS Protect Voters, Throws Out Ohio Ruling

Oct. 17 – In a decision today, the US Supreme Court vacated a federal court's order that would have required the Secretary of State to turn over the records of 200,000 Ohio voters whose names did not perfectly match government databases. These voters—most of whom did not match records because of simple data-entry errors and typos—would have been at serious risk having their voter registrations cancelled, being challenged at the polls on Election Day or forced to vote only by provisional ballot. "The Supreme Court has wisely vacated the lower court's wrongful and dangerous order , protecting hundreds of thousands of Ohio voters from disenfranchisement-by-typo," said Brennan Center attorney Adam Skaggs. The unsigned ("Per Curiam") found here.

Reviews Mixed for States' Voting Readiness

Oct. 16 – Today the Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause and Verified Voting jointly issued a 50-state report card that grades each state on its preparedness for election system breakdowns and offers concrete steps election officials can take in the weeks before the election to make sure every vote is counted accurately. The report, Is America Ready to Vote? State Preparations for Voting Machine Problems in 2008 (click here for report), finds that many states have made dramatic improvements in their voting systems, but still urges election officials to have backup measures in place—like emergency paper ballots and sound ballot counting procedures—to ensure the integrity of the vote.

IN THE NEWS:

Seven Things That Could Go Wrong on Election Day -- Time Magazine, Michael Scherer 10/24/08

Big Setback for Voter Suppression Efforts in Swing States -- Alternet, Steven Rosenfeld 10/23/08

Sorry, I Can't Find Your Name -- New York Times, Editorial 10/23/08

Our View on Clean Elections -- USA Today, Editorial 10/22/08

Restore Trust in Voter Rolls -- Christian Science Monitor, Editorial 10/22/08

Stumper's Handy Voting Problem Primer -- Newsweek's 'Stumper' Blog, Sarah Kliff 10/21/08

Voter Registration Lawsuit is Dropped -- Columbus Dispatch, Mark Niquette 10/21/08

Voter Registration Flashpoints -- The Nation, Katrina vanden Heuvel 10/20/08

Financial boom, financial bust: What happened? -- Los Angeles Times, Eric Lane and Michael Oreskes 10/18/08

Law Rejects Many Voters -- Herald Tribune, Todd Ruger 10/18/08

The Vanishing Male Voter -- Newsweek, by Tony Dokoupil 10/17/08

Ruling May Impede Thousands of Ohio Voters -- NY Times, by Ian Urbina 10/16/08

Beyond the Spin: Threats to the ballot box -- Philadelphia Inquirer, by George Curry 10/16/08

Ready or Not: Report Predicts Voting Glitches -- Wall Street Journal, by June Kronholz 10/16/08

Both Sides Sling Election Fraud, 'Cynical Ploy' Charges -- Cleveland Plain Dealer, Stephen Koff 10/15/08

Check-off Box Delays Thousands of Voter Registrations -- The Denver Post, Tim Hoover 10/14/08

Ohio GOP Plays Voter Fraud Card -- Associated Press, Stephen Majors 10/13/08

Recent Ruling May Disenfranchise Thousands of Voters in Tennessee -- The Tennessean, by Mary Mancini 10/12/08

U.S. Supreme Court Is Asked to Fix Troubled West Virginia Justice System -- New York Times, by Adam Liptak 10/11/08

One Dollar for Every West Virginian -- Slate, by Amanda Frost 10/10/08

Why Are Convicted Felons in Battleground States Being Told They Can't Vote? -- The Philadelphia Tribune, by Christopher Moraff 10/09/08

Not Another Voter Disenfranchisement Movie -- Daily Kos, by Nicole Kief 10/09/08

A Ballot's Breadth Away From Rejoining Society -- City Limits, by Curtis Stephen 10/06/08

Push to get released felons to voting booth -- San Francisco Chronicle, by Dionne Walker and Mike Baker 10/05/08

Surprise: You're off the voter list -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution, by Rhonda Cook 10/03/08

Three New Reports Analyze Voting Rights for Convicted Criminals -- Blog of Legal Times, by Jeff Jeffrey 10/01/08

Voter Registration May Be Hampered -- Roll Call, by Matthew Murray 10/01/08

Reading Between the Extremes of Obama Campaign v. Michigan GOP -- ProPublica, by Chisun Lee 09/25/08

Guantanamo Prosecutor Quits Over Detainee Case -- Associated Press, by Mike Melia 09/24/08

As Homes Are Lost, Fears That Votes Will Be, Too -- NY Times, by Ian Urbina 09/24/08

Justice Department Won't Send Prosecutors to Polls -- Associated Press, by Lara Jakes Jordan 09/24/08

Wisconsin Officials Fight Over Voter Registrations -- NPR Morning Edition 09/21/08

Guantanamo Trials' Overseer Reassigned -- Washington Post, by Peter Finn 09/20/08

Two Percent of Florida's Vote Can Spark a Battle -- St. Petersburgh Times, By Steve Bousquet 09/20/08

Firm Subpoenaed in Vote Tally -- Washington Post, by Nikita Stewart and Mary Pat Flaherty 09/19/08

Hanging "Chads" Are No More -- The Economist, via Seattle Post Intelligencer 09/19/08

Historic 2008 Election Could See Unprecedented Attempts to Bar African American Voters -- Democracy Now, by Amy Goodman 09/18/08

Elections Board Has No Answers for Students -- The News & Advance, by Olympia Meola 09/18/08

Voter Database Glitches Could Disenfranchise Thousands -- Wired, by Kim Zetter 09/17/08

States Restore Voting Rights for Ex-Convicts -- NY Times, by Solomon Moore

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