-income & minority voters and mobilized 2.3 million.
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| In 2004, Project Vote registered 1.15 million low- and moderate -income & minority voters and mobilized 2.3 million. |
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DOJ Voting Rights Watch
In September 2004, Project Vote and Demos met with Justice Department officials to express our concerns that states were not offering voter registration opportunities to clients and applicants of public assistance agencies as required by federal law. We did not hear back despite several overtures and memoranda documenting our concerns. Months later, we understood why. Thanks to reporting by Washington Post’s Dan Eggan and others, we learned that political appointees at the Justice Department were engaged in an unprecedented effort to use the Voting Section to advance the partisan interests of the Bush administration at the cost of enforcing our nation’s voting rights laws. The evidence continues to mount as new information comes to light through investigations into the firing of nine US Attorneys. This page brings together a range of selected news reports, testimony and other material that document of politicization of the Justice Department by the Bush administration. We provide material on the pursuit of voter fraud as a pretext to harass the Administration’s perceived political opponents and justify new restrictive voting laws. We look at information on the Administration’s enforcement of voting laws and other civil rights laws. We then supply documents on the way in which career staff were marginalized or driven out of the Department. We take a closer look at the work of two political appointees, Hans von Spakovsky and Bradley Schlozman. We conclude with material from a group of career staff who have provided detailed information about the way in which the Justice Department has put partisan interests first.
Voter Fraud & the US Attorney FiringsNews Articles
Documents & Links
Enforcement of Voting LawsNews Articles
Documents & Links
Enforcement of Civil Rights Laws (other than Voting)News Article
Documents & Links
Politicization of Hiring & Supervising Career StaffNews Articles
Hans von SpakovskyHans von Spakovsky may be, as Senator Kennedy has said, "at the heart of the political interference that is undermining the [Justice] Department's enforcement of federal civil laws."
Von Spakovsky was appointed a Republican election official with Georgia's Fulton County in 2001 and then joined the Justice Department in 2003, where he served as Counsel to Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. While there, he functioned as the de facto head of the Voting Section, according to its former chief, Joseph Rich. His tenure at the Justice Departrment was marked by controversies over his approval of the Georgia voter ID law, approval of Tom Delay's Texas redistricting plans and the exodus of career staff, among others. President Bush nominated von Spakovsky to the Federal Election Commission on December 15, 2005 and gave him a recess appointment to the Commission on January 4, 2006. The Senate Rules Committee held a hearing on von Spakovsky's nomination on June 13, 2007.
Von Spakovsky's writings and public advocacy for the past decade are characterized by a strong interest in preventing voting fraud by increased purges of the voter rolls and ID requirements for voters.
News Article
Documents & Links
Bradley SchlozmanAccording to the Washington Post, "Schlozman arrived at the Justice Department in 2001 as counsel to then-Deputy Attorney General Larry D. Thompson. A Kansas native and 1996 George Washington University law school graduate, Schlozman had clerked for two federal judges and worked alongside William Bradford Reynolds for two years in the Washington law firm Howrey Simon." In May 2003, Schlozman was appointed a deputy assistant attorney general for Civil Rights. In 2005, was appointed Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, a position he held for 5 months. Career staff in the Division reported that he assigned work and transfers employees based on partisan political considerations. Then, on 23 March 2006, he was appointed US Attorney for the Western District of Missouri in an expedited process. His critics noted that he had no prosecutorial experience and little trial experience. He held the position for one year. His tenure is best known for his decision to ignore the guidelines in the federal manual on election crimes prosecution and bring voter registration fraud charges against four employees of ACORN shortly before the mid-term election. He currently works as associate counsel for the Executive Office for United States Attorney.
News Articles
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